Thoughts on... The Better Beatles

By Brad Krohe.

Don't set out to raze all shrines, you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity-and the shrines are razed.
-Ayn Rand

Central to all myths is a challenge - a person or persons overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to accomplish the previously impossible. They then become heroes, and because they are heroes they are worshipped by those who are not. A following soon starts. Their exploits are recounted. The tales grow larger. The renown spreads. Converts are won, and the Myth begins to influence and shape world-views. The Myth motivates-it is used to justify, to exclude, to identify. Thus is the gene pool for empires, nations, religions, sects, ideologies, etc. In the Free West, arguably one of the most dominant, pervasive and enduring Myth-driven forces to still impact day to day to lives is that of The Beatles. Placed upon a cultural mantel unequaled by any other musical figure(save maybe Elvis), a kind of Pax Beatlemania is firmly established among the first world nations. John Lennon once said: “Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.” The same can be said for the idolatry of Beatledom. Don’t misread this. The importance and influence of The Beatles to their time remains unparalleled. Their ingenuity and pioneering paved a way. But how long should such celebration last, and to what extent? It is no stretch to say they owe some due, but is deification necessary? When is it appropriate for The Beatles to be placed on the shelf instead of on the pedestal? When will their relevance finally mutate into a footnote instead of The Book? 50 years of music and innovation have occurred since. And still, the Beatles paradigm dominates musician and listener alike, limiting imagination and possibility. It’s an unfortunate symptom that the in the realm of music, those who seek to sustain this glorification have actually diluted it, rendering what was once groundbreaking into something generic and common. In some circles, it’s fashionable to have a rewrite of Revolver as the core of your art. How often have you read reviews that include Beatles-based adjectives? Is this a limitation on the part of the reviewer/critic/listener or the artist? Have such general comparisons ever roped you into a senseless Beatles argument with a wide eyed acolyte who begins their sentences with “Yeah ,but The Beatles..?” Again, no one should discount the contribution of The Beatles. But at some point, the acknowledgement has to be enough so that art can continue on and not be bogged down in the stagnation of yester year. The mystification however obscures such distinction, and the two separate but related issues(that of what was and what is) are fused into one taboo. It’s a notion that has been adopted by scores of people who were not even born when The Beatles were still making albums. Cross someone who was, and the argument always ends with “you weren’t there.” Which always misses the point; the point being we’re here now. Out of this fervor a cultural Temple has been erected, a spot where worship is unceasing, where A Hard Day’s Night is a continuous rite, and the money changers await in the outer courts to sell the faithful yet another photobook, t-shirt, or compilation - successfully erasing any boundary between relic and memorabilia.

It was exactly under this cloud of fanaticism, that four kids from Omaha entered the Temple in
1982. They began to erode away the foundations---not just for the sake of sacrilege, not just to shock or provoke. Their blasphemy was deeper, more subtle. They simply did not believe.

For 12 weeks, the group that called themselves “The Better Beatles” took a Lennon-McCartney songbook and methodically deconstructed some of the most venerated tunes in popular music. What started off as just screwing around with some music while singing Beatles lyrics, turned into a direction for the short lived quartet. Recording 10 songs worth of material, and releasing a single (Penny Lane/I’m Down), they would only play a handful of shows before breaking up. Those 10 songs don’t qualify as 'covers' - they are nothing in the spirit of the original songs. They are the body without the soul. These interpretations carry only a synth, bass, standard percussion, and most notably a dry vocal delivery. No harmonies are heard here, no overdubs or serious production work. Lyrics are retained from the songbook and little else. The resulting work is something more 'accessible' than the No Wave label/comparisons attached to it, but it does bare some relation to those descriptors.

While it would be easy to dismiss The Better Beatles as novelty, their actions run deeper than a bad joke. It’s more along the lines of high satire; ridiculing, to expose truth. What The Better Beatles have done is demystify the cloud of mythos surrounding The Beatles. By taking The Formula and turning it on its head, we realise how often it is used, how much we hear it, and should wonder why that is. In the end, the four kids from Omaha playing 'oldies' parallel four kids from Liverpool who started their career giving treatment to 'oldies.' A kind of philosophical equation is drawn, stating that while the former was certainly not anything more than latter, they were definitely not anything less. In today’s world of 'instant' and 'buzz', perhaps that equation can provide us with a satisfactory answer to the question: When is praise founded on merit or simply driven on by its own impetus?

The Better Beatles - Paperback Writer