Natwerk Designs

what innovations in music, that the beatles came up with, are still used today?

Public Comments

1. cheesy love songs
2. Not cheesy at all! The Beatles wrote/composed great unique songs.Music visionaries.The talents of McCartney and John Lennon are unsurpassed as song writer/lyricist by any standards.And an absolute 'yes' to your question!
3. none nowt dim nada etc
4. Boy Bands
5. Making record albums without having to use filler,in other words, every song mattered and was important. Before the Beatles, an artist would have a few singles and the rest of the album would be filler material used to fill up album space. Sometimes that would be boring cover songs. The Beatles were also the first act to write virtually all of their songs, although at the beginninbg they covered Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, even Buck Owens.
6. I dont know but I know I LOVE the Beatles!!!!!As a matter of fact Im listening to them right now!!!!
7. Innovations? not sure what you mean. they where a great band at the right time, P.S. they covered many other peoples songs most people just don't check into it.
8. Simplicity, with harmonious vocal content, that made it seems simple music, but exactly the little nuances added by George Martin made some of the music eclectic to say the least but still maintain an aura, that meshed deep within the hearts and minds with the sign of those times. The simplest of songs are usually the ones that ore most popular, here's why: 95% of people listening to music do not play instruments or look for musicianship as a judge of standard. They listen for something to sing along with that they comfortably can sing as close to original as possible, and that natural uplifting feeling when a song hits you and you feel a personal connection, Now on the other hand, there are people who are not so concerned with lyric content, but they want to be inspired to move or "dance" to a track. And if you listen allot of the songs today try to incorporate music that moves you musically, lyrically, and a good beat to make you want to express yourself through dance.
9. Feedback
10. using hindu instruments such as the sitar writing songs while in the studio instead of being fully prepared before they came in "Revolution Sessions" facial hair in celbrites (it was considered outrageous at the time)
11. Pretty much every modern recording and production technique we now take for granted was pioneered by The Beatles, specifically on "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper". These include backwards tapes, tape loops, direct injection recording (McCartney always overdubbed his bass this way), Automatic Double Tracking (i.e. "chorusing"), phasing/flanging...those are just the technological advancements. Let's see...along with Bob Dylan, they were the first popular musicians to write entire albums of their own songs; under Dylan's influence, they moved beyond the "cheesy love songs" (to the guy who made that comment: you're a wanker, pal!) to strong sociological commentary in songs like "Eleanor Rigby". It may sound terrible to say, but The Beatles are about the only band I can think of where their drug use was a POSITIVE influence on their music. Even if you claim to hate The Beatles -and I say there is something seriously WRONG with you if that's the case; you have serious psychological problems and should seek help immediately- ALL of the music since 1966 owes something to the Fab Four. I mean, "Sgt Pepper" came out thirty nine years ago- there must be SOME reason why it still gets voted best pop album ever made. Lennon and McCartney ARE the greatest songwriters of the modern era and The Beatles are still renowned, thirty six years after they broke up, as the greatest band of all time. Anybody who loves music, never mind the musicians, is indebted to The Beatles. It's as simple as that.
12. B-E-A-T-L-E-S<>4<>E<>V<>E<>R<>
13. Much of the Beatles' music had great similarity with the old classical greats such as Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, etc. If you could play some of the Beatles' music at a slower speed, you would know what I mean.
14. I think that part of their appeal was that they represented the working class people They were not the glitzy ,glamorous Hollywood types .
15. Lennon and McCartney were the BEST songwriters EVER!!...their music will never die, it will live on and on...they were brillant together...
16. theyre accually still singing about peace and bringing more of it into the world
17. The Beatles' achievements and contributions to popular music, and indeed international youth culture, were profound and wide-ranging. Their early original material fused elements of early American rock 'n roll, pop, and R&B into a new form of popular rock 'n roll, almost single-handedly kick-starting the British Invasion, laying the groundwork for the rock culture of the 1960s, and establishing the prototype for the self-contained rock group. Throughout their career, The Beatles balanced their huge popularity with increasingly experimental and boundary-pushing music that took cues from eclectic sources like folk, R&B, soul, music hall, classical, electronic, and Indian music while exploiting increasingly sophisticated technology and innovative recording techniques. In this way, they helped pioneer more advanced, multi-layered arrangements in both rock and pop and were instrumental in the development of some of 1960s rock's dominant styles, such as folk-rock and psychedelia. As songwriters, they were among the most influential and harmonically sophisticated of the era, helping to push rock beyond its early blues and R&B forms and into more expansive territory. Critical evaluation of The Beatles legacy demonstrates that they "introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century". Lennon is conventionally portrayed as having played the major role in steering The Beatles towards psychedelia (Rain and Tomorrow Never Knows from 1966, and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am the Walrus from 1967). Again following the lead set by Bob Dylan, Lennon renewed his interest in rootsy forms towards the close of The Beatles' career (e.g. Yer Blues from 1968 and Don't Let Me Down from 1969). Paul McCartney is usually cast as the group's romantic balladeer, and he displays a singular ear for melody and an arguably unrivalled facility for writing classic pop songs in a wide range of genres, ranking alongside Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and the Gershwin brothers as one of the greatest popular song writers of the 20th century. However, in recent years since the