As one of the authors on this site I think its important for you the readers to get to know me. Now, I could go on a long conversation about how I love dogs, enjoy long walks on the beach, ancient pagan traditions blah blah blah blah. Or I can stop wasting your time and really get to the meat of the issue: music. I think a great way to guage anyone's taste in music is by their favorite band. For moi that is none other than one of the most timeless bands of all times: The Beatles.
Ah yes The Beatles. Arguably one of the most popular bands of all time (and if you ask me the best, but that's just me), and I could argue that they're still underrated. Before you flip your lid and begin your tirade, where you start with: "What!? Romin, you noob. How can one of the most popular bands also be underrated!? Only noobs commit logical paradoxes!" Well unwrap your bunched panties, and allow me to explain. There's no question that The Beatles are not underrated in sheer number of fans, no debate. It's also true that The Beatles were extremely prolific, but their prolificness unfortunately causes a lot of people to miss out on many of their hidden gems. When people imagine The Beatles the image is undoubtedly tied to their string of number one hits and their earlier brit pop phase. This is all well and good if missing out on some of the greatest music of all time is your cup of tea (this joke is appropriate because they're british! Two points for me).
When I describe The Beatles I tend to describe in two poles. The first pole is what I refer to as the "pre-1995" pole. It took me awhile to come up with such a catchy name, and I can only imagine the complexities of why I chose could elude many of you, so bear with me. This pole is generally their music before 1995, and it's this phase where they were heavily into Brit pop. This is the phase we all tie with the screaming teenage fans, and catchy ditties. As a whole I don't care too much for this phase. A lot of their music is very mainstream, and that's not to say some of the many aforementioned gems are not present here. Nay sir, there are still many gems like: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, I'll follow the Sun, and many others, but also had typical brit pop music eg: I Want to Hold Your Hand. The only issue was this: during this time The Beatles were still coming into their own as songwriters and musicians. Their music was great, but it had not yet passed the threshhold of mindblowing. The closer they gott to the middle of the '60s the greater their songwriting became. The Beatles as individuals grew into their own as songrwriters and felt more free to push the border of music.
And thus we've reached our second pole. If my first label took me awhile, this one took me even longer. After much contemplation I decided that the most appropriate name would be "post-1965" pole. I should mention that these dates aren't the magical years that The Beatles became amazing, but just give you the general idea. Anywho, this is the true flourishing of Beatles music. Where each individual came into their own as individuals and songwriters. If you compare albums such as Please, Please me to albums like their eponymous album The Beatles, more colloquially referred to as The White Album (yea I every now and then I like to seem smart by throwing in a few big words. It's my way of feeling pretentious), we see a stark contrast. Call it a revelation, a paradigm shift, India induced change, recreational drug use, whatever. Regardless the reason their music was amazing. A big part of this was that each individual contributed to the music to create this whole melting pot that is now: The Beatles. We have Paul McCartney with his beautiful voice and upbeat songwriting that showed the lighthearted side of The Beatles. Next we had John Lennon, the rougher of the bunch who showed the rough ragged edges of The Beatles, unashamedly belting out more experimental songwriting and pushing the envelope with this music. George Harrison with his sublime songwriting and honeylike voice. Ringo Starr was also there.........Just Kidding Ringo. As much as people discredit Ringo, he was still pivotal to the band, providing his signature drumming style that characterizes many Beatles songs.
The other thing I love about The Beatles was their inability, nay, their refusal to be tied down to any one type of music. They dipped and dabbled in so many genres it's impossible to really pinpoint what kind of music they are. They did Pop, Rock, Folk, Rag-Time, Reggae, Pyschedelic, Ballads, Classic, and some songs that simply transcend genre. They even dabbled in each other's styles of music eg: John Lennon tried lighthearted writing and Paul McCartney dabbled in heavier music. These guys had no musical boundaries. Methinks if rap were as prevalent then as it was today, we'd have a couple of freestyling tracks of John Lennon rapping about 'da police. Plus in the studio they were crazy. John Lennon wanted his song to sound like "the dalai llama singing from the highest mountain top." And with the help of Geoff Emmerick they made it happen with the song "Tomorrow Never Knows." Which by the way for all you music theorists, was one chord. Yea, one chord. That's basically a huge bird to years of european musical tradition, and John Lennon DGAF. They were doing stuff like playing guitar track backwards like in "I'm Only Sleeping," using multiple track recordings, purposefully incorporating feedback, using fullstring quartets, harps, you nam eit. Their music was so vastly varied and their quality was so superb. I listen to their music and find a new appreciation for them each time.
Also did I mention they had some sweet beards? Seriously, those beards were amazing.
Well that's a little about my taste in my favorite band. Well that's all guys, if you guys want to contact me for song suggestions, band suggestions, the inevitable hate mail and corrections then please feel free to send me an email at theromanromin@gmail.com Now that that's over with enjoy these awesome tunes.
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