Well, Terrarian might want to watch this for a start. Some of it might make no sense, as he goes into details concerning composing, but he leave no doubt that The Beatles were incredible composers, and produced a body of music that stands up today against all that is presently being produced.
There are certain problems regarding the views of The Beatles, and I will try to put both sides.
First of all, if you did not live through the time of the Beatles (I was a teenager throughout the 1960s), then you cannot really grasp the world-wide impact they had on popular music, not just on the public at large, but fellow musicians of the time.
Secondly, those who followed on from The Beatles have cited them on many occasions as being a main/primary influence on their own work. Oasis, for example. Take a look and listen to this:
On the other hand, The Beatles are now seen as being the music of your grandfather/grandmother - in other words old hat and not relevant to the musical tastes of the youth of today. Not cool. Of course that is not the view of ALL of today's youth.
The other problem, and it might be difficult explaining this but I'll have a go, is how one listens to music in the first place.
In the early '60s, I listened to music and liked or disliked what I heard without any reference points whatsoever. I started learning guitar around 1965, and started gigging in Liverpool in January 1969. Now once I started playing and gigging, I started listening to music in a completely different way, and I continue to do so up to present. I took in the lyrics, the chord changes, the transition(s), the harmonies, the studio effects, what the instruments were playing, the structure of any solos, the lot. And that probably shapes my views on a song. So I listen to 'The boys of summer' by Don Henley and think it is almost the perfect single; the inventiveness of Freddie Mercury at putting 'Bohemian Rhapsody' together and working all those transitions perfectly; Lynyrd Skynyrd's live version of 'Freebird' at OAklands in 1977, just months before the fatal plane crash, and marvel at the virtuousity of the playing live; and up to almost present with Disturbed taking the Simon and Garfunkel song 'Sound of Silence' and interpreting it completely differently - in the process turning it into an absolute monster of a sing. And I dissect those songs - I wish sometimes I could go back to where I was in the early '60s and just like and accept a song for what I hear, but I can't... To bring my point round full circle, I will never criticise anyone for not liking the Beatles, nor any other band or artist. If you don't like music by a particular band/artist, fine, but never castigate their ability.
And finally, to say The Beatles are over-rated, well I would refer anyone back to my first paragraph and the views of an out-and-out classical musician who knows what he is talking about. My opinion is that the only people who claim that The Beatles are over-rated are those who do not rate their music in the first place, and therefore do not approach their music from this standpoint which I mentioned earlier: '...the lyrics, the chord changes, the transition(s), the harmonies, the studio effects, what the instruments were playing, the structure of any solos, the lot...'. Is it a case that many, many, millions around the world were wrong in 'rating' them at the time, and many, many, millions are wrong nowadays in 'rating' them according to their due? I don't think so.
My apologies for such a long post, but once a writer...
