Does the Beatles’ music sound ‘dated?’

ABSOLUTELY! Not counting the best work of George and John.

But C Moon or Uncle Albert are way lamer and more dated sounding than anything of Pepper or Abbey Road.

 

So true, and truly bizarre.

 

Some of it does, mostly the early stuff, but the music's too good for that to matter.

 

Dated, as in "helped define an era". The songs still sound great and people of all ages enjoy them, but it is not "modern" music, and I mean that as a compliment.

 

Dated production can still sound appealing and be an enjoyable listening experience. It's highly subjective, but the Beatles I don't mind. On the other hand many albums produced in the 1980s sound horrid to my ears.

 

Sure, it sounds like 60s music, not much newer music on the radio sounds like it. Not that I care, I
still listen to it with a lot of other older music.

 

The tambourine seemed to be a staple on a lot of 60s pop records, but it kind of disappeared in the 70s.

 

I'm not sure. I think you could probably date a lot of their music because their style was copied and became the short-hand for a particular era of music through popular culture.

I think they sound like they were recorded well. Their music has been remastered multiple times compared to artists who have been forgotten from the 60s.

I feel like the Beatles are being used and influencing a lot of modern rock groups and back-pack rappers. I think if you listen to something like Tomorrow Never Knows, you wouldn't be able to tell it was from the 60s. I think the stuff that dates the music is references to Dylan or basically anything that requires a Wikipedia search.

 

Most music sounds "dated" to the time it was written and recorded, that's just the reality of it. It doesn't have to have a negative connotation.

 

Of course it sounds dated. The songs are timeless, but the recording, sound and mixes are dated, and have been since the 70's.

Not necessarily a bad thing

 

What's funny to me is that 70s Judas Priest sounds less dated than 80s Judas Priest

 

Another thing to consider is how young people listen to music these days. YouTube.

The Beatles or 10CC or Michael Jackson could have been released yesterday. Young people have access to all the music ever created and it's essentially free.

Listening to music on the radio to discover acts is not really relevant. Spotify's curated playlists are basically serving this function and doing so in a way that often places older acts in the same rotation/orbit as newer acts.

Also, older music is relevant and just as vital in its placement on new television shows/commercials. I think dated as a negative is not something people really think about as much. It's like it's own genre within a sub-genre of music.

The way people listen to music and services curate music is aimed at very granular styles. We just associated it with certain time periods despite the production styles being recycled over and over again.

 

Nothing can be both. Nostalgia fixes a memory at a particular time.

 

Almost all of it always sounded dated to me. Something about that drum sound I think.

Notable exceptions would be maybe “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be”.

 

Really? I think Ringo's drumming is ahead of its time. Sometimes it even has a proto hip hop sound to it.

 

Not the execution, the sound. Very old fashioned snare-y.

 

i'm tired of people putting down moonlight enough already

 

It doesn't sound as dated as it did in the 1980's.
Funny how that works.

 

80s music is the king of being dated sounding. I still love it, though.

 

It depends on both the song and how exactly you define the word "dated." If "dated" means "shows its age," then I would say that a lot of their music, particularly the early stuff and the psychedelic era, are dated. However, if it means "aged poorly" I would say no, with the exception of some of their very earliest material.

 

I think their psychedelic music sounds less dated than the fake country music a lot of bands would do shortly after. Hence more people listening to Pepper than Music From the Big Pink in 2019.

 

I think John and George's work especially sounds dated - lots of 70s production values and instrumentation. Plastic Ono Band being one exception.

 

I'm only familiar with All Things Must Pass. My Sweet Lord and What is Life don't sound dated in my opinion.

 

Why do I get the feeling that the OP keeps trying to convince himself to like the Beatles when he's not really feeling it? "Maybe if Giles Martin sprinkles more fairy dust on it, it will magically come to life for me. . . " The music either connects or it doesn't, but it can't be forced.

 

I've always thought the opposite. The late 60's/early 70's roots-rock movement has always had sort of a timeless quality for me, probably because of how it throws back to a much older style of music and modernizes it. Psychedelia on the other hand is inextricably tied to the 60's, at least for me. I love both styles and am not trying to say one is better than the other, but I think psychedelia is much more "of its era" than roots-rock.