Beatles vs. Stones vs. Beach Boys vs. (?)

Last week’s column on the Beatles elicited some pretty heart-felt responses from a wide variety of folks, young and old. Many were pro-Beatles, and others felt that bands like The Rolling Stones were more authentic, more raw and powerful. My oldest son even wrote to say that he felt the Beatles were “vanilla,” vs. the Stones “bad-assery.”

I raised him better than that, so I can’t speak to that particular opinion. But I can say that it is a Beatle legacy that any band you mention for the past 40 years is going to be compared to the Beatles one way or another. You can talk musically, or success-wise, or record sales-wise, or popularity-wise.

Let’s just take the Stones, for instance. Not only my son, but band mate Danny White, who actually owns a music store and has pretty good taste in music overall, doesn’t care for the Beatles. Beyond my initial reaction (what is WRONG with these people?), I can understand to a point where it’s coming from. If you’re looking for raw power, for unbridled sexuality and a bad boy persona, the Beatles aren’t your band. And the Stones have dined out on that image their whole lives. But it is an image, and one that was cunningly contrived because it was available in 1964; the Beatles pretty much owned the world that year and the following five years in popular music. The Stones, with all due respect, followed the Beatles musical lead until 1970, when the Beatles broke up and Brian Jones was dead — then the Stones came into their own as the self-proclaimed “greatest rock and roll band in the world.” But their output after, say, 1976 has been sparse and less than impressive. They’re a stadium spectacle, and amazing at it. But recording greats they no longer are.

And thus it has always been. When I first started wanting to be the Beatles in 1964, there were several rivals. I remember an album that featured one side of Beatle songs, and the other side featuring songs by The Four Seasons. And the title was The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons. An interesting concept, though one has to wonder who bought that record. Four Seasons fans were, in my recollection, older than the average Beatle fan back then, and not inclined to the early wave of Beatlemania.

No, the serious Beatle rivals then were The Beach Boys. I recall girls getting into really nasty scapes at school because of their loyalty to one band or the other. It was like a conversation between a Catholic and Protestant in Germany during Martin Luther’s time — there was just no middle ground to be had. Of course, I could have cared less for the Beach Boys then; surfing was the furthest thing from my mind, or wearing those silly striped shirts or driving hot rods. I wanted a guitar, a collarless suit, a cool electric guitar, and some friends to play music with so I could get swarmed by screaming girls, too. I stood alone in my room for years, practicing my stage stance, my vocal harmonies, and my moves. I’m not exaggerating. Years.

Today, I have those friends, those guitars, and those songs to play on various stages. The screaming girls? Well, once I did a gig at Martinez Jr. High, and a bunch of high school cheerleaders got caught up in the moment and screamed like that, and I felt I had fulfilled a lifelong ambition. Other than that, my wife screams at me from time to time, but I don’t think it’s a musical appreciation thing.

Meanwhile, we’re all waiting for the next musical model to come along. Remember, before the Beatles it was Elvis, a solo guy who himself was modeling Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. So the Beatles introduced the concept of self-contained band. That model remains with us, but it’s growing long in the tooth. I’m excited to see what happens when a new model emerges, one that cannot be compared to the Beatles.

Meanwhile, even if you don’t like the Beatles (and what is WRONG with you?), you have to admit they had a permanent and positive mark on our culture, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah!