The Beatles...

[White Fox]

Beatles question... Ok folks, here is your chance to let loose with ideas. IF the Beatles had developed their musical techniques and music 20 years earlier. Would their music have caught on and been just as popular? Would people have loved it as much? Would people have listened to it, played it, and/or appreciated it as they did when it really did come forth? In short was it all their talents or was part of it their timing as well?

[Worker 11811]

I kind of agree with Trixie but, more specifically, I don't think that the evolution of music was far enough along for the development of the Beatles, 20 years earlier. As Trixie said, it took people like Howlin' Wolf, et. al., to evolve music to the point where the Beatles could have even happened, much less become accepted.

[ThoughtFox]

The Beatles were a product of their time. No better or worse than the Stones, Animals or The Doors etc.

 

I guess that's a matter of opinion. I couldn't disagree more.

 

Their primary success due mainly to a good PR and camera ready personalities.

 

Debatable. In any case their songwriting talent is what really matters. If this isn't what made them popular, so be it.

 

As for acceptability twenty years earlier, I don't think they would have stood a chance. Remember, they would have been competing with the late great Robert Johnson and the current Howlin' Wolf. Why would the Americans settle for watered down and regurgitated remakes without the carrots from the Beatles when they could listen to the originals. Even today they come in a poor second in my opinion.

 

This is absolute nonsense. The Beatles had their influences, like all artists, and openely acknowledged this. However, they would not have had the enduring critical success they have had if they had merely been derivative of earlier singer/songwriters. Their work was incredibly original, musically inventive, and clever, and earned the respect of classical composers at the time.