Why I Hate the Beatles — and You Should, Too

The Fab Four’s voracious habits might have destroyed rock music

I love the Beatles. I admit, that’s a rather surprising opening sentence for a story whose headline is “Why I Hate the Beatles.” So let me go into a little more detail:

I love the Beatles for their music. For their heartbreaking melodies that, once they find their way through the ear, will never leave the head — and the heart — again. I love the Beatles for their warm sounds that you almost want to bathe in. And for the emotions they triggered in me already as a small child and still do today: joy, melancholy, curiosity, relaxation, but also tension, anger, rage. Everything is in their music.

Let’s be honest, which human who owns a heart could doubt the sublime grandeur of “Blackbird”? Who doesn’t get warm at heart as soon as the first Mellotron notes of “Strawberry Fields Forever” begin to sound? Who wants to close his eyes to the pure genius of “A Day in the Life”?

Whoever loves music must also love the Beatles. But those who love music would have to hate the Beatles just as much. For their voraciousness. Because they simply left nothing for those who came after them.

Before you release a double EP — check what the Beatles have done already!

To make my point a little clearer, I would like to tell you a little story from my completely insignificant career as a musician. When I had recorded a few songs with my band, I had the idea to release them in an unusual format — a double EP. A gatefold double album with two discs, EPs with four songs each.

To my knowledge, this idea had never been realized before. All the more I was disappointed when a friend of mine pointed out to me that such a format already existed. Even more: It had not been published by some obscure Hurdy-Gurdy quartet from South Korea, no, it was the Beatles! Of course the Beatles! Who else?

Fans of the band will probably shake their heads at my ignorance at the time. Of course I am talking about “Magical Mystery Tour”. This record was packaged in the format of two EPs in a beautiful gatefold accompanied by a 24-page booklet. Only for later releases the tracklist was filled up with some non-album singles, resulting in a “real” album.

As so often with the Beatles, this idea was born partly out of necessity (there were six songs to be released), partly out of chance or even chaos, but also out of the band’s desire to experiment.

The story of my band, by the way, ended quickly — I want to emphasize that the Beatles were not to blame for this — and evaporated in the same dark haze in which many a teenager’s rock star dreams had already disappeared. The Beatles, however, were far from fed up. Quite the opposite.

The Beatles were an unparalleled innovation machine

In the mid-sixties, the Beatles were an unparalleled innovation machine. Everything seemed possible. For the very simple reason that there was almost nothing there yet.

Let me be a little more specific: at the time, pop music was still in its infancy. It was only about ten years since the invention of rock ’n’ roll had turned the music world upside down. Today, it’s hard to imagine the uproar that the then new musical genre had generated.

But at the latest when Elvis moved his hips towards the army and Chuck Berry went to jail, the rock ’n’ roll train came to a standstill. Pop music in the early sixties was characterized by well-cropped young men in suits holding their guitars too high and good girls smiling innocently into the camera.

A pop song was 2.5 minutes long and dealt with love. Everything was gridlocked. But then it went quite well that way — at least for the industry.

The Beatles also went along with this concept at the beginning. But in John, Paul, George and well, Ringo there burned a fire. The four wanted more. On “Rubber Soul” at the latest, this desire for something new broke through.

No more simple pop songs for the Beatles

The Beatles transformed dull standard pop into exciting art. They incorporated unusual instruments like sitar or mellotron into their songs, recorded tracks at half speed, and even the lyrics moved away from the usual boy-meets-girl narrative.

The great advantage of the Beatles: they were simply there first. John, Paul, George and Ringo had a white sheet of paper in front of them and were given lots of crayons. So they used them to their heart’s content.

They were the first to break out of the corset of the standardized pop song. They were the first to turn to more serious subject matters. They were the first to utilize the studio as an instrument. They were the first to establish video as an art form.

The Beatles are credited with the first concept album. They paved the way towards progressive rock and incidentally invented heavy metal. And even though earlier representatives may be found in some of these aspects, the Beatles were the first to gain attention in the mainstream with it.

How frustrating must it have been to try to break new ground as a musician starting in the 1970s (Remember: Even then, pop music was still a young phenomenon), only to find that the Beatles had long since left their footprints?

Yes, Robbie Williams hates the Beatles, too

British pop-superstar Robbie Williams expressed this frustration in an interview with “Hot Press” speaking about the “White Album”: “it covers everything”, Williams said. “They were really selfish like that. They didn’t leave anything for anybody else. They covered everything and did it better than everybody else. I hate The Beatles for that!“

But maybe you don’t feel like Robbie Williams? Simply because you are not a musician and certainly you are not planning to release a double EP anytime soon? Well, the Beatles’ inexhaustible creativity also has an impact on your average pop music listener.

Because where the Fab Four had raged, there was little room for future generations of musicians. Don’t get me wrong: even after the Beatles, there were still important new trends within rock and pop music, of course. The ’70s saw glam, progressive rock and punk. The ’80s brought new wave and the breakthrough of heavy metal. And in the ’90s, grunge paved the way for the great indie explosion.

But then? The 00s were all “retro”. Garage rock and post punk were raked up again. Neither were there any groundbreaking innovations in the 10s and 20s. So, the focus shifted on other types of popular music, such as hip-hop.

The Beatles claimed everything for themselves — love it or hate it!

Today’s standard pop song, on the other hand, is characterized by a relative lack of courage in terms of innovation (and yes, of course I am generalizing here): short and concise in form, with uniform structures, limited range, and typical recurring melodic patterns.

So, to exaggerate, you could say: the Beatles are to blame for the boring pop music we get nowadays. If they hadn’t already claimed all the innovations for themselves, we might still be experiencing exciting new developments today. Oh, how I hate the Beatles!

But since things are the way they are, we have to be content with the music that still offered innovative ideas — the music of the Beatles. Therefore, I now put on “Revolver”, lean back and simply enjoy. Oh, how I love the Beatles!