controversial opinion: anyone think that the beatles

[traininthedistance]

Hard Day's Night is the only pre-Rubber Soul album that actually is a cohesive album, boasting practically no filler and distilled fun pop rock. That's no slight against the band - who were recording albums at a ridiculously fast pace, awkwardly fitting recordings in between constant tours, films, interviews and god knows what else EMI could milk from their most lucrative cash cows. Even so, we still have some great material (mainly Lennon's) from this period - I defy anyone not to like Twist and Shout . Oh yeah, and Yesterday is still as lovely as ever.

Y'know, I actually don't particularly like "Twist and Shout", and I think that Help is, if not totally consistent from end-to-end, strong enough to warrant mention along with Hard Day's Night.  But this is a pretty fair assessment overall.

Isn't it fairly universally agreed that The Beatles only became a great band with Rubber Soul?

It's not universally agreed... but it's something I'll agree with at least.  Early Beatles can be fun at times, they're not "garbage" certainly.  But they do absolutely pale in comparison to what they were able to do once they stopped touring, headed into the studio, and self-consciously tried (with the help of George Martin of course) to expand their boundaries.

...

Another interesting point to keep in mind: when you say first five albums, do you mean the US or the UK versions?  Their record label would routinely slice, dice, and repackage their tracks for maximum commercial impact/pushing out more product, which should say everything that needs to be said about the artistic status of their early albums qua albums, as compared to their later ones.

[traininthedistance]

The Beatles only have a couple good songs anyway, and they're all from the later albums.

So says the most blatent worshipper of hipster music scenes who is far too alternative to enjoy pop, and consequently listens to utter drek.

No I'm not exactly a fan of Ke$ha or Justin Bieber.

But seriously this is "hipster dreck"? (Last band I saw, and saw them twice, once in a suburb.)

Yes, actually, that's about the definition of hipster. I can picture a crowd full of dudes with their ironic beards (neckbeards or otherwise) and wearing knit-wool caps in August. Though not total drek at least I'll grant.

But hipster? Yeah, the fact you pointed out you once saw them "in a suburb" speaks volumes.

I'm reasonably confident that your typical hipster would rather listen to the Beatles than... whatever it is that BRTD listens to.  They might be affected and pretentious but they're not deaf.

Also, the best Beatles album was Magical Mystery Tour. (Well, maybe the best album as a cohesive whole was Abbey Road but MMT has the best songs.)  And I'm honestly not sure whether holding this opinion makes me a hipster or a not-hipster.  Lean not?

[traininthedistance]

Now except for Neshamah and early mewithoutYou, none of those bands ever go over a 7 on TV Tropes Rock and Metal Hardness scale (for those unfamiliar with it, a 7 is about where the median Nirvana song would sit.) I suppose there's The Hated's early stuff but hardly anyone listens to that including myself. Rainer Maria, The Appleseed Cast and Mineral probably don't ever go above even a 5, meaning the Beatles have "harder" songs than they do.

That's not what I meant when I said "deaf". 

The fact you care a good goddam about whether a show is played in a suburb or not theroughly demonstrates just how much you are the voice of scene-obsessed hipsters valuing genre identification over such crass denomination as melody, tune and beat.

Uh, BRTD is nothing but the voice of himself, and maybe his sub-sub-sub-subculture.  Certainly not the voice of all "scene-obsessed hipsters"- which I don't even know what you exactly are trying to say with that phrase but I'm pretty sure the world of hipsterdom is both far, far wider than BRTD's particular scene, and mostly includes people with both far different and far better taste in music than him.

I actually don't think it's that strange to care about where a show is played, though.  If one of your favorite musical acts was performing somewhere outside of your comfort zone or in an atypical place for them, I'm sure you'd make a note of it.  I mean, you wouldn't obsess about it on Atlas, but once again: that's just BRTD being BRTD, and doesn't prove anything about anyone or anything else.