Thread

1. amiga386 · 1790693228 · focus · HN ↗

   The Beatles seemed to have had an effect on the youth of their day that hasn't been fully repeated since, even though there are a lot of groundbreaking, genre-defining musicians that came after them.

   I was not around in the 1960s, and I was wondering if anyone who was could answer this:

   It seemed to me that the Beatles set off a cultural shift in pop music. They started out in beat music, but in a few short years they brought in psychedelic culture, they adopted Indian classical music and instruments, they used tape-editing techniques in the studio to make rudimentary "electronic music"...

   My question is: did they establish these shifts, or were these shifts already gaining steam independently and they popularised them?

   1. sublinear · 1790701672 · focus · HN ↗

      > did they establish these shifts, or were these shifts already gaining steam independently and they popularised them?

      You're assuming The Beatles had significant control over their own success.

      The Beatles are highly comparable to other phenomena such as The Simpsons and the iPhone, and discussing their merits and contributions is just as irrelevant. All of what has been said about them applies to The Beatles.

      EDIT: I almost forgot about Michael Jackson.

      EDIT2: To answer your question more directly, mass media picks and chooses what it popularizes. The artist can choose what they make, but they cannot choose to be chosen. The audience doesn't choose what is mostly heavily advertised either. You can insist that modern ads don't have this effect anymore, but we're talking about a different era.

      1. thejazzman · 1790701850 · focus · HN ↗

         What's this about the Simpsons?

         1. sublinear · 1790702216 · focus · HN ↗

            They're still making episodes and Paul McCartney is still performing.

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