Over this post and the last, Matt Blick and I are debating the motion that ‘The Beatles are the best artists for any songwriter to study’.
Here is his response to my argument, and my reply. Please feel free to Leave your own Thoughts in the comments.
“Matt Blick, [www.twitter.com/realmattblick] a songwriter/singer from Nottingham, UK, is finding out what happens when you write every day for a year and sharing the results at Matt Blick.com. He’s also blogging through the complete Beatles catalogue at Beatles Songwriting Academy. He can leap tall genres in a single bound and enjoys danger, mystery and writing about himself in the third person.”
For:
I would agree with you that The Beach Boys would be an excellent source of study for a songwriter. Ironically though, Brian Wilson would agree with ME that studying the Beatles is more worthwhile, because that’s exactly what he did! Some of his greatest works were written in direct response to Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper.
The Beach Boys are less useful for study because Wilson never reached his potential. We can learn from him what happens when a genius is surrounded by less gifted, unimaginative and unsympathetic bandmates and brutal exploitative management. Wilson created his best work with hired gun session musicians and outside lyricists, making it harder to track any development of ideas, and the Beach Boys continue working with and without Wilson to this day, so the sheer amount of dross you have to wade through makes studying them much harder.
I’ll grant that George Martin taught them about arrangement and contributed some fantastic ideas – the guitar solo to Michelle, the intros to Can’t Buy Me Love and Help, not to mention all the great orchestration. But they learned well and many more innovative ideas came from the bands, whether through ignorance (the Strawberry Fields mashup) or design (A Day In The Life’s orchestral freak out).
Some of your points are just.
Twee? John Lennon would agree with you on ‘granny music’ like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, When I’m 64 etc. But that is an inevitable offshoot of pushing out into every genre. There’s nothing twee about Yer Blues or Taxman. And yet they are instantly recognisable as the work of the same band. So there’s massive lesson to learn about maintaining your voice while stretching out side of your musical comfort zones.
And lyrics? Guilty as charged.
Beatles lyrics are frequently sloppy, mostly trite, sometimes criminally bad (see my Lyrical Hall of Shame for further details) and only rarely brilliant.
Though they did have strong convictions (refusing to play segregated gigs in the US) they seem almost allergic to making any clear political statements (Lennon’s “count me in/out” wavering on Revolution/Revolution 1). If you want to look solely at lyrics there are hundreds of better artists to check out.
However, even a fairly articulate writer with strong convictions can still learn a lot from the Beatles as lyricists. Great songwriting occurs not just in lyrics and music but at the point they intersect. The Beatles skill at making trite lyrics seem profound (The love you make is equal to the love you take?) is more than a happy byproduct of sticking them onto a good tune. It’s to do with marrying the right vowel sounds to the right point in the melody and finding words that ‘sing’. For anyone labouring under the illusion that you can turn political/spiritual/emotional truth into art simply by singing it, the Beatles would be an excellent point of study.
The Beatles have so much to teach us about making lyrics memorable. Many songwriters today are trying to create catchy songs with only one tool in their box – sheer repetition. From the earliest point in their career the Beatles were writing lyrics that got stuck in your head, using indirect repetition and expertly placed titles.
I agree that there is something incredibly sad about the Beatles obsession and we shouldn’t try to sound like the Beatles. Beatles worship put me off studying them for a long time; but I’ve found the best antidote to both indoctrination and indifference is to study the music for myself.
-Matt Blick
Against:
Nah, I don’t buy that there are any lyrics by the Beatles that reach profundity – not that I think profundity is particularly important to lyric writing. I’ve never heard anything by them that didn’t sound trite no matter how it was set.
The Beatles are the Mozart or Bach of pop music – early and important, but with a reputation that their material doesn’t live up to. Any classical composer who studied Mozart and ignored Beethoven, the entire romantic movement and 20th Century clascial music would be considered odd.
Listen to the Beatles, but realise two things:
They’re good, but not the infallible geniuses that some seem to suggest they are.
Far more interesting things have happened in popular music since.
What about King Crimson’s use of discordance and whole tone scales?
What about David Bowie’s use of word randomisation and improvisation?
What about Burt Bacharach’s use of time signatures and melody writing?
What about the sheer pig headed individuality and deadpan humour of Radiohead?
What about the raw innocence and anger of punk?
What about the timbres of heavy metal or the technological exploration of electronica?
I would be happy if I could go the next ten years without hearing another Beatles song or a song that sounds like the Beatles.
They are not the best band to study if you want to write songs. You need to cast your net wider.
- Tom Slatter
Related posts:
…And another thing….
seriously thanks for inviting me over for an argument! It was a blast.
