Do you find some of The Beatles' music dated? - Page 2

I suspect that we may be having a conflict of definitions. When I say that a piece of music has aged poorly, I mean exactly that it is less relevant today than it was when it was conceived/first recorded by its creator. Within the realm of popular music this tends to mean that the lyrical content, together with its "synergy" with the melodic content, of the piece has lost its relevance. I place less significance on the melodic content itself; because while musical ideas are continually evolving, they are also continually revisiting and riffing on the sounds of earlier generations (for instance I am currently listening to the latest Muse album and parts of it sound like they were lifted directly from the brain, if not the sheetmusic, of Chopin). So, leaving recording technology aside, sounding "dated" melodically is somewhat cyclical.

Fair enough, but we are sticking to popular music. Some genres are more susceptible to aging poorly than others. That doesn't affect my argument about the Beatles.

Again, my earlier example of Dylan was tangential. Lennon/McCartney's influences have no bearing on how well their music has aged. I agree that there are examples of popular music that has aged better and popular music that has aged worse than the Beatles. That still has no bearing on my argument.

Ah-Ha! I think now we are getting closer to the mark.

I suspect that if we were to ask a sample of people to listen to "Please Please Me" and judge whether or not the music was relevant today, the vote would largely be split along age lines. On one side you have a generation with a vague notion of who the Beatles were, and on the other you have a generation who grew up with the Beatles. We have hit the problem with my definition in the first paragraph. How do you judge "relevance?"

Two obvious solutions spring to mind. The first would be to simply be democratic, and define relevant as relevant to the majority of the population. However, I don't think polling the globe on the relevance of the Beatles is feasible... So accepting this solution invites solipsism. Our own biases lead us to conclude that our own feelings are somehow more representative than our opponent's. The other solution is to define relevance as a comparison of the ideas in question to the prevailing zeitgeist. I feel that this is more objective and the preferable definition. However, it has the unfortunate side-effect of validating only the opinions of the young. This is probably inescapable.

That's not to say that only young people should be able to judge the relevance of a piece of music, or engage in this debate. Rather it just means that any argument for how well a song has aged should reference the social attitudes of the time. There is little place in this discussion for nostalgia. If its any consolation, I'm sure that in thirty years time I will be defending Nirvana's relevance from the attacks of some sneering youths.

Certainly not. The example of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" was intended as a mere curiosity.

I still stand by my original statement. To my mind the early Beatles music has aged terribly. Some of their work is almost completely irrelevant today. I would again invite you to consider the two examples I referenced in my previous post.

No.

For me, "dated" does not mean that you can identify the era in which it was recorded. "Dated" is when something becomes inapplicable to the present.

Typically, that happens when something is topical. If a song is a political one about, say a particular politician, then the song becomes dated when the politician leaves office. Whatever point it was trying to make becomes irrelevant. That's the definition of dated - it was meaningful once and then it ceased to be.

A song about the human condition can hold up and remain relevant for decades. Try out some classical. Sure, Bach is certainly baroque, but the meaning speaks across the centuries. Shakespeare holds up over time as do a number of ancient Greek plays. Or try reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Those were written some time back but hold up because they speak to what it means to be human.

Similarly, the Beatles usually aren't topical. You can identify when they were recorded, of course, but they usually speak to something beyond their time. Which is, of course, the mark of a great work. The Beatles truly hold up.

Contrast that with a 2009 rap record filled with trash talk about other rappers and that sort of thing. That might have some power in 2009, but in 2040, a listener is going to have a "who the hell are these people" moment and, without significant research, won't get any meaning from the song. (I am using the term "song" liberally when referrimg to rap.) On the other hand, a Beatles tune about love or longing will be instantly identifiable as a song about love or longing and the listener can relate that to the listener's love or longing.

That a 2040 listener can identify a song as having come from the 1960s is irrelevant. As long as the intent and message get through, the song will not be dated. The same is true of any art. And, sadly, why much humor does not age well. Jokes are almost always topical.

I think you go a little too far here.

I agree with you that much of the Beatles work is very relevant and great stuff and even that which I consider dated (roughly pre Revolver) is enjoyable. I think there's more to being dated than just relevance. I think "datedness" is related to how "fresh" a song is - has it been done a thousand times before, does it use techniques specific to an era, and, of course, does it specifically refer to the times.

I can think of plenty of music that is not lyrically outdated but is dated nonetheless. For example, (and I know many of you have never heard this album) Moby's eponymous debut sounds highly dated but it's essentially instrumental.

I think the Beatles early work is dated largely due to the lyrical content and also due to the predictable sound (by today's standards). Now disco and whatever else you mention may also be dated, but the issue is whether the Beatles are dated, not whether other music is also dated.

Finally, some of this hatred toward Hip-Hop is I think misguided. Some people have grown up before Hip-Hop became popular and automatically associate it with being crap just because of the awful autotune stuff on the radio. There's plenty of hip-hop that shows expertly developed flow, analogy, and emotional and lyrical content. Nas's Illmatic is a great example. Music is not all melody.

That's not what he's saying.

Oh, no, no, no. Some hip hop/rap stands up over time. I still listen to De La Soul's "3 Feet High and Rising," some early Public Enemy and a few others. Hip hop was vital for some time, but it seems to have lost its way. Instead of being a vital new source of music, it fell intothe same rut that heavy metal did. Much of it is a self-parody these days - sad because of the early promise it showed. It can get back on track, but that probably won't happen until the popular trends move onto the next new thing.

Yeah, all of it...