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I'm a little late getting to this broadcast, like almost 2 years late, but I thought I'd add a comment for those who will revisit this show at a later date: my mother was a teenager in the 60's, and when she introduced the Beatles to me as a kid, I distinctly remember her saying she lost interest in them after Rubber Soul, because they got "too psychedelic" which made Elijah's comments about women losing interest in the Beatles as the grew up all the more true.

Why is it so funny to have a caller claim that "white boys can't dance" (and insinuate that this is common knowledge)? If I want racial or ethnic stereotypes on the radio, I'll tune into Don Imus. Honestly, would the reaction have been the same if the caller had said 'but of course everyone knows that black boys can't play classical music'? Or maybe a generalization about what white girls can't do that they're black counterparts can?

The late William Buckley said the Beatles were the crown princes of music. I felt they were the supreme skip the first three weeks of lent band. I've enjoyed much of thier music, but they were greatly lacking in terms of theme albums

i hear this program.

thanks. elijah wald

The opening glissando and general approach of the clarinet playing in that original 'Rhapsody in Blue' recording is a very obvious reference to the contemporary klezmer music of the time and to Gershwin's Jewishness - it's hardly a descent into 'dopey' music.

The author offers another potted intellectual construction of rock/pop/r&b history. Prior to early Beatles, the watered-down rock of Frankie Avalon, Fabian,etc. was heavily promoted. Most of the great do-wop groups were no longer selling records. You can't find a single, universal turning point in the pop music "business". Paul Whiteman had a big lumbering dance/light classical orchestra. He featured "jazz" almost as a novelty. By the swing era, when jazz was the most popular music in America, Whiteman was totally out of fashion.

Did you ever notice that white people are foremost in dissing "white" music? The anointed hip white people always appreciate real black music–distinguishing them from the masses of unhip whites.

Like so many other commentators, I also question the assumptions of music critics that they define what is good, what is bad, what is authentic, what isn't, etc., etc.
Who was really responsible for denigrating the music of Paul Whiteman? The people who bought his recordings? Who was responsible for once declaring Louis Armstrong or Nat King Cole as being "tom", but then turned 180 degrees in their opinions?
Who said the music died between the original rockers and The Beatles? (And by the way, were The Drifters "rock-and-roll"?)
This is all the pretentious B.S. of music critics. It's just too bad that these people have more respect and influence than they deserve on our culture. It is this influence that has done more damage to the access and appreciation to music (and any other art-form) than any one artist or style could have caused.

I admire Elijah Wald's work and his questioning of conventional assumptions. Thanks for a thought-provoking show. I did notice a racial subtext in the on-air discussion, in that the examples of the "dance music to concert music" trend were all of white artists turning black dance music into something more consciously "arty." What about the modern jazz movement of the 1940s, which did exactly the same thing and was led almost entirely by black musicians? And of course, in the European tradition, "classical" composers have been doing this for centuries.

Sandra, it's apparent you haven't been at an "indie-rock" show for many years, probably since before 2000. People move and dance a lot at shows these days. Go see Matt and Kim, or Ponytail, or Vivian Girls or any number of other bands. Things have changed since you were young.

Did The Beatles destroy Rock and Roll? Ask a musician, not a postmodern music critic.

The women who point out The Beatles took the sex out their version of rock n roll, are only partially right. I DJ weddings, and early Beatles still fill the floor. So something is there. Where I find the analysis has credence is in Lennon's wise ass cynicism toward the rock songs of the day. When he sings, say, Twist And Shout, he's letting us know sex isn't about love, it's about getting laid ( I'm not referring to the lyrics, I'm talking about his swaggering tone ). Once you strip a song of any pretense of romance it becomes the domain of guys.

Jack from Brooklyn, I COMPLETELY agree with you about the indie rock scene--that's why I stopped listening to it. At a concert, there's nothing worse than a bunch of upper-class white kids who went to Vassar stare at a band with their arms crossed.

People who automatically correlate rhythm/ polyrhythm in music with sex probably have no rhythm and can't dance...Polyrhythm and the blue note stimulate the viscera, but not necessarily the groin.

They should've been embarrassed of "Yesterday"--that muzak is what gives birth to the INSANE "accusation" that the Beatles' music was sexless and for "teenaged girls"--Music doesn't have to be raunchy to make you feel amorous & moved to rock out, sing-along and move!

Love songs aren't "sexy?" The Fab 4 made some of the most moving, effective love songs ever.

We live in a world with MANY different kinds of music. By focusing on the dichotomy of black american music and white interpretations of this music you miss the point. By integrating many new and different influences from European classical to Indian music Pop Music was only improved. When will Americans learn to look beyond their own history and racial dramas and try to fit everything into this jingoistic mold. Get beyond yourselfs please.

popular shmopular.

I knew someone who thought the beatles were just an overrated candy apple rock band. so what? if the author thinks he's writing music history properly, I congratulate him on how pleased he is w/himself.

Anyone writing about the beatles should probly check the shelves to see if they're writing anything new. There is so much music out there that is far more interesting and unsung... I mean, please... perhaps more of this would be a bit more worthwhile to study, uncover, etc.

popular shmopular.

I knew someone who thought the beatles were just an overrated candy apple rock band. so what?

if the author thinks he's writing music history properly, I congratulate him on how pleased he is w/himself.

Anyone writing about the beatles should probly check the shelves to see if they're writing anything new.

