Perhaps you should check out your assumptions! I cannot see how it would have been possible to be alive when the Beatles were flourishing and not to have listened to any other pop music.

Those who know only the singles know only a very limited amount about this group. Although there were some fine songs on the earlier albums, it was with Revolver (particularly with the last track, Tomorrow Never Knows) that they became truly innovative in a way that other artists were not in 1966. Whatever the much-discussed strengths and weaknesses of individual Beatles, together they were a brilliant team and it was a real shame that they broke up so early.

Poorly.

And you didn't even mention Pink Floyd!

Much as I love the Beatles' for their melodies and harmonies, I think they were vastly over-rated as innovators. Their fans hold Sergeant Pepper's up as some kind of holy grail in musical innovation, whereas if it hadn't had their name on it it would have been lost among the wave of real musical innovation that was emerging in the years 66-68. (Pardon my mixed metaphores.)

I certainly do not regard myself as a "classical head" (whatever that may be - although I think it's fairly obvious what it is intended to mean) but, having come from a virtually music-free environment and then having suddenly been totally taken over by music, I grew up during the early 1960s listening to Boulez and Stockhausen while my peers were listening to - and debating the relative merits of the Beatles and the Stones; however, I was doing this at that time in complete ignorance of Beethoven and Sibelius, so I'm not suggesting that it was in any sense a typical listening experience, let alone a recommended one. That said, once I'd gotten around to experiencing a while raft more "classical" music as well as more jazz, pop etc. by later in that decade, I was left feeling that almost all the pop music I'd heard simply did nothing to excite me like other music did - even some of the examples from the mid-60s to early 70s that Ian mentioned, though often rather more interesting and less (for me) run-of-the-mill, didn't do a whole lot for me, either. All this was and remains very much a personal reaction rather than any kind of value judgement, but I simply could not help but feel that, for example, Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie and Varèse's Arcana grabbed all of my attentive faculties and wound me up in ways that all the pop music in the world just didn't.

When I first encountered Mellers' treatise on the Beatles' songs, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, so I probably did both; I did appreciate its cleverness, however (and I do not mean that in any patronising sense).

Well - all that pretty much disqualifies me from being able to contribute usefully to this thread, so I'd better put up and shut up now - and get me coat, too...

Best,

Alistair

'When classical 'heads' say they like the Beatles, I always assume it's because they've not listened to any other 'pop' music.'

Not in my case .My liking for pop music pre-dated my love of 'classical' by about four years, when at the age of nine I used to listen with my older sister to Frank Ifield,Gene Pitney,Cliff Richard, Roy Orbison, et al.

The Beatles definitely sounded a cut above all those. I still enjoy 'Revolver' though I recognise that most if not  all of the Beatles' 'innovations' were the work of George Martin.

I don't think that it would fit me and it would appear in any case to be pretty uncomfortable garb even in the unseasonally low UK temperatures that we've been "enjoying" of late.

I've contributed what I could, as best I could, with as much honesty as I could, albeit purely on a personal front rather than in any judgemental sense; we cannot all respond to the same things in the same ways and I'm sure that you would neither want nor expect otherwise.

Best,

Alistair

I preferred the Rolling Stones, The Who (especially Keith Moon), Cream (with special reverence reserved for Ginger Baker), T Rex, Spencer Davis, Alan Price and Georgie Fame - well anybody really.  As a child I used to listen to the Dutch pirate station Radio Veronica and the Dutch and German groups were excellent too.  Ah happy memories of another time and another sea.

Totally agree with Milly, there.  The Who were a great band - they had the instrumental muscle that the Beatles conspicuously lacked.  And Pete Townshend - unlike Lennon and McCartney - could actually write songs.