>Now, if they can figure out how a boy band that started out with a following of veritable teenyboppers wound up receiving near-universal adoration, I'll be really impressed.
Or you could, you know, buy one of the tens of books in the history of the Beatles, the sixties music scene, and their contribution to it. Or ask any musician you consider serious (a jazz guy perhaps?) for the importance of their music.
>This is a sincere request: can someone tell me why I should care about this?
It's a social bookmarking site. The other users cared enough about this to have it upvoted. You do not "have to" care about it. That's not how social bookmarking works.
>If the homeless guy on the corner–sorry, make that two homeless guys, with one on the piano to get that extra bit of dissonance–had been first to play this as people walked by, I can't imagine it would have amounted in much interest, appreciation, acclaim.
If those homeless guys managed afterwards to write several fabulous records and have a big cultural influence on a whole era, then people would be interested in that initial sound too.
In the way people are interested in anecdotes from the early UNIX days of which they could not care less if they happened to some random programmer in the 90s.
Books: Time seems unrelenting enough that I'm not interested in reading tens of books about bands whose music I don't already love. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
I'm related to a serious (professional and quite successful at it) musician, with an incredibly solid background in jazz, and he can't explain why he's so head-over-heels for the Beatles. He's tried, to no end, but it usually goes along the lines of, "they were just so...perfect. Every sound, every little thing, they just had something that nobody else has." Plus all the standard stuff of, "they're incredibly influential!", which thing I don't deny, though I don't find it sufficiently satisfying a response, either. I don't mean to trivialize influence, but influence isn't, by definition, inherently good. For all I know, we'd have better music now if it weren't for them. (The argument for that is easier than it might be for some other influential songwriters, but getting into that isn't my intent.)
Social bookmarking: I asked why I "should," not why I "have to." Important distinction. Mine was an invitation for smart people (which tend to be in longer supply on this site than on many others) who tend to have reasoned tastes to try to explain to me why they're fans. Saying the records are "fabulous" is fine, but: why? Say it's wholly a matter of taste, and I'm OK with that, but then I don't understand why so many Beatles fan act like I'm the antichrist for not being madly in love with their music. It happens pretty often that, in this pop culture, someone expects me to love some Beatles song/Cirque show/something as much as they do, and upon the discovery that I don't, they usually presume that I'm some kind of insane. Which seems odd, if it's all just a matter of taste. But if it isn't, I'd like reasoned answers (and this thread is not without some good contributions).
Or you could, you know, buy one of the tens of books in the history of the Beatles, the sixties music scene, and their contribution to it. Or ask any musician you consider serious (a jazz guy perhaps?) for the importance of their music.
>This is a sincere request: can someone tell me why I should care about this?
It's a social bookmarking site. The other users cared enough about this to have it upvoted. You do not "have to" care about it. That's not how social bookmarking works.
>If the homeless guy on the corner–sorry, make that two homeless guys, with one on the piano to get that extra bit of dissonance–had been first to play this as people walked by, I can't imagine it would have amounted in much interest, appreciation, acclaim.
If those homeless guys managed afterwards to write several fabulous records and have a big cultural influence on a whole era, then people would be interested in that initial sound too.
In the way people are interested in anecdotes from the early UNIX days of which they could not care less if they happened to some random programmer in the 90s.