Attention Beatles Fans!
By Mitch Berg
First it was Badfinger. Notwithstanding the fact that they were discovered and signed to Apple Records by Paul McCartney, were British, and were a four-piece band featuring tight-yet-raw vocal harmonies and jangly-yet-melodic guitars, they were a fun pop band with none of the Beatles’ baroque pretensions. But because their debut singles, “Come and Get It” and “No Matter What”, sounded just a tad like lost, pre-“Sergeant Pepper” Beatles songs, you – the assembled hordes of slavering Beatles fandom – sniffed and said “it’s almost like they’re trying to be the Fab Four”. And despite the fact that they managed to release some of the most glorious pop music of the seventies, at a time when the former Beatles were mired in tortured megalomania, dreary pop or labored soul-searching…
…they never quite escaped it. To the world’s eternal loss.
Then it was The Knack – the overwhelmingly infectious power-pop sensation led by the mildly-creepy and now-late Doug Fieger – the cover of whose debut album “Get The Knack”…
…was reputed to look sufficiently like “Meet The Beatles”…
…to start a nasty little whispering campaign against the band.
And then there was Oasis, who in the early nineties were rumoured (with a “u”, since they were British) to sound like the Beatles. The unreasoning parochialism of Beatles fans struck again (although I didn’t care so much, since it was only Oasis).
And now – Lady Gaga has committed the unpardonable sin of L sitting at John Lennon’s piano….
Lady Gaga’s stirring up controversy yet again — but this time all she did was play a little piano. A photo of the “Bad Romance” crooner seated at John Lennon’s famous white Steinway recently hit the Web, and Beatles fans are up in arms.
John’s son Sean Lennon posted the photo on Twitter with the caption: “With gaga at mom’s house, she’s belting on the white piano…” The instrument was a gift from The Beatles’ frontman to Sean’s mother, Yoko Ono, and it sits out in the open at Yoko’s home.
In the pic, the singer wears typically skimpy Gaga-gear (a skintight body suit and thigh-high fishnets) while singing and tickling away at the keys. The image drew an outcry from some Beatles fans who considered Gaga unworthy of the iconic instrument.
My only wish: that if it was the piano at which Lennon “composed” “Imagine” or “Merry Christmas (War Is Over)” or “Just Like Starting Over”, that Jerry Lee Lewis would get to go all ape-wild on it sometime before he dies (Wait – Jerry Lee’s alive, isn’t it? Why, yes, he is). Or maybe Pete Townsend.
OK, I have two wishes; that I am able to live long enough to have at least one moment of my life, even at the very end, without baby boomers caterwauling about how in-freaking-credible John Lennon was.
He was not!
And tell that Gaga chick to keep her mitts off Keith Moon’s drum kit.
July 13th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Best little-known Badfinger song: Baby Blue. I love the guitar line.
July 13th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Yeah, I love Baby Blue too. I was just in a “Day After Day” mood. I went back and forth over which to post.
July 13th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
The next reincarnation of the Beatles has always been whomever the Recording studios have said it was. I really like the Beatles music, find Badfinger intensely boring, The Knack annoying, Oasis really annoying, and Lady Gaga worthy of completely ignoring.
As far as getting worked up over a Madonna clone playing Lennon’s piano, get over it. Keith Moon’s drums assuming you could put them back together again go ahead and restore them.
July 13th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Badfinger was a very good group, but they were cursed. Not as badly cursed as Big Star or Moby Grape, but close.
July 13th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I really like the Beatles music,
Music? Mostly, sure. The legend, and the baby boomer culture that spawned it? Less so. And much as I like the Beatles (especially through Revolver), The White Album bores me stiff.
find Badfinger intensely boring,
Not gonna claim that Badfinger held the key to life the universe and everything, or that I even know much of their material. But “Baby Blue” and “Day After Day”, among a few others, are among the most perfect three-minute pop songs ever written. Ever.
Not as badly cursed as Big Star or Moby Grape, but close.
I don’t remember Big Star or Moby Grape having two dead and spending decades in court, including dealing with alleged mob connections…
July 13th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
“Not gonna claim that Badfinger held the key to life the universe and everything”
That would be 42, wouldn’t it?
July 13th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I don’t remember Big Star or Moby Grape having two dead and spending decades in court, including dealing with alleged mob connections…
Nope, but we’re talking about two different things. Big Star and Moby Grape were both monstrously talented bands that were incredibly ill-served by their respective record companies.
And I agree about Badfinger in re: the art of the 3-minute single. “Day After Day” and “Baby Blue” are both tremendous songs.
July 13th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
“Baby Blue” is inarguably (as far as I am concerned) THE greatest 3-minute pop song ever. Lennon and McCartney’s post-Beatles bodies of work demonstrated just how much they really needed each other (and George Martin, for that matter). And Lady Gaga is to Madonna as Marilyn Manson is to Alice Cooper (i.e. a second generation photocopy).
July 13th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
I really like the Beatles music
Wild Honey Pie and Revolution #9 are works of pure genius.
“Number 9…Number 9…Number 9…”
(That was sarcasm.)
July 13th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
And “Come and Get It” sounded just a tad like a lost, pre-”Sergeant Pepper” Beatles song because McCartney wrote it. For the movie Magic Christian which featured…Ringo Starr.
Lennon was always pissed at McCartney because Paul would write six songs to his one.
July 13th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
I like the Beatles from mid-1964 to late 1965. After they got over trying to mimic American artists, but before they went all 60s on us.
Yes, we’ve heard “this group could be the next Beatles” for the past 30 years. I wonder if that line has less meaning now. Perhaps the promoters should say “this group could be the next U2” instead.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
[…] Against the Beatles July 13, 2010 by Cameron Mitch has a round-up. Two thoughts […]
July 13th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Berg, Cameron says he’s registered but WordPress won’t let him comment. Suggestions?
July 13th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Mitch, what about the unfair Kingdom Come/Led Zeppelin comparisons in the ’80s?
They was ROBBED . . .
July 14th, 2010 at 1:35 am
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