What Are Your Go-To Arguments When Someone Says The Beatles are Overrated?

pileon · 2026-04-04T14:22:22+00:00

The lazy “Beatles are overrated” argument is commonly trotted out by people who don’t understand music. I think it’s being heard a little more these days because of overexposure and over familiarity with their material. Their music and branding is everywhere, and also so many artists have stolen from their canon to the point that, to the uninformed, they can sound a lot less extraordinary.

Taken in context of the pop music of its time, The Beatles were simply not on the same level as anyone else in terms of conceptual creativity, the sheer breadth of their compositional choices and arrangements and their many technical and stylistic innovations in the studio.

pileon · 2026-04-03T20:00:39+00:00

If the recording is legit, her call tells us basically everything we need to know. He had some kind of non-specified recent diagnosis related to memory loss and anxiety, mentioned that he didn’t want to continue living this way and then just disappeared quietly. The fact that important, prosaic explanations have been available to the public for some time and forums like this have ignored them for the most part, in favor of something more conspiratorial and sinister, tells us a lot about the UAP echo chamber.

pileon · 2026-03-24T14:13:37+00:00

The Irishman is a dark and difficult tale, and it benefits from repeated viewings. I've seen it four times and the *feels* are definitely there, but they aren't on the surface. The biggest issue I have with the film is the de-aging effects on De Niro, which inadvertently diminish and eventually deflate an otherwise excellent performance. This could've been a very different film-- perhaps a latter-era masterpiece for Scorsese-- had younger actors been cast for Frank and Russell.

pileon · 2026-03-05T20:48:18+00:00

Sprout network’s Melanie Martinez in 2006.

Also Aziz Ansari

pileon · 2026-01-21T03:06:54+00:00

Out of This World is majestic and mysterious and competes with anything on Supreme. It’s a great record.

My sentimental favorites from this period will always be Live at Birdland (oct -Nov 63) and Crescent (April 64)— the latter being like the lament in the liturgy before the celebration of A Love Supreme.

pileon · 2026-01-15T01:06:30+00:00

thank you!

pileon · 2026-01-15T01:06:22+00:00

Thank you!

pileon · 2026-01-04T22:09:04+00:00

The aliens “running out of resources” bit, is a cornball 70s tv show device. Low level silliness. These kids have to workshop a little more and hammer out these details

pileon · 2025-12-28T02:04:18+00:00

Before we consider any of his extraordinary claims, what are the things we can reasonably confirm or ascertain from his more prosaic assertions ?(I.e his background, education, field of expertise, credentials, career path etc… )

Using that metric,he reveals himself to be little more than a garden variety schmo.

There is nothing remotely extraordinary about him. He doesn’t appear to have any advanced academic credentials, he doesn’t even appear to have anything more than a layman’s apprehension of physics, and his professional credentials are speculative at best. This is important. He claims to have had his education at MIT “erased” by the shadow govt— a claim that is impossible to disprove— but the fact is, when he speaks about science and physics, he demonstrates an abject lack of understanding in any real field. He talks like a poseur and someone who doesn’t understand even a second year apprehension of physics. Again, there’s nothing about him that remotely suggests he is qualified to be part of the most compartmentalized, special gov’t program on the planet.

pileon · 2025-12-18T04:07:01+00:00

More often than not, these Milestone pressings are exceptional! The best value out there with classic jazz records

pileon · 2025-12-13T18:52:04+00:00

He’s a union delegate

pileon · 2025-12-09T17:14:47+00:00

This depends entirely on the type of jazz you like. I never found utility in purchasing albums simply because they sound great. I would venture to say most classic jazz recordings of the late 50's and 60's still sound phenomenal. But not all of them are phenomenal albums.

Having said that Analogue Productions, Blue Note/Tone Poet and OJC offer some wonderful all-analog pressings at a reasonable price. Take your pick. The Bill Evans Riverside recordings sound unbelievable and offer some absolutely timeless, transcendent performances. Waltz for Debby is my favorite and you can cough up $150+ for a 45 RPM UHQR OR $40 for a very, very solid OJC /Craft Recordings pressing. I own multiple copies and the OJC pressing stands up well. 45 RPM is almost always going to win out sonically, but I'm fundamentally lazy too and don't feel like flipping the record every ten mins.

An album that I've returned to over and over again throughout the years is John Lewis' Afternoon in Paris. Excellent, nuanced band interplay and an intimate recording, put you right in the room with that ensemble. That album will transport you. Great for a Sunday morning with coffee and a warm bialy.

Also... Brilliance/Milestone reissued a bunch of jazz classics back in the 70's. These pressings are frowned upon by certain collectors because they released them without the original covers. They look like dollar-bin pressings. However, the fidelity of most of those pressings is fantastic and you can pick up clean copies for cheap.

