I had the fortune last Friday of watching one of the videos of the Beatles Anthology. Okay it was in German, but that fact didn’t detract from the great stories and their wonderful songs. Watching normal school-kids metamorphose into masterful performers and song-writers was a treat.

As a chaser I subsequently watched the first half of a documentary about the Rolling Stones. They started their career about two years after the Beatles. I dig some of their songs, especially their work from the 1970s, about 10-15 years into their career. What really pissed me off in this documentary was the insistence of reporters to ask Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, “Do you think the Rolling Stones are better than the Beatles?”. And that in the year 1965. This isn’t comparing apples with oranges, this provocative journalism attempts to compare apples with rat-turds. Top this nugget of audacity witht the fact that the Stones only played cover songs for the first two years of their career, even playing covers on their first tour of America, and you find that the Stones were simply posers, trying to look scary and provocative on the stage but having no core, substance or character to back it up. I didn’t have the perserverance to watch further in their documentary, and although I am sure that it does get better, especially as soon as they start writing songs, it was too devastating watching befuddled “music journalists” compare apples with turds to continue.

I have once heard that Oasis have proclaimed themselves “better than the Beatles”. I don’t have the heart to look up that video or link, as I still enjoy some Oasis tunes.

Why were the Beatles able to focus so much career into so little time? Why were they already writing songs and pushing boundaries only two years into their career? I think my buddy Nick has hit the nail on the head with this post:
http://www.nickpagan.com/blog/124/the-beatles-time-secret/