What direction would rock have gone without The Beatles?

You know that’s really not true.

 

This is quite an extraordinary recording for 1962 - There is amazing bass content - and separation
between the instruments - and the drums are present. All things that were not at all common in
live 1962 recordings.

 

We wouldn’t have had the chance to discuss which songs should be taken off the White Album!

 

Or would they really have been the Beatles that we know today ?
Doubtful.

 

Lennon and McCartney were already crafting pop and rock songs with inventive chord progressions, having been influenced (particularly McCartney) by such writers as Rodgers and Hammerstein, but George Martin was certainly an essential piece of the puzzle with his arranging and producing skills. Out of all the people who have been dubbed "the 5th Beatle", I would say that Martin deserves it most of all.

 

I think the psychedelic scene and everything related to that would have happened regardless of the Beatles. The hippies are like a derivation from the Beatniks (early 60s) who were totally unrelated to this band.

 

It was recorded live at Rollerland in Plattsburgh, NY in February 1964. The band had formed 1962. But your point still stands: great bass and drum sound.

 

If the beatles were ugly and didn't shake their heads and didn't have george martin they would not have been what they were/are. The songs were great and the harmonies but face it they were the boy band of their time up until Revolver. They took as much from others as others took from them. But those records were sonically above all others of the time because of Martin . Thats why they never left Abbey Road to record somewhere else IMO. They also had the big power money to get things out first and bigger. Doesn't mean no one else was being just as creative. The Stones were much more exciting, the Kinks and Small Faces and Donovan and Love and The Doors etc would all have made the records they made with or without the Beatles. One of the Doors even said they weren't even listening to the Beatles anymore at the time of their first album because the beatles became ''uncool" and a ''teeny bop band" until they heard an acetate of Sgt. Pepper. The Beatles did not invent LSD or psychedelia. Their fame just made it seem so. I love the Beatles but the worship here is so over the top and kinda ignorant to everything else.

 

The other bands of the British Invasion would likely not have taken off in the U.S. You would have had a longer period in which folk of the Kingston Trio variety remained strong. And more groups that sounded like Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. Motown was a force that existed with The Beatles and would have existed without them. There was also The Beach Boys, who were succeeding prior to The Beatles in the U.S. but without The Beatles, would Brian Wilson have been inspired to excel in the directions that he did?

And we certainly would not have had The Monkees!

 

After his stints with the Isley and Little Richard, Hendrix would have joined with Elvis, thus no need for a '68 comeback, cause he would have never left. HEndrix's 'Stra Spangled Banner' would have been made part of Elvis' American Trilogy.

 

you beat me to it

 

I disagree - around the mid 1960s there was a British and more notably
American contingent of musicians who took LSD, Smoked Pot and
started to produce otherworldly views and sounds gleamed from the
Acid trips they were taking. The Merry Pranksters were conducting
the Acid Tests starting in mid 1965 - which was a generator for the odd
multi media psychedelic San Francisco sound.

I would argue that the Byrds and The YardBirds were more influential
in creating the Psychedelic 'sound' and driving the scene. I think the
Beatles being incredibly more popular - are naturally credited
as the pivotal leaders - Tomorrow Never Knows was a fully formed
statement - but that wasn't released until 1966.

Meanwhile Chet Helms of the Family Dog was busy in 1965 developing the
San Francisco sound - as was Marty Balin and the early version of
Jefferson Airplane - and despite what popular culture likes to think -
the Beatles didn't create the sound or the scene - they did what they
had always done until Sgt Peppers - and that was appropriating the
sounds around them and distilling it down to a 'Beatles Song'.

Aside from The Beatles writing some early hits for the Rolling Stones - I think
the only difference for them would have been heading towards a more hard
core Blues sound. As for KISS/ACDC - I don't see any connectivity between
those two groups and the Beatles. Now Cream, Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin
and those types of bands - then yes without them there wouldn't be Kiss or AC/DC

 

The Beatles recorded at other studios than Abbey Road.

 

When they started out, it was for the love of the music.

 

Would Steve Hoffman be into mastering or the music biz?

Would Apple laptops and phones be stuck to bodies?

 

Mick needed to see the $ at the end of the song. He likely would have continued his course in Economics.

 

So you don't like Mick.
I get it.
My point stands.

 

'Don't like Mick'...?

That's what you got out of what I wrote?

It's okay for Mick to want to make a living playing the Blues.

 

IMO all predictions of rock being "a passing fad" would have come true. Rock was going nowhere in the US, and in Britain it was exploding, which in turn spread to the US and around the world.

 

So they would have stayed a cover band and probably would have remained largely unknown outside of London.

 

Please... Here is Jerry Garcia in 1964; would happily join the Kingston Trio:



Here are the Beatles in 1960; no other prospects in life:

 

First thing that comes to mind is that we would have no Monkees.

 

I'm going to have a crack at where I think this is headed and see if I can save us all some time .......

The Beatles are responsible for every musical innovation since 1962, every band after the Beatles owes them their existence, they're the winners.

There .......this week's Beatles validation complete for the 5,000th time.

 

Sorry - what the heck are you talking about? Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead
were not mentioned by me. They were late to the game - it wasn't until 1970 that
the Dead started to influence music. Even then they would not be described as
'psychedelic music'. They weren't going down that path. The only connection
is that people used to trip and listen to the band - who was often tripping as
well.

 

The Dead/Warlocks weren't the house band for the Acid Tests that started in Nov. 1965?

Must be a different timeline.

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