Culture is a rather elusive thing to describe, it is a slippery concept. For some culture is the peak of high arts, intellect and design unique to a civilisation, and unfortunately for some the lowest echelons of society ultimately have more influence for defining it.
In case of the latter four British men spearheaded the origins of popular music and coerced the world into the state of culture it resides in today. Though most certainly not popular opinion it is a true proposition that The Beatles signalled the deterioration of western society through taking the medium of music and simplifying it for mass consumption, producing generations of settle for less people labelling any group who can work fundamental musical theory into a generic work as genius; the deterioration of the term is so that the juvenile lyrics of Kurt Cobain are akin to the prose of Dostoevsky to the naive.
Revolver is a musical insult, a gun which fires blanks. Upon first listen quite some time ago I had a clear recollection of several praises I had read for it in publications active in my mind, which led me to an expectation of genius. The pedestrian arpeggio work and chord strumming of such tracks as
I'm Only Sleeping,
Here There & Everywhere,
Good Day Sunshine, and
For No One are met with themes which are simply weak and uncompelling, resulting in quite the disappointment.
The string section of
Eleanor Rigby is more appaling then the collective whole of the song. Any classically trained musician would be far from impressed at the simpleton use of such wonderful instruments; a pathetic circumstantial happening mainly for the same reason as the following. Dabbling in Indian Classical music does not work in a pop context, where the musicianship and technical ability of such artists as The Dagar Brothers takes these instruments to an unbridled potential none of this can be captured in a watered down arrangement such as
Love You To.
The loud and energetic numbers here feature an ugly aesthetic in the form of
She Said She Said,
And Your Bird Can Sing and
Got To Get You Into My Life. The clean guitars have a distinct ogre-like subtlety in their tone, with some disgustingly hacked out ostinatos masquerading as spice on a musical cake lacking in choice ingredients.
Yellow Submarine is stupidity defined; drug-fueled nonsense provides the lyrics whilst plodding musicianship provides the rope to hang itself with. I could criticise until the sun goes down at the poor craftsmanship of any of the remaining songs, but I won't. Featuring a production that has a tendency to hard pan instruments to either speaker I don't believe the sum of the parts on this album are really worth discussing.
Revolver is akin historically to the world of music stumbling on stunted legs, thoughtless musicianship not equating to good songwriting but receiving more then ample praise. The fact that The Beatles shaped the face of music into the commercialisation of watered down compositions based on hacked out melodies and dullard lyrics disgusts me. As far as I am concerned the legs have given way, and the world of music has long since toppled.
Experience Brahms, experience Tchaikovsky, experience Bach. At expense of a lack of bona-fide culture in your life I urge you not to experience The Beatles.
