It was 40 years ago today

I remember watching the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder when I was young. I was still at home, so I'm thinking this was around 1975. I don't remember the guest on this occassion but he was a pop/rock recording artist of some kind. (It might have been Harry Nilsson - if anybody remembers, let me know.) Tom asked this guy what he thought of the Beatles and he responded, "I hate them." He went on say something to the effect of "they ruined pop/rock music." At the time I'm thinking the guy is just crazy or jealous or both. Later in my life though, I developed a theory concerning pop music that sounds a lot like the guy's rant. It goes something like this: Before the Beatles, pop stars were people who looked good and sounded good. One of the reasons they sounded so good was that the songs they chose (or that were chosen for them) were good songs. By that I mean they were constructed well. For my generation these are songs of Goffin and King, Boyce and Hart, Sedaka and Diamond, Mann and Weil etc. There existed a professional industry of matching voice with song. Then the Beatles became hyper-popular and suddenly it wasn't real pop music if you didn't write the song yourself. Artists insisted on doing their own songs and they did and they got away with it. I believe we lost an entire generation of performing artists due to the fact that they weren't also writing. And we lost untold song writers because they didn't have the outlets that they otherwise would have. So, what we're left with is the small number of pop/rock artists who fit this bill. Meaning they are gifted musicians, performers and composers.

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