No Probs Matt, It was a blast. We’ll have to find something else we disagree over now…
You listed 6 ‘what about’ statements of various genres or bands… but you can study all 6 if you only study the Beatles. And THAT is what makes them worth studying. Instead of going out and studying 6 text books (as it were) you can study one and at least get a nice helping on your palette.
Studying the Beatles is kind of like studying theory. If you follow all the theory rules you’ll sound boring and unimaginative. If you write like the Beatles you’ll sound pretty unimaginative and like the Beatles. But learn what they did, how they progressed and then break them damn rules. Find your own voice. I can not think of a single other source that would be better to study to get as large a grasp on songwriting than the Beatles. Yes, there are lots of examples of where someone else did one element better. But find me an example where one artist/band did it all better.
Before I started reading the first post I was in more agreement with Tom. But afterwards I’m in more agreement with Matt.
‘I can not think of a single other source that would be better to study to get as large a grasp on songwriting than the Beatles.’ – *Flippant mode* Yeah, but that would mean listening to loads of Beatles songs. And no-one deserves that. */Flippant mode*
It seems all you do is spend your time on this site complaining about how much you don’t like the Beatles.
Even if you don’t agree, there’s a reason why they’re considered the greatest of all time. And in your other post you said you didn’t like the Beatles because they were too nice. then why don’t you just go listen to heavy metal instead of giving uneducated arguments about something you don’t know.
All my time? Four posts in five years? I’ve spent about the same time talking about Michael Jackson and probably more time talking about heavy metal, which I do love. Even if I do, it’s my site and I can talk about what I want.
‘there’s a reason why they’re considered the greatest of all time’ – I don’t think it’s a good reason and get annoyed when people voice that opinion.
‘uneducated arguments about something you don’t know’ – I’ve given reasons and they’re based on my own listening. I’m happy to accept that the argument is largely subjective but I don’t think it’s unreasonable or ‘uneducated’.
I didn’t realize there was a part two. I guess I’ll jump in late to this one as well.
Tom, I think your examples of alternate bands to study are great, but they also illustrate why it makes more sense to STUDY the Beatles than other bands. I’m a huge Bowie fan and I’ve looked into his methods and studied his songs as well. But I find that most of what I learned from him came from just listening and absorbing the attitude, approach, and “intangibles”. I think for the most part the same goes for the others you list (particularly punk and electronica). I don’t know if it’s really worth delving into the MECHANICS of their music. Whether you actually like the Beatles’ music or not, their catalog represents so many different compositional techniques, it’s a little bit mind blowing (read Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles to get a sense of it.). And Bowie, Radiohead, and Bacharach obviously drew a great deal on their techniques.
I guess I’d put it like this. Listen closely and carefully to a wide range of bands (including those playing music you don’t particularly like). But if you’re really going to study the mechanics of one band’s music, it should be the Beatles.
Honestly, I never listen to the Beatles, and pretty much never have since I was a kid. I’m not an obsessed fan. But I found that studying their music allowed me to look at songwriting in a radically new way. It worked for me anyway.
I dunno John, I think you’re arguing for Beatles Exceptionalism again there
They’re oversold – they’re not as good or as important or as revolutionary as you’re making out. They’re okay, but let’s face it, a little dull.
If they didn’t have the reputation they have it would be okay, but their work just doesn’t live up to the deification.
There’s more to songwriting than the Beatles.
[ At least they weren't as awful as bob Dylan. That's a debate I can't wait to have on this site:-) ]
It’s possible that we’re talking at cross purposes here. I am arguing for a form of exceptionalism, but I’m not saying they’re revolutionary, exciting, daring, or even interesting to listen to. I’m just arguing that they skillfully cover a much wider range of pop music techniques than any other band I know. And I think internalizing these will greatly increase your power as a songwriter.
For example, the Beatles knew how to seamlessly modulate keys (a difficult thing to do). And they were comprehensive about it; there’s at least one song for every possible (relative) modulation with the exception of the flatV. It’s that comprehensiveness that sets them apart, and it’s true for a wide range of techniques.
But I think you’re more interested in those elements of songwriting that go beyond technique (attitude, delivery, subtle melodic and rhythmic characteristics, content, meaning, feel, social significance, fun, etc.). Once those are in place, I prefer Bowie as a musician. But you don’t learn those the same way as you do techniques. That’s my take anyway.
p.s. I’d love to see the Bob Dylan debate, but then I’ll probably be on your side.
Possibly. I do think all that technique stuff is important, although it’s a few years since I wrote about music theory like that on this blog (Probably come back to it soon).
It’s just that I’d rather someone had the attitude that modulations in key are easy, and never need to be prepared, and that any key change is possible.
You’re right they covered the lot, but didn’t the do it in a boring way?
(ps good, Dylan is the songwriting ‘God’ I really can’t stand!)