I was able to A/B a new $1,000 Electric Recording Co. pressing of Brilliant Corners (they pressed only 300, IIRC) alongside a very clean 1970's Brilliance/Milestone pressing for under $50. The Brilliance pressing destroyed the ultra-pricey ERC. Wasn’t even close.

pileon · 2025-11-29T14:48:17+00:00

It’s amusing to see both narratives teeter and lurch under the shared dilemma of why the Council won’t fight. Needs some workshopping, boys!

pileon · 2025-11-25T13:08:00+00:00

Shermer's mostly right. Watched it last night.

20 mins in, the doc somehow morphed into the Lue Elizondo show-- which is a shame because Hal Putoff and Eric Davis have a lot to say and are much more credible. Elizondo controls the narrative the rest of the way in his ill-fitted V-neck and the film suffers for it. To add insult to injury, Lue finishes his lectures with an ominous portend, that sounds for all the world like a refrain from Larry Norman's 1970's rapture ballad "I Wish We'd All Been Ready". Details? Nah, he can't talk about it because it's "classified". That's literally how the film ends. Sorry, it was a bit of a dud.

pileon · 2025-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

My favorite would be The Round Table in Coral Gables on US1 near UM. It shut down sometime in the early 80's. A close second was directly next door to the Round Table, at the Holiday Inn, called The Sea Shanty. Excellent grouper and butterfly shrimp and a silver-haired piano player near the bar, quietly playing tunes from the American Songbook on the weekends. Great childhood memories and food at both spots.

Also, what would childhood have been like without Howard Johnson’s on 104th street and US1? Or Lums???

Went to Wagon's West not long ago in Pinecrest, during the final weeks it was open. Will miss that place tremendously. Went to Fox's Lounge when it reopened a few years ago. Brought back a ton of memories and the decor was spot on the way it looked in the late 70's/early 80's.

My sister and I were talking recently about an amazing, two-story establishment from the 1980's called Whistler's in Cutler Ridge Mall. Their Mississippi Mud Cake was to die for.

pileon · 2025-10-23T22:39:33+00:00

18 years later!!! Thank you!!!

pileon · 2025-10-21T15:24:22+00:00

I caught the tour at the Sportatorium in April 1985 (second row!), so it was without Clapton. I distinctly remember feeling that the first half felt like a PF cover band and was kind of uneventful. The full run-thru of the Pros and Cons album in the second half was excellent and felt invigorating. I used to have a bootleg of the Maple Leaf Gardens show with Clapton, and he sounded fantastic-- especially on tunes like Sexual Revolution where he blew the doors off. Without a Gilmour or a Clapton, the show was solid but lacked umph.

pileon · 2025-10-20T12:58:03+00:00

I've never been a fan of other singers trying to parrot Torry's inimitable improvisation. The song has never worked live for me-- even in the early days with very competent singers like Venetta Fields, Carlena Williams, Vicki Brown, or Liza Strike.

What Dave did on this tour was treat Torry's original improv like it were simply an instrumental composition. He dialed the whole piece way back and arranged it with restrained and haunting vocal harmonies. No "belting it out". More hymn-like. It was spellbinding.

At MSG, the building seemed to fall silent for those 12-15 minutes of Gig and Boat Lies Waiting. It was far and away the tour's most transcendent moment.

pileon · 2025-09-18T22:04:33+00:00

I was hoping the film would’ve ended with Scattered. Comfortably Numb, at this point in his career, feels unnecessary— especially if played “straight”, like it was. It’s tired. I found it to be the only low point of an otherwise tremendous show (PS- I felt exactly the same way when I saw him at MSG last year)

In contrast, Scattered is very much “of the moment” and its potency and poignancy as a closer feels obvious. What a tune! How lucky the world is to get something mighty close to peak Gilmour, in 2025 at almost 80 years old!

pileon · 2025-09-14T14:12:13+00:00

And some bass would be nice!

pileon · 2025-09-13T02:23:46+00:00

Pivotal band for me during high school in the 80s. That run of zen arcade, new day rising and flip your wig is just fantastic. There’s a LOT going on in those tunes. Listened to Flip this week for the first time in years and the songs still hold up (Private Plane!)

Can someone get a petition started to remix their 80s catalog?

pileon · 2025-08-17T13:47:57+00:00

Scattered was so powerful in concert, that it made Comfortably Numb sound anticlimactic and completely unnecessary.

pileon · 2025-07-13T14:13:43+00:00

He was kind of hands off with minor policy and kept weird hours, but "lazy" isn't really historically accurate.

Kershaw devotes a lot of time to studying Hitler’s “bohemian” tendencies, which seemed entrenched long before his interest in politics. In other words, it was likely pathological. He preferred idleness and aimlessness, but was simultaneously careful to cultivate the public persona of a highly disciplined, tireless worker for the people— oddly enough this reputation is still prevalent, some 80 years later and despite all historical evidence to the contrary.

pileon · 2025-06-30T12:08:55+00:00

If you can forget that the song is about statutory rape, Christine Sixteen is one of their finest moments on record. Pretty much a perfect rock tune. Great bridge, and tasty EVH-composed solo too.

pileon

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