S1E2 - A Brief History of Music Before the Beatles

The Beatles are the Greatest Rock Band of All Time and I Can Prove It

Episode Notes

How can we go about understanding the historical importance of any band? Perhaps the biggest hurdle is how to know what music in a period before we lived was actually like. Nothing – no piece of art or scholarship – can truly put us into another time. If it succeeds at invoking feelings, they are either nostalgia – from those who were there – or manufactured – for those of us who weren't. So we are inherently struggling from the start. Yes, many people who were alive during the Beatles' approximately seven-and-a-half-year reign as the most popular band in the world will remember it, but I'm not necessarily trying to convince them. Moreover, they may not remember it like I want to tell it. Unfortunately, the Beatles are forever linked to Beatlemania, a time when a lot of young people were too into the Beatles and it’s very easy to understand how people would want nothing to do with that phenomenon. Many people are, like me, trend averse. Beatlemania is a phenomenon that tends to obscure the true meaning and musical importance of the band. But for those of us who were not there, we need to understand why the Beatles were great musically, outside of Beatlemania, if we are going to understand why I steadfastly claim that they are the greatness rock band of all time. And to do that, we need to look at music before the Beatles, which necessarily involves looking at the thing called rock and roll which emerged to encompass other things – some similar and some quite dissimilar – and became the generic name for popular music throughout the world, albeit in short-form: rock.

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