Bashing the Beatles

As I opened up the monthly school newspaper at my high school this afternoon, I was greeted by an article that seriously shocked me. Titled "Yoko Oh-no!", it drew me in because I am a huge fan of the Beatles. My room is decorated with pictures of the Fab Four and I visited all the important Beatles sites in London and Liverpool when my family traveled to England over the summer. I could feel my face grow red as I read the article, the points he made about the Beatles had almost nothing to do with their music, yet he claimed that, because of those things, they made horrible music.

In the first paragraph of the article, he managed to put bands like Black Sabbath and Queen up on a pedestal while trashing artists like Hannah Montana. I do happen to agree that Hannah-Miley-Montana-Cyrus-Steward, or whatever her name is, deserved that. But then he ranked the Beatles below her. Oh no he didn't. He also added that the Beatles are a band with "incompetent members that can't put out one good song to save their poor-instrument-playing lives". By this time I was nearly foaming at the mouth with anger. You can't even BEGIN to compare the Beatles with a sixteen year old girl fresh off the Disney channel.

His next point to why the Beatles didn't make good music was the fact that they changed members so many times in their early days and the fact they had a couple different names. I may not be an expert, but I'm pretty sure the name of the band has absolutely NOTHING to do with their music. He explains why girls were so in love with them by the fact that "Europeans have a horrible taste in music". Of course, he failed to mention that Queen and Black Sabbath, two bands he had declared as great in the beginning of his article, were also British bands whose early fame due to the European population .

He also talks about the movies the Beatles made. Not only did he get one of the Beatles' names wrong, but he started picking on them for their drug use. Now, I'm sure none of the bands he mentioned in the beginning used drugs, right? Not. Queen's Freddy Mercury admitted to snorting cocaine and many of Black Sabbath's songs have to do with the apocalypse, the occult, and drugs. Not only that, but the Beatles once said that the songs they wrote while they were flying high turned out to be worthless junk and they never recorded any of them. Of course, they wrote songs about their drug experiences, but so did Black Sabbath.

I'll admit, John Lennon made a mistake when he said the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus" but I don't think he meant it in a big-headed, egotistical way. He was stating the fact that teenagers were more interested in their music than in Jesus, and he never said it was a good thing. The author also argued that the Beatles couldn't have been for peace and love when they broke up over "money and positions within the band". But did they really? If I recall correctly (and believe me, I know nearly any fact there is to know about the Beatles) they were not fighting over money at all. And positions within the band? Sure, George was frustrated because he wasn't considered to be on the same level as John and Paul when it came to writing music and Paul and John didn't always get along, but I definitely wouldn't call it struggling for positions. It wasn't like a presidential race or anything. I think the Beatles were just done working together, they had so much musical talent that they just weren't cohesive any longer. In order to express what they wanted to say to the world they had to go their separate ways.

He then bashed the Beatles experiments with other musical instruments, like the sitar, and said the band would never have stopped touring just because the screams of their fans were preventing people from hearing their music. They stopped touring, not because people could HEAR their music, but because people weren't LISTENING to their music. They had just become four heartthrobs who made music with lyrics that no one paid any attention to. They wanted to spread a message, not just be a band that people loved because they were four handsome lads. He then said the Rolling Stones and AC/DC are still touring to this day, just like the Beatles should have been. But really, those bands are now just a bunch of old, shriveled up men who have been playing music for 100 years. The Beatles are so amazing because they were only together for a short time, but during that time they made a dynamic team who put out revolutionary music.

The final stab to the heart was the end of the article. The ending read that without the Beatles "We wouldn't have these damn kids at school running around with backpacks, shirts, and even purses with those four mugs stamped on them. It sickens me". Well, Mr. I-Know-Everything, I'm sorry that my love for this band makes your life so much more difficult. I'll try not to cause you any more of an inconvenience. I don't go around bashing your bands or go around proclaiming Black Sabbath's music is vomit inducing, so I'd really appreciate it if you left my personal taste in music alone. I know your article was under the opinion section, but next time you try to pick on something, at least get some solid facts. Oh yeah, and you really should stop wearing any shirts with Black Sabbath art on it. It sickens me.

Sources:
El Capitan High School's Newspaper "The Horizon"