Kraftwerk More Influential Than the Beatles

Since when are we defining bands based on their audience? Shades of Northern Soul here...

 

Would they know how to use Ebay?

 

But boy bands are defined by their audience, that's the whole point.

 

Are you really trying to make a case that the Beatles didn't have a male audience as well as a female one?

 

Yes.

The later Sixties Beatles probably had more male fans than female.

They weren't a contrived manufactured band.

All looking alike in their matching uniforms.

Yes, Brian Epstein dressed them up for the Ed Sullivan and early Beatlemania with all of the screaming girls.

But they fully realized themselves, their personalities, their individual styles, and their individual musical interests, as the Sixties progressed.

They progressed.

As did their fans.

As did the Sixties.

 

The Beatles had Soul and so much more.

They weren't faceless lookalike bureaucrats in lockstep with each other.

Presenting Uniformity and Hyper-European Mantra.

To The Masses.

 

Is that any way to talk about Queen?

 

I experienced Beatlemania firsthand. From a male perspective, the Beatles were like young gods. Us guys wanted to look like them, be like them, we were awestruck, and we certainly loved the damn music.

 

Let's see now. The Beatles changed performances from small clubs to baseball stadiums. They changed the sales from singles to albums. They invented concept albums. They invented the anti war movement. They made it acceptable for men to have long hair. Changed fashion trends. Invented the concept album. Paul invented modern bass playing, Ringo invented rock and roll drumming. John greatly expanded the role of the rhythm guitarist. George introduced slide guitar and Indian music to rock and roll.

I love Kraftwerk too, in fact I just bought 3D, but they are not even good enough to be in the same sentence as the Beatles.

 

The Beatles didn't do any of that. Except maybe small clubs -> baseball stadiums, well, hallelujah for that. Oh yeah, and fashion trends. Anyway, thanks for the textbook Beatles Baby Boomer post, we should have that framed.

 

The Beatles invented the universe. You forgot that one?
Keep the faith.....

 

I've already done it! It's stood outside and being admired by a bunch of high school kids who are asking me "who the **** are The Beatles?!!" What are they teaching kids in school today? Isn't The Beatles' single handed reinvention and re-purposing of everything we know an integral part of the curriculum these days? Something's amiss somewhere............

 

I can't, honestly, tell whether you are being serious or not. Some of those statements are just nonsense while some have some truth.

 

Best not to try and make things up as it's not helpful. I have never said that.

All boy bands have male followings as well. Take That started playing the male gay clubs. I was a fan of the Bay City Rollers as a young child

The evidence suggests that Beatlemania in the US was dominated by a young girl audience, although no doubt lots of young boys enjoyed their pop music as well, but as time went on pretty much the age/sex distinctions melted away and they pretty much had universal appeal.

 

What evidence are you referring to, other than the pictures and video clips of girls going nuts?

 

Just the photos and tv clips of girls going nuts. It's a basic sex thing.

Science Explains Why Girls Went So Crazy For The Beatles

 

Demonstrates nothing about who was buying all the records.

 

I think it's fair to surmise that all those millions of girls going crazy probably spent their allowance/pocket money on Beatles 45's and played them to death.

Anyway, why do Beatles fans get so upset when you suggest they had a majority young female following in the early days? That's sounds like sexism and ageism to me, like somehow they aren't as valuable a fan as some 30 year old male analysing Lennon's cryptic messages on some b-side. A fan is a fan, none is better than the other. You ought to be thankful the young girls dug them so much, not resent the fact.

 

I'm not upset and I'm not sexist. I'm just interested in the truth. I think your premise that it was girls buying most of the records is totally baseless. I was around at the time and me and a lot of my male friends were Beatlemaniacs. The Beatles music and everything about them was wicked cool. I knew guys who bought Beatle boots. I had a Beatles board game, Beatles trading cards in both black and white and color. My parents brought the color cards back from the States. I took them into school and I was a celebrity that day - the whole schoolyard gathered around me gawking at the cards. Unless you were there you can't appreciate how huge the Beatles were for young people - period.

 

Really? So pretty much all the British Invasion bands except The Who are... boy bands? This is a minority opinion.

Besides, isn't boy band a term that was coined in the 1990s? That makes it anachronistic to me.

 

The term didn't exist then but the concept did. I have seen clips and read articles from that time that suggest The Beatles, at first, were considered by some to have been the creation of a "Svengali".

 

Please, spare us the homilies: the person who originally dropped the word "boy band" into the thread did so to disparage the band. That's where the resentment is: people using the Beatles' female audience to put them down.

 

Did they invent boulshchitt?

 

Funniest post of the year, absolutely hysterical.....