The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Read In Print

Kind of reminds me of an a2k question a few years ago. Someone wanted to know if Grisham could be considered to be in the same class as Steinbeck and Hemmingway.

I would assign the Beatles something like the same relative importance as Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.

Hey, I see by the voting that I made a good decision in making most recent posts the priority, instead of the vote ranking. Too bad that five people won't see my pearls of wisdom addition because the thread doesn't exist for them.

Pardon the off topic digression.

That's a good comparison as far as social change... but not artistry IMO. Elvis and Bill Haley had an infinitesimal body of work compared to the Beatles, and by that I mean art they personally created. Elvis was a great singer but not a songwriter.... and those movies....well.... at least the Beatles quit after 2....:0)

Social change doesn't quite get it. I was thinking more of change of musical styles. Imagine listening to Sinatra or Doris Day most of your life, and suddenly;

One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock. My god, it was like suddenly being able to breathe again.

Well, yeah. Most of the later movies were horrible. You missed King Creole and Stay Away Joe*, though. They were serious movies, and the acting was way better than you'd think if all you saw were the more recent attempts.

*Stay Away Joe might have been the title of the book it was based on, but the impressions you get of the Rez are as close as anything you'll see, except Tony Hillerman.

King Creole was based on the book a stone For Danny Fisher... I never heard of Stay Away Joe... and I was a big Elvis fan pre service....

what made Haley and Elvis a phenonemon IMO was just the music industry stealing "nigger music" so that whites would listen to it and they could make money.... every early hit those guys had already been recorded and played on "race stations"...Big Mama Thorton, Little Richard etc..... it was all about money.... as usual. Bloodless men in suits... "art for art's sake....money for God's sake"....

hm, i'm rather intrigued that the new a2k allows the n-word, at least in quotes--not that i'm objecting to its use in this context. i agree with you in general, but Rock Around the Clock was an early hit for Bill Haley, and written by one Max C. Freedman, who may have been black for all I know, but was not a staple of "race stations" as far as i know.

haven't read the article in full, but it does have a point, since it compares Madonna to the Beatles' "influence on pop music" so Beatles can still have a bigger influence on culture overall while Madonna gets the nod in the more limited arena of pop music.

I don't really think you can mention Bill Haley in the same breath as Elvis and certainly not The Beatles or even Madonna. What did he do besides rock around the clock that stayed in the American consciousness? The history of American Pop is smothered in one hit wonders.

see you later alligator was fairly big hit, as well as his cover of shake, rattle, and roll, so one-hit wonder's not fair, but yes Haley's a few notches below Elvis & the Beatles.

incidentally, you did mention Elvis and Haley in the same breath when you wrote, "what made Haley and Elvis a phenonemon IMO" but maybe that was a typo.

Yeah you're right there... but I still consider Haley small potatoes compared to others...

You're correct. Madonna is a good composer and performer, but come on. The Beatles had an almost superhuman compositional ability and were superb performers.