deaths of Lennon and Harrison, he has insisted in a number of media interviews that he was far more involved in the London avant garde scene than was Lennon, and that he was in some respects the more "experimental" of the two. Beginning with his evocative but understated use of a string quartet on Yesterday (1965), McCartney pioneered a modern form of art song, exemplified by the double-quartet string arrangement on Eleanor Rigby (1966), Here, There and Everywhere (1966) and She's Leaving Home (1967). He also created many of the tape loops used on Tomorrow Never Knows and experimented with musique concrete techniques and electronic instruments, as well as creating many experimental audiovisual works. His interest in the music of Bach led him to use a piccolo trumpet in his arrangement of Penny Lane and, although the Mellotron at the start of Strawberry Fields Forever belonged to Lennon, it was McCartney who played it. McCartney retained his affection for the driving R&B of Little Richard in a series of songs Lennon dubbed "potboilers", from I Saw Her Standing There (1963) to Lady Madonna (1968). Helter Skelter (1968), arguably an early heavy metal song, is also a McCartney composition. McCartney's lyrical style evolved a more detached, literary stance than in the increasingly personal and confessional work of Lennon, and Lennon was reported to have become more critical of McCartney's writing in the mid-Sixties. In 1965 Harrison broke new ground in pop by playing an Indian sitar on Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown). His long collaboration with Sri Ravi Shankar, a famous Hindustani Musician, influenced several of his compositions, some of which were based on Hindustani forms — most notably Love You To (1966), Within You Without You (1967) and The Inner Light (1968). Indian music and culture also influenced Lennon and McCartney, with the use of swirling tape loops, droning bass lines and mantra-like vocals on Tomorrow Never Knows (1966) and Dear Prudence (1968). Harrison's interest in Indian music was an important influence on the popularisation of the so-called world music genre in the years that followed. Harrison retained Western musical forms in his later compositions, emerging as a significant pop composer in his own right, although occasionally reprising major themes indicating his relationship with Hindustani music and the Hindu god Krishna. His later guitar style, while not displaying the virtuosity of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton, was distinctive with its use of clear melodic lines and subtle fills as in Something (1969) and Let It Be (1970), contrasting with the increasingly distorted riffs and rapid-fire guitar solo work of his contemporaries. Ringo rarely wrote songs, but he possessed a gentle, somewhat comic baritone; his best-known vocal performances are Yellow Submarine (1966), With A Little Help From My Friends (1967) and Octopus's Garden (1969). In addition to his skilled (and arguably underrated) drumming and his comical everyman image, he was also a considerable influence on Lennon's songwriting due to his quirky and often amusing turns of phrase. Three of these were immortalised in the songs A Hard Day's Night, Eight Days A Week and Tomorrow Never Knows. As evidenced by his Beatles vocal performance on Help! (their cover of Buck Owens' Act Naturally), Starr was a dedicated country music fan and was largely responsible for the group's occasional forays into the genre in songs such as What Goes On (1965) and Don't Pass Me By (1968). Later Beatles material shifted away from dance music and the pace of the songs is often more moderate, with interest tending to come from melody and harmonic texture rather than the rhythm (Penny Lane from 1967 is an example). Throughout their career The Beatles' songs were rarely riff (or ostinato)-driven; Day Tripper (1965) and Hey Bulldog (1969, recorded 1968) are among the notable exceptions. The decision to stop touring in 1966 caused an abrupt change in musical direction. Reportedly stung by criticism of Paperback Writer, The Beatles poured their creative energies into the recording studio. They had already shown a clear trend towards progressively greater complexity in technique and style but this accelerated noticeably in their Revolver album. The subject matter of the post-touring songs branched out as well, as all manner of subjects were introduced, from home repair and circuses to nonsense songs and others defying description. The extreme complexity of Sgt. Pepper's reached its height on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, parts of which (for example It's All Too Much and Only a Northern Song) were left over from 1967 and were apparently used because The Beatles themselves weren't much interested in the animated film as a project and weren't inclined to exert themselves by producing much new material for it. After the Revolver/Sgt. Pepper's phase, came the double LP The Beatles, known to most as The White Album because of its plain white sleeve. Partly written in India, it involved some simpler subjects (for example "Birthday"), and some of the songs (for example "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" and "Wild Honey Pie") were far less complex than their material of just a year or two before. In 1969, the band became less united during sessions for the aborted Get Back project (which eventually emerged in 1970, much altered, as Let It Be). This had been intended as a return to more basic songs and an avoidance of thorough editing or otherwise "artificial" influences on the final output. Ironically Let It Be was heavily overdubbed and edited by producer Phil Spector in his wall of sound technique. With Get Back behind them, George Martin was asked to produce the last album The Beatles recorded, Abbey Road, representing a mature attempt to integrate what they knew and use recording studio techniques to improve the songs rather than experiment to see what happened. For many, the group's musical appeal lay in the interaction of Lennon and McCartney's voices and musical styles. It is sometimes said they not only supplied missing bits and pieces for each other's songs, but shared a competitive edge that brought out the best in both. Harrison's lead guitar and vocals along with Starr's understated and faithful drumming contributed their own chemistry. Finally, The Beatles' stage presence and charm as a group kindled their live shows, as well as relationships with key people in their careers. After the group dissolved some critics cited their solo releases as a demonstration of how important this group collaboration had been.