My parents bought me "Meet the Beatles" for Christmas of 64. Boy, if they only knew what a chain reaction they were innocently provoking...

And it occurred to me the other day that for the next 15 years or so it is going to be the 50th Big Deal of all the important events of my youth. Which is kind of weird.

I owned Introducing the Beatles. I got it at a used record store in the 1970s.

I remember my dad hating the Beatles because of their "screaming."

I also remember being shocked (at the age of six or seven) when my mom told me Yesterday was a Beatles song.

My mom bought Sgt. Pepper for herself.

Lennon's fine as a musician, or at least he was at his best. But as a guru, not so fine.

The Beatles *did* scream. Even when not more or less literally screaming, as in "I Saw Her Standing There", in their up-tempo songs, which was most of them, they shouted out their lyrics at the top of their lungs.

"Yesterday" was the point where even those who hated rock-and-roll had to admit that somebody in that group had a real melodic gift.

I had to dig way into the back of the closet where I keep my LPs, but I found that I do own a copy of Meet The Beatles, a used copy acquired long after the fact. Not sure I've ever played it. I probably thought "Well, it's a classic, I should have a copy" rather than "Oh boy, I really want to hear this again." It looks to be in fairly decent shape, and is mono, so possibly part of the original release.

"decades"? Really? I don't recall seeing mono vs. stereo editions past the late '60s or so, though there have been reissues for purists in recent (relatively) years.

Well years later my parents took me to see Yellow Submarine on my ninth birthday - Jan 1969

According to Wikipedia, mono LPs "had almost disappeared in the United States by the end of 1967." I would have guessed a year or two later, but that sounds reasonable. All the Beatles's stuff and some others have been reissued in mono on cd, which seems rather weird.

I think Harrison's comments are mentioned in that article, or maybe it was another I read while looking for info. I expect in most cases the difference in sound quality wouldn't be significant to me. It doesn't have anything to do with stereo vs. mono, but "Let It Be" (song, not album) has two versions with completely different guitar parts, and I like one much better than the other.

In January 1969 I was about the size of a peanut :)

Yes I don't doubt that they were screaming, really, I just thought the shift in opinion among mature persons was pretty funny.

I had a great urge to go see it on youtube. :)

And I only loathe Lennon as a guru, not a musician.

Well, that makes me feel very slightly less old than if you'd said you didn't exist in January 1969.

That's something. :-)

I'll have to listen to those other ones again.

They were on Ed Sullivan three weeks in a row? I didn't know that. That is a mostly raucous lineup, and when you compare it to most other pop music of the time, especially anything that might have been on the Sullivan show, I guess it did seem pretty harsh. Still, the second song was "Till There Was You," which is perfectly conventional. It's a show tune.

Indeed.

! If he'd said George Martin he would have had a more plausible case.

I was slightly surprised at that.

I wasn't aware that these anniversaries were coming up, so it's a nice coincidence that I've just embarked on a listening project that includes (along with a bunch of other stuff) a chronological listen through the Beatles' catalogue. As I was planning it, I was a little surprised to realize that I don't think I've ever heard some of their albums, including Rubber Soul and Revolver.

To be honest, I don't quite understand why the Beatles are so highly regarded. I know someone who is a serious musician, with extensive musical knowledge and withering scorn for vast tracts of popular music, but he loves the Beatles. He thinks Ringo is one of the best drummers in music. For myself, I honestly can't think of even one of their songs that means much of anything to me.

But maybe that will change as I sit down to listen to them again.

Yes, I know they have an important place in the history of 20th century music, and to some extent I appreciate their songwriting talents, but have I ever played one of their songs just for the pleasure of hearing it? I don't think I have. Maybe "Back in the USSR" once or twice.

Dylan is a natural foil. He wrote dozens of songs that I go back to again and again. On a purely musical level he may not be as interesting, but he can hold my attention in a way that the Beatles never have.

"On a purely musical level he may not be as interesting, but he can hold my attention in a way that the Beatles never have."

"There is little in the Beatles that is very profound, imo."

That is the key: lyrically, the Beatles are mostly pedestrian, rarely getting beyond "clever." They aren't poets.

Musically...they aren't prolific like the Greats, nor do they get to the level of musical sophistication that the Greats displayed, but they are WORLDS above almost anything in their genre, and in pop music in general.

They hit it on songcraft (esp. McCartney). They had a beautiful and subtle sense of harmony (esp. Lennon). Although they weren't virtuosi on their instruments, they really had a SUBTLE touch which esp. played well in ensemble. They had the kind of sensitivity for each other that great jazz musicians have.

George Harrison's guitar playing was sheer genius. He had a sense of countermelody.

It was that they were excellent on so many levels musically, even if they weren't savants. Plus, they had a broad reach. They weren't stuck in one type of music. And then combined....

I was listening to just the isolated bass on "Because" the other day, and McCartney's playing, though not complicated, had such a subtle touch at each turn of phrase.

Some of it was gimmicky. A lot was throw-away. It is hard to listen to an entire album with pleasure, save, perhaps Rubber Soul (except I can't stand Run for Your Life), and Abbey Road, which nails it throughout.