Real Beatles Person Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens
I came across this old post and got into a mood all over again. If you don't want to read Hector Diego's fulminations, just go the Harrison song at the end.
Another KTWS RADIO backfiles rant...
Listen up, you pups. Listen to an old dog about the Beatles. I am aware that many youngsters simply appreciate the Beatles yet do not worship them, and that's ok (
perhaps...let me think about that further). But this old dog has something to say about David Bauder's rhetoric. Bauder is the AP Entertainment dude who wrote the recent article on the Smithereen's covers of the Beatles.
I wish I could make a law that requires all commentators on the Beatles to be solid Beatles people, vetted by other solid Beatles people--on pain of banishment to a land of pre-Beatles music only--and then we would see how they like
them apples.
Now let's review Bauder's crime. He writes:
"The Smithereens recently released a complete remake of the
Meet the Beatles album starting, of course, with
I Want to Hold Your Hand. The original may not be the best or most memorable album in rock history, but DiNizio contends that it was the most influential, simply because of what it set in motion."
Bauder cannot bring himself to even agree with DiNizio's fairly modest opinion of
Meet The Beatles, for he writes "DiNizio contends". By Hector Diego's estimation, such rhetoric has already condemned Bauder to the depths of pre-Beatles purgatory (I'll let him out if he learns how to behave; the standard for the post-Beatles era being IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING GREAT ABOUT THE BEATLES, SAY NOTHING AT ALL).
Now, I ask you, what need is there for Bauder to say
Meet the Beatles "may not be the best or most memorable album in rock history"? For if it is neither, it is only because
it is eclipsed by other Beatles' albums--which Bauder fails (quite deliberately, I'm sure) to mention. Certainly, Bauder has other albums beside Beatles albums in mind for the positions of best and most memorable--but he doesn't mention them, probably because he realizes that most geriatrics agree with Hector Diego, not him. Sure, he has never heard of Hector Diego, but he knows I exist. I'm everywhere.
Obviously, Bauder is writing for the youngsters out there, pups that dig but do not deify the Beatles.
AND THAT IS HIS CAPITAL OFFENCE. You know, Socrates was tried, convicted, and executed for misleading the youth of Athens, and Bauder is no Socrates.
Let's go into more detail of Bauder's capital offence (punishable by banishment to pre-Beatles' purgatory, for death is too easy) by parsing his subtle dissing of the Divine Liverpool Four:
"
Meet the Beatles wasn't a collection of hits. Besides
I Want to Hold Your Hand, the best-known songs were
I Saw Her Standing There and
All My Loving. It was filled with moody, minor-key songs written by men barely beyond their teenage years."
Meet the Beatles was not a collection of
radio hits only because the airwaves were already jammed with
other Beatles singles--for one thing
--and because radio stations in those days were so square, so unimaginative, and probably so beholden to economic interests, that they simply did not play songs not released as singles--for another. But these songs were certainly hits to the people that listened to them. One wonders if Bauder has. And why does he mention moody, minor-key songs unless he intends to praise them, which, he does not? Further, what does the age of the Beatles have to do with anything, except to highlight their genius? But let's move on to DiNizio.
"People tend to look at Meet the Beatles as a teenybopper album because they're only looking at it in terms of Beatlemania," he said. "But it's a much different world from that. It's not a bubble gum album at all. It's really a great collection of songs. It's an album. It's meant to be listened to as an album."
Pat DiNizio,
who are these people who look at
Meet The Beatles as a "teenybopper album", meaning, something only a vacuous, uneducated teenager with poor taste would be interested in, like the productions of Britney Spears, for instance? I must have met such fools in my lifetime, but apparently they did not have the nerve to say such a thing to me, because I have never heard it. Pat, you have my unending sympathy, and I can assure you that you need not throw yourself off the Brooklyn Bridge after hearing such blasphemy--just listen to
Meet the Beatles in solitude or in the company of Real Beatles People and you will soon heal.
Now, let's hear a selection from
Meet the Beatles to see whether it qualifies as a "hit" or not. And let's make it a George Harrison composition, instead of something by the show-stealers John and Paul. Harrison was a great composer, not recognized as such by producer George Martin until late in the group's career.
The question I put before you is this: isn't
Don't Bother Me as good as anything in 1963's and 1964's Top Forty, songs like the Four Seasons'
Walk Like A Man, or Little Peggy March's
I Will Follow Him? My point is that everything on
Meet the Beatles would have charted well if marketed as singles.
I must admit--and pups, don't be too annoyed with old Hector--I went looking for a bio on Bauder to see how old he was, for that would explain his ignorance about the Beatles (although, let's be frank, ignorance before the Musical Law is no excuse). However, we must consider another explanation for Bauder's subtle put-downs of the Beatles, a sad fact of life that every Beatles person must sooner or later face in this cruel world.
Bauder could be one of these people who think
the Rolling Stones are the best band ever, and he doesn't have the guts to come right out and say it, so he snipes at the Beatles. The Stones are certainly great, but stay away from such insidious foes of the Beatles, pups, they mean only to take you down the dark pathways of musical ignorance and despair...which ultimately leads to insanity and Britney Spears...
