What direction would rock have gone without The Beatles?

That is how the first lineup disbanded. The next lineup morphed into the Thunderbolts after the Brit Invasion. Giant three piece installment on band in the seminal "Ugly Things" magazine about a decade ago.

 

Zappa would've become a successful film score composer!

 

Yes, but without the Beatles we never would’ve heard them, rendering it a moot point.

 

Of course we would - only before Gilligan's Island, but instead of Davy Jones, Maynard G. Krebs would have been cast as leader, spun off from Dobie Gillis. Dwayne Hickman is cast as Gilligan, who uses his charm and good looks to take over leadership of the island, turning Lovey against Thurston, to gain control over the fortune, while two-timing both Ginger and MaryAnn. His strategies wear-down the authority figures Skipper and the Professor, reducing them to pathetic comic releif characters. Aliens crash-land on island halfway through second season, capturing all the castaways to use as food and slave labor, but damaged space ship maroons them there as well.

Obviously, the title credits and theme song has to be re-vamped ("A movie star...their captor Blorrg from Nambo...his General, Ktcha!-Ktcha!..."). It is still, however, the same irritating bossa nova style theme, though, leading to cancellation before amassing enough episodes for syndication, causing it to fade into history.

The highly-successful "cable super-station" TBS cleans up for years, playing nightly reruns of the highly successful Run, Bubby Run.

 

Lots of misinformation here but I LOVE your avatar

 

The Yardbirds formed in 1963. What original songs of theirs are you referring to?

 

ok ''hardly" left EMI other than that it's opinion not misinformation. But I'm right. LoL

 

Someone else would have assumed their role, and pop music would have evolved along similar lines.

 

Good point. If it hadn't been for The Beatles, Decca wouldn't have been looking to sign 'a band like The Beatles, but with balls.'

 

Nope, Elvis was doing movies in 1956, when the Beatles were still leather-clad teenagers learning music.

 

According to Dick Rowe of Decca, the company wasn't looking to sign any bands like the BeaTles. Here's his reply to Brian Epstein :

"Not to mince words, Mr. Epstein, but we don't like your boys' sound. Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars particularly are finished…The Beatles have no future in show business."
-- Decca Records Executive, 1962 (Dick Rowe).

 

There are many artists and genres that would not exist without the Beatles, just like the Beatles wouldn't exist without Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Everly Brothers. And no Everly Brothers without the Blue Sky Boys, Delmore Brothers, and Louvin Brothers. (I wonder if the Beatles ever even heard the Blue Sky Boys.) Take any of the innovators out of the equation and you would have a musical butterfly effect. The music would have evolved, but differently.

 

I'm one of those people who believes that talent set The Beatles apart and their revolutionary/experimental spirit BUT that void could and would have eventually been filled with something else as music isn't a static medium when it comes to change. The pieces were there it just needed someone willing to have both the vision and talent to push it forward. They were supremely talented but also at the right place at the right time.

 

Success is the best revenge.

 

This must explain why you can't hear any beefy guitars in any Beatles record until around Revolver.

 

You can't assume that. Whenever this discussion comes up people draw a line, plot events along it, make a break and then say "everything beyond this point would never have happened"

What they always fail to consider is that it's highly likely the the line would've continue on regardless in some way. I think it's ludicrous to think that something like rock music was going to be stopped from moving forward forever because of The Beatles. It might have taken longer, but it was probably always going to happen. Someone had to come first, so if The Beatles had never existed someone else would've been the first.

 

I was just referring to the fact that the Stones got signed on the recommendation of George Harrison and that only happened because of the massive success of The Beatles. And also the fact that the Stones manager had previously worked as a publicist for Brian Epstein and realised that the Stones would have to start writing their own material, like Lennon and McCartney who gave them their first big hit.

Yes, it's possible the Stones could've made it without them, but it's highly unlikely. It would have taken a band coming along first with original hit material to convince the record labels that these English groups were worth signing/promoting. So, if not the Beatles, then someone else but of all the existing groups at the time I don't see any other able to pull that off (especially with their own material).

 

It would seem that Elvis

That makes no sense.

 

The direction of rock changed when Bob Dylan's influence on the Beatles set in.

 

It would have turned left at Greenland.

 

And vice versa.

 

Beatles experimenting with music changed popular music. They showed that you can do music yourself too.

 

true

 

Pushing the envelope by....copying the Beatles Rickenbacker 12 strong folk rock sound with vocal harmonies while covering Dylan songs? I don’t think so.