There is so much music out there that is far more interesting and unsung... I mean, please... perhaps more of this would be a bit more worthwhile to study, uncover, etc.

Nothing new under the sun. This is the history of all western music. Bach abstracted dance forms in his suites for solo instruments. Mozart wrote minuets, etc and so on to the Beatles and beyond.
Composers take dance music and abstract it for whatever reason.

2 points:
A) The Beatles evolution from Rock'n' Roll to 'Rock' was as much a function of their discovery by the Intellegentsia when Sgt Pepper came out as by their musical evolution.

B) The evolution of Rock 'n' Roll to rock was paralleled by the earlier evolution of Jazz fron Swing to Be-Bop, when it to went from the dance floor to the concert hall and academy.

As anyone that has attended a dance party knows, that women are the driving force of dancing. The more women at a dance party, the better the party (for both men AND women).

The interesting thing about the Beatles and other contemporaries like the Yardbirds and Rolling Stones is that they were initially almost exclusively cover bands. They would play songs by African American rock and rollers and ultimately through a process of personal growth and unprecedented monetary success for the genre, evolved rock and roll. I wouldn't say they destroyed it. Complicated it, definitely.

Is there an analogy between art rock and be bop? You can't dance to either of them and they were both considered more sophisticated.

Elijah is a self hating white guy.

Maybe this is why in the age-old debate between the Beatles and the Stones, I prefer the Stones--they kept the black influence. I like the Beatles too but consider them "cerebral pop" (for the head up). The Stones are pure loin-shaking rock & roll (for the waist down).

That being said, I think there is room under the rock umbrella for both types--serious and arty, and fun and decadent.

to continue

Rock Music continues to evolve in every embodiment one can imagine.

its Record Companies and Radio Companies that almost killed RockNRoll

but the Internet has set it free.

I would be interested to know if the author has any musicological background to his argument? Does the book examine in detail the elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color, form, genre, etc. that help define the pinnacles of rock and roll and the ways that the Beatles transformed these elements or imitated them? Or is the book strictly a popular culture/historical perspective looking at changes in the industry and the audience?

Your title is obviously meant to sell books.

You have no thesis.

Like most Baby Boomers you think history ends with you.

Even that isnt true

Have you ever heard of a Band called THE ROLLING STONES

they mixed classic blues and soul with classic british rock.

And for many of us, songs like Sympathy for the Devil and and Shes like a Rainbow hold up against any Beatles song.

That's not a provocative title, it's a statement of the obvious. Duh, music evolves, and thank goodness for that. And define your terms: Define "rock & roll."

Man, this would've made one hell of a Smackdown.

the beatles didn't kill rock so much as expand it into something different--much the way miles davis and others changed the idea of jazz.

frankly, led zeppelin killed rock--or at least killed any remaining interest i had in rock at that time.

The Beatles did to rock and roll what we in the art industry call "dumbing it down" - they made the music more palatable for the every day person

As a Beatles fan, I see a sharp difference btw rock and rock 'n' roll. I am currently putting together a dance playlist for a friend's 50th birthday and I find virtually nothing in my CD collection that is danceable.

I'm buying dozens of rock compliations on Ebay!

The Fifth Beatle--and the most unsung--is George Martin, their producer. George Martin is the one who "really" created the Beatles' sound.

Need proof: listen to John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's solo work. Their post-Beatles work without George Martin on the mixing board is mediocre at best.

Fabian? Dion? Anka? Weren't these the names on the charts pre-Beatles?

Let's face the sad reality of the time, the Beatles were "whiter" and less threatening than the African American artists they were ripping off...er I mean appropriating.

“At least they never became a self-parody...” You obviously don't see the comedy in the Beatles later years or even their early years.

The arguments here are very compelling. I don't hate “The Beatles” but their music never struck me as so amazing it deserves the level of worship it gets. The argument that “The Beatles” divided rock and roll into a polarized world really rings true. Heck, you can see the elitist distance in today’s indie rock scene; where it’s politely polarized and very white.

I do think, though, your guest is a little bit of a patronizing white-knight for the so-called authentic black art of rock...Beatles are rock and their experiments were about the potentials of technology not art subjectgating rock in its early form. I do agree they cannot touch Jimi or James.

In those early years there was the competition among the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys and that dynamic drove each group in its own creative direction

Why is it that rock critics constantly criticize anything new and innovative as: "That's not rock and roll".

Is rock and roll supposed to be static and defined so narrowly that it can't change? Does it have to stay stuck in the exact same primitive three chord thrashing it started out as to have legitimacy.

What a narrow-minded viewpoint. If rock and roll is so limited, then thank god the Beatles expanded it. Yes, they stopped playing I Want to Hold Your Hand over and over again. If they didn't, no one would remember them for much of anything.

It starts earlier than Jazz ... by the same token you can say Irving Berlin destroyed black Ragtime when he wrote "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911!

Like the beatles, I think Brian Ferry is responsible for the re-indulgence of rock we see now: long winded, so-called 'intellectual', sexy sounds for arts-sake, which is fine but now we end with the less capable musicians of today like yeah,yeah,yeahs, the killers, & my personal least favorite the kills. They think it's ok because they've added dance beats to their songs.

Wouldn't it be farer to say they brought rock to pop and created art out of that fusion? At least they never became a self-parody- isn't late Elvis guilty of killing Elvis, the King of Rock?