This is my first Blog post on my personal blog. I created this blog as an outlet to talk about my life, my interests, my passions, and my future. The intent is to capture these topics in hopes that 1) it will help visualize my patterns / interests that will help guide my life; and 2) that someone in the interwebs will notice my writing skills, unique interests, my story, and / or my commitment to writing weekly posts will lead to new opportunities and relationships.
These topics will range from music to technology, business, career advice, world news, politics, running, and other subjects.
Please feel free to comment on my posts - whether about the topic itself, questions I pose, or on writing critiques and ways I improve my writing style.
Enjoy!
-------------------------
Today was a very special day in music history - it is the 50th anniversary of The Beatles appearing on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and influencing America and the world with their great music. However, everyone knows that The Beatles were super famous back in the 1960's, but why are they relevant now in 2014?
There are so many reasons why The Beatles are relevant and stronger than ever (and not just by adults)! Back in the 60's, The Beatles were the world's most popular group, setting records with #1 hit songs, best selling albums, and became the most popular music band of the 60's.
However, their musical contributions were all that more amazing. They created a totally new sound, mixed new genres, had amazing song writing, and revolutionized using the studio to create a unique sounds that the world had never heard before. All of these things and more were innovative in the 1960's and are still innovative today, which is why The Beatles are still so popular, and have cemented themselves in music and world history.
To start off, The Beatles had lots of influences (mostly from America) and took these sounds of rockabilly (early rock and roll from the 50's), girl groups, Motown, and other influential early rock artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins (George's favorite artist and The Beatles' most covered artist), Buddy Holly and the Crickets (where The Beatles got their namesake), and others and created this new sound called Rock and Roll which the whole world loved!
From a genre standpoint, at first the songs were all about cute pop songs and covers. Some of these had a lot of energy and all of them were very cute and tugged at your heart strings. Then, The Beatles started writing and playing their own original music, which was unheard of at the time. Then The Beatles started innovating in other ways. They incorporated other genre's into their music, like folk, jazz, blues, pop, country, orchestral music, avant garde, all while keeping their identity and sound as a group. They also started writing songs on their real-life experiences, drugs, Taoism (The Inner Light, George Harrison, 1968; Across the Universe, John Lennon, 1969), Revolution, and fictional characters like Lady Madonna (Paul McCartney, 1968), all of which was unheard of at the time.
Technically, The Beatles also innovative in the studio. Because of feeling threatened and overwhelmed by the large crowds that came to see them, they stopped touring in 1965. This allowed them to experiment with different instruments (like the Sitar and the moog synthesizer [which appears a lot in the Abbey Road album]), loop different sounds, use white noise (I Want You [She's so Heavy], John Lennon, Abbey Road album, 1969), add orchestral pieces, speed up pianos to sound faster (In My Life, Rubber Soul, 1965). From until 1965 until their separation in 1969 -1970, The Beatles spent several months in the studio to experiment with lyrics, different instruments, different recordings, different versions of songs, all to get the perfect sound, which was a very new concept. A lot of this innovation is also attributed to The Beatles' produce, George Martin, who help The Beatles find their identity and sound and helped arrange these complex sound productions that made The Beatles so innovative and popular.
All of these things - deep / personal / catchy / cute / lovely storytelling and song writing, innovative and creative studio work, and incorporating different sounds and genres made The Beatles great throughout the 60's and these same principles are used today on an even more advanced level.
Personally, I love the Beatles because for so many reasons! I love nearly all of their songs too! Their early cutey pop songs are so cute and precious and just tug at your heartstrings. Everyone wants to fall in love and they definitely hit on that throughout their career. Likewise, also have a 'big brother' type feeling - you love them and you listen to them for advice that you can really connect with (or at least that's how their songs felt like). Likewise, as their complexity changed, their songs became more complex, more intense (at times), more interesting, and having a deeper emotional meaning that still rings true to this day.
Also, thanks to Glenn Gass and his 'History of The Beatles' course at Indiana University, I got to learn how The Beatles made all of their songs, what influenced them, as well as the intimate details of each individual Beatle, which helped me connect with them on a very personal level.
Along with The Beatles celebration, there was another show on 9.17 KXT (NPR music radio station in North Texas) that was significant. It was a 2 hour show on American folk music, specifically on Alan Lomax. Unlike The Bealtes, Alan Lomax is a relatively unknown, but still legendary American folk singer who sang and captured American and world folk songs from 1937 until his death in 2002. Along with his compatriots - Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger - Alan captured the essence of the people he visited (American and world folk music) and presented it for others to hear and appreciate. Likewise, these folk musicians also created an outlet for protesting rights, freedoms, and unfair government that would be very influential in the 1960's civil rights movement, and is still influencing us today.
I bring up Alan Lomax (and American folk music in general) in the same vein as The Beatles, not just because they are both music related, but because they both had a significant effect on the history of the world, the history of music, and the culture of America. Both Thea Beatles and American folk music have influenced the world and it is important to recognize and celebrate their diversity, spirit, creativity, and passion to keep their values and creativity and driving going to influence future generations.
Other Resources
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/beatles-musically-article-1.1601826
Wikipedia.com - The Bealtes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles#Influences
Wikipedia.com - The Beatles - discology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_discography
Indiana University - The Beatles class
http://courses.music.indiana.edu/rock/beatles.html
Indiana University - Bob Dylan class
http://courses.music.indiana.edu/rock/Z404BobDylan.html
NPR - 91.7 KXT - Alan Lomax show
http://americanroutes.wwno.org/archive/
Wikipedia.com - Alan Lomax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Lomax
