just wanted to bump this up because it got buried and I really wanted Bad Tempered Clavier to read it
No doubt their creative output is deserving of the attention it has received: interesting? Yes. Imaginitive? Yes. Innovative? Well . . . to a point. I'm not saying that they didn't have a hand in pushing things forward culturally or technologically - but I think in essence their music - i.e. notes/scales/modes - though lovely and all that, was in no way ground-breaking. By that I mean something that completely changes the way we use and think about tones, melody, harmony, rhythm and so on.
The evolution and development of counterpoint is an example of a radical change in music. Octopus's Garden is not.
I would whole heartedly disagree
not many pop rock bands were using the chords and chord structures the Beatles were using in the 1960s
it may sound like the Beatles play this juvenile type of music to your ears because they are absolute song crafters
but the use of odd diminished and augmented chords, and they way they are compiled in Beatles songs would not support your theory, their songs are quite complex actually. not in structure or time signature....but definitely in chord patterns and the way they would stack vocals on top to complete these chords
sure you could pick up a guitar and get away with playing a Beatles song with some G C D stuff.....but if you were to play the actual chords on the records you would find that its quite challenging and they they were indeed "players"
I challenge you to tell me what the chord is that opens "Hard Days Night"
a quick example using of one of their more simple poppy tunes
Consider the song She Loves You.
This song ends very famously on a sixth chord. It's an exciting, distinctive sound and an essential part of the hit song.
Yet on the recording no-one actually PLAYS the G6 chord. The all-important note 'E' occurs only in the vocal as sung by Paul.
Thus, when charting this piece under the guise of 'complete harmony' the chord would be written as it SOUNDS, that is G6.
In the same song there is the line:
Cm D7 G
With a love like that you know you should be glad
The non-diatonic Cm chord is distinctive in itself but the vocals provide even further colour producing a sound quite exotic for a 1963 pop song. John's lower vocal adds the note 'A' to the Cm chord and the bluesy 'Bb' to the D7 chord.
Since this part is so distinctive it would be written in a 'complete harmony' chart as follows.
Cm6 D7aug D7 G
With a love like that you know you should be glad
This gives a clearer indication of why the music SOUNDS like it does.
not a whole lot of that happening in 1960s pop music
so yes indeed the Beatles
radically changed the very face of rock/pop songwriting as we know it by doing what I just described