"Tomorrow Never Knows": did the Beatles invent "beats"?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Disraeli Gears, May 13, 2016.

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  1. Lownote30

    Lownote30 Bass Clef Addict

    Location:
    Nashville, TN, USA
    Disco led to what is now EDM. The Bee Gees looped that disco beat and looping drum beats was born (in pop culture). Techno simply took nearly the same beat and sped it up. EDM uses similarly boring beats and loops those and every other instrument. It's been the standard for electronic dance music ever since The Bee Gees did what they did.
     
  2. Disraeli Gears

    Disraeli Gears Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Thank you for understanding the gist of my post! Hopefully that will help clear things up around these parts and steer the discussion back to my inquiry :)
     
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  3. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    Other examples? Where is the example of a looped beat in "Tomorrow Never Knows"?
     
  4. JoeF.

    JoeF. Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    They--or John Lennon specifically--invented The "Beat" in "Beetles."
     
  5. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    Here's some loopy stuff from 1962

     
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  6. nosticker

    nosticker Forum Guy

    Location:
    Ringwood, NJ
    Ringo plays the same, unwavering beat for the entire track. It's nearly immaterial that it's played live, because 95% of what is on that track is loops.


    Dan
     
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  7. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    No they did not invent "beats", however I think I know what may have confused you and led you to this conclusion.

    They did found a company:

    [​IMG]

    That company is often confused with this one:

    [​IMG]

    That company bought this one:


    [​IMG]

    :)
     
  8. Gems-A-Bems

    Gems-A-Bems Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Duke City
    Yet that same criterion is invalid for "other" examples?
     
  9. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    Kraftwerk was doing this long before the Bee Gees -- and much better.
     
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  10. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    I actually own this CD...and Part 2.
    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Danby Delight

    Danby Delight Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    No, we totally get the use of the term in hip-hop, we're just mocking the idea that the Beatles had any hand in "inventing" it.

    If you want to give some white dude from the '60s credit for "inventing beats," give it to Tommy Roe: the drum break in "Sweet Pea" is an early ancestor of key moments like the amen break and "Funky Drummer."
     
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  12. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I always felt the Chemical Brothers were just doing a 60's style Beatles song like TNK rather than the other way around. Not being funny, I just looked at it as inspired by TNK and retro-ish but with elements of modern sounds. I'm so used to hearing TNK that I never think of it as ahead, of the, or behind the times. It just is. I mean that in a good way. :)
     
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  13. Binni

    Binni Forum Resident

    Location:
    Iceland
    I still wonder how Ringo came up with that famous beat.
     
  14. Danby Delight

    Danby Delight Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    But the drums in "Tomorrow Never Knows" aren't a loop. The loops in TNK are things like that seagull-like sound. So what does this drumbeat have to do with loops?
     
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  15. Mr. Grieves

    Mr. Grieves Forum Resident

    Maybe the thread title was the problem. In your description, you were just asking, not claiming, the Beatles connection to hip-hop beats. All the condescending & sarcastic replies must be all this pent of resentment of blind Beatle worship many members endured
     
  16. Gotta admit I always thought the drums were looped on there too. Never listened to them so closely as to detect any obvious wavering or inconsistencies.
     
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  17. RichC

    RichC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    So according to this forum, four white British guys invented hip-hop, and three white Australian guys invented EDM.

    And yet folks still claim the SHF is dominated by aging white guys. :rolleyes:
     
  18. davenav

    davenav High Plains Grifter

    Location:
    Louisville, KY USA
    Which has squat to do with whether the OP has a point, or not.
     
  19. lamf1983

    lamf1983 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glen Ridge, NJ
    I think "Tomorrow Never Knows" did predict that specific drum rhythm that became very prominent in Chemical-Brothers and other 90s trip-hop (I'm not a drummer and don't have the vocabulary to describe it). I've always thought of that song as 30 years ahead of its time, which is pretty incredible.
     
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  20. Danby Delight

    Danby Delight Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    John Kongos, "He's Gonna Step On You Again," 1971, built on a tape loop of an African drummer. Happy?

     
  21. KariK

    KariK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Espoo, Finland
    Of course they did! Is it easier to list things they did NOT invent? ;)
     
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  22. Mr. Grieves

    Mr. Grieves Forum Resident

    I wasn't talking about the drum beat, just the loops in general.
     
  23. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Paul told him what to play.... :hide:
     
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  24. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I find these two statements quite funny. I don;t think people understand hip-hop...I didn't know that about hip-hop. :)

    Anyway, to answer your questions...to me when I hear hip-hop, new or old, I do not think of the Beatles or more specifically this track. Nothing about TNK is hip-hop to me really. I haven't heard every hip-hop song in existence so maybe someone sampled the beat as is and rapped over it. But it doesn't mean much beyond that. Actually I'd expect someone to sample it and then chop it up to create a new beat but retain the sound of the original record, which happens often.

    I'm struggling to work out how everything we know about beats culture is there in Ringo's drum beat. Perhaps you could post more examples, specific hop-hop ones if you could because I can't think of any. The association with house music is also rather loose and I wouldn't call that Chemical Brothers house music anyway. So if you have other house music specific examples that might help. Not being an a*se here, I'm struggling to see where you are coming from.

    If there's any type of drumming that led to our current fascination of "beats" it would more likely be some of harder soul and funk drum patterns out there rather than what was played in TNK, IMO.
     
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  25. dewey02

    dewey02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The mid-South.
    Continuing the story...whose logo was given away in a lawsuit settlement to the company with the second logo, only to be leased back to be used by the company with the first logo. :)
     
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