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5.15pm
2 June 2014
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1
Edit: two threads were merged by meanmistermustard on the 10th September 2014. The first thread consisted of posts 1, 10 & 11, thread two posts 2 -> 9. All other posts were made post-merge.
I have no idea what would happen if they were american, maybe no British Bands in U.S. and do you think they would be as successful as they were (still are) and would they be able to pull off albums like Rubber Soul , Revolver etc. Would girls go crazy for them ???
6.12pm
11 March 2013
Offline Obviously they would not have made it, so we wouldn’t be discussing them over half a century later but…
Without the lovely English influences and humour would they have been like the Beach Boys or Howlin’ Wolf or Bing Crosby?
Or would they have been more MC5, Grand Funk Railroad or even Bernstein, Copeland, Ellington, Parker (Charlie)?
(it’s rhymimg sang: pony and trap)
5.25am
8 November 2012
Offline8.17am
1 November 2012
Offline The Beatles did admire and romanticize American musicians — so many of their own favorites they grew up with, which wowed them, were like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, early Elvis, and so many others (heck, they probably listened to Johnny Burnette too). Whether the Beatles would have been different or less famous or inferior if they had been American, it’s hard to say.
I think a part of them, deep down, wished they had been American in the sense of organically coming out of that cultural soil of rockabilly, blues & soul.
Faded flowers, wait in a jar, till the evening is complete... complete... complete... complete...
8.28pm
14 December 2009
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Presuming “pony” means “crap” in this irritating thread title, and presuming the Beatles had the same inborn talents no matter where they were born, I don’t see any reason to believe they would’ve produced an inferior body of work – most of their influences were American, after all. Whether they would’ve broken as huge in the USA as they did without their delightfully exotic English accents and European haircuts and fashion sense seems less likely. But they surely could’ve been as big as The Beach Boys – their only logical comparison in that odd assortment of performers mentioned.
As for the MC5 and Grand Funk (GREAT bands both!), they may not even have EXISTED without the Beatles creating such a huge demand for and subsequent supply of bands-as-bands.
Paul: Yeah well… first of all, we’re bringing out a ‘Stamp Out Detroit’ campaign.
1.23pm
11 March 2013
Offline Yes! Of course! The Beatles wanted to be Elvis, Richard Penniman, Jery Lee, Buddy Holly, Arthur Alexander, the Everleys et cetera…
But because they were drenched in ancient European culture traditions they took popular music beyond the very juvenial & colonial three chords and the twelve bar.
Without them rock’n’roll music would have fizzled out into easy listening teen love strat bedroom BLooZ jam (like most Amerikan music is now anyway!).
5.07pm
14 December 2009
Offline Your name wouldn’t be Geir Hongro by any chance, would it?
Paul: Yeah well… first of all, we’re bringing out a ‘Stamp Out Detroit’ campaign.
7.32am
11 March 2013
Offline I’ve no idea who Mr Hongro is.
Illuminate your private joke/quip!
7.42am
14 December 2009
Offline He’s a Norwegian guy on another music messageboard I frequent. Always lecturing on how English/European popular music is impossibly superior to the American variety because of Europe’s “cultural tradition” (hint hint) while America just has a lot of awful rap and R&B and blues and funk and etc.
Paul: Yeah well… first of all, we’re bringing out a ‘Stamp Out Detroit’ campaign.
10.06am
Reviewers
29 August 2013
Offline Interesting question: I have been wondering if they would face the same problems the Beach Boys did (leaving a large part of their audience behind) when they tried to move on to more diverse musical styles.
==> trcanberra and hongkonglady - Together even when not (married for those not in the know!) <==
4.35pm
7 August 2014
Offline It’s kind of weird saying this, but I don’t think they’d be seen as they are today. Everything that happened to them, and everything about them, wouldn’t be the same. It’s almost a mystical thing that all were born around the same time and within the same city and they went on to do what they did. It sounds stupid, but it’s almost fate, a kind that will probably never happen again, that they were all from Liverpool.
8.31pm
14 December 2009
Offline Von Bontee said
Presuming “pony” means “crap” in this irritating thread title, and presuming the Beatles had the same inborn talents no matter where they were born, I don’t see any reason to believe they would’ve produced an inferior body of work – most of their influences were American, after all. Whether they would’ve broken as huge in the USA as they did without their delightfully exotic English accents and European haircuts and fashion sense seems less likely. But they surely could’ve been as big as The Beach Boys – their only logical comparison in that odd assortment of performers mentioned.As for the MC5 and Grand Funk (GREAT bands both!), they may not even have EXISTED without the Beatles creating such a huge demand for and subsequent supply of bands-as-bands.
OK, it’s unclear what I was talking about in that first sentence there since the two threads were merged and Yhaal House’s own thread title vanished.
His own thread was titled “How pony would the Beatles have been if they were American?” or something very close to it. “Pony” in this context meaning “crap”, I guessed, as in Cockney rhyming slang for “pony trap”. I personally was irritated by his presumption that the Beatles would’ve been automatically worthless and ignored just because they’d been American – also being irritated by the mere presence of Yhaal house’s reputation based on what I’d remembered of his half-dozen or so previous posts. (Dealt with Ringo collecting hot-water bottles and other frivolous stuff.)
Paul: Yeah well… first of all, we’re bringing out a ‘Stamp Out Detroit’ campaign.
7.23pm
Reviewers
14 April 2010
Offline If Ringo, John, Paul and George were born in America, would any or all of them had even become musicians? Think about it. Here in the States, kids were eased into rock and roll slowly and often the music was taken for granted. John had mentioned numerous times that he was gobsmacked when he heard Elvis come out of nowhere. He was left speechless upon first hearing Little Richard.
I think Sun King got it right:
Sun King said
Everything that happened to them, and everything about them, wouldn’t be the same.
I’m not definitively saying that they would not, to a man, have become musicians. But one cannot assume they would have even if they grew up in a small town over here.
To the fountain of perpetual mirth, let it roll for all its worth. And all the children boogie.
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