Reddit mentions of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music

And yet, the Beatles helped enable that!

This book goes into how they helped embolden bands to exclusively play their own music.

I love the Beatles but also love honest, intelligent criticisms of their work (which are hard to find!). That’s why my favorite book on them is Ian MacDonald’s [Revolution In The Head](Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805042458/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_L3zMAbX693B63), it’s not afraid to say certain (popular) Beatles’ songs are failures in execution or just aren’t that interesting. Elijah Wald’s [How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music](How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music https://www.amazon.com/dp/019975697X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_C6zMAbZJ462H3) advances a different but equally compelling argument against band (it’s not as damning as the title makes it seem)

Haha - I knew someone would ask. It's a difficult question.

The first thing to keep in mind is that it seems humans naturally have a tendency to want to put things into order. Even things that really can't be ordered in any easy fashion, which I think includes music for sure.

The second thing to keep in mind is that we can't determine if a band is "rock" or "country" or "blues" or "pop" until we can define those terms, and that's really hard to do in a lot of cases. What makes this so difficult is that musicians tend not to follow any sort of strict rules when it comes to their. If you try to define blues by using they typical 12 bar shuffle, I IV V chord progression, you will leave out a lot of blues artists, both past and present. Not to mention, that same 12 bar shuffle, I IV V chord progression is used in a lot of rock music.

On top of that, there is a ton of crossover between musical genres, and really the genres were kind of arbitrary. Rock and Roll was basically faster blues music. Jazz was basically ragtime. Country has always been a blend of blues and folk. Blues was even called Race Music at one point, and Country was Hillbilly Music.

The Beatles certainly had a lot of crossover. When I think of their famous Shea Stadium show, nearly half of their songs were covers of Rock and Roll songs, and of the other half only two of their originals sounded anything like those Rock and Roll songs. (Lennon's Help! for example.) The rest were songs like, "Love Me Do," and "Baby's in Black." Basically, I wouldn't consider the vast majority of their music library "rock" even though they do have a few rockin songs and they did cover some "rock standards" like Twist and Shout. (I mean, the Rolling Stones have a country song on Exile on Main St., but I wouldn't call them country.)

But that's just the music. There is also the attitude. Rock and Roll was first observed in the US. It's not easy to determine who the "first" rocker was, partly because of the way music slowly evolves and partly because most of what we know about the music from the 50's is from what was actually recorded. The first R&R recording was probably Bill Hailey and the Comets' Rock Around the Clock.

The song is a straight 12 bar blues, sped up. And they aren't singing the blues, they are talking about rocking. They are moving around on stage and the people listening are moving, too. They are rockin.

Then, there is the King.

Another 12 bar blues, sped up. (I promise, not all R&R songs follow that structure, I just like to point out how rock evolved from the blues.) But, look at them rock. They're moving. They're rockin!

Here is Mr. Carl Perkins. and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard and last but not least Chuck Berry

Those were the guys who John Lennon, in particular, wanted to be. Before they were The Beatles, they were The Quarrymen. Check out the photos. Dressed like Bill Hailey, hair like Elvis. These dudes want to rock!

Eventually, though, they became The Beatles. And, even though they rocked their sets up with some covers or a couple speedy originals, for the most part they were this:

• Love Me Do
  
• Yesterday
  
• Baby's in Black
  
• Ticket to Ride
  
  Some of the songs they played back in the early part of the sixties, you can almost feel that they wanted to really rock out on them, and they almost always finish a set with a really rockin song, but the bulk of their music is that kind of bubbly, love me do kind of thing.
  
  Eventually, they stopped touring and focused on doing only recordings. That is kind of a split of their music library in my mind. They transformed when they focused on recording. They were still doing a ton of pop songs, but I think that was the point where The Beatles really came up with some interesting stuff - and it certainly changed and influence rock music heavily.
  
  And while they were doing their thing, rock was doing this:
  
  
• Stones
  
• Cream
  
• Doors
  
• Who
  
• Hendrix
  
• Kinks
  
  You'll notice that most of those bands are English, and a couple weren't famous until after The Beatles quit touring. It's imortant to note, Rock and Roll basically died in the US by 1960. Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin, which is not only very weird but it also caused enough controversy to end his career. Elvis ended up in the Army in '58. The Big Bopper, Richie Valens, and Buddy Holly all died in the same plane crash in '59. Little Richard quit music in '57, became a preacher. Eventually ballads and surf music took over the charts in the US... Until The Beatles. It turns out, while the US was giving up on R&R, the English were starting to perfect it. (This reminds me of a book I read, by the way, about the early origins of popular music and rock in the US and how The Beatles changed and influenced music called How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll. It's a slow read, but it's a good book.)
  
  The greatest thing The Beatles did, in my mind, is open the way for the "British Invasion." They opened the way for a ton of great music: rock, pop, and other. They were also a major influence on a lot of people. I know a lot of musicians who were children when The Beatles made their American debut, and every one of them cites The Beatles as the reason they picked up a musical instrument. There wasn't many a pop act who didn't sound like The Beatles at the time, or even after they broke up. (The Zombies were around during the same time as The Beatles and sound like them, Elton John has songs that sound eerily similar to John Lennon's solo work of the same period. How many rock guitarists have covered George's While My Guitar Gently Weeps?)
  
  So, were The Beatles rock or pop? It depends on your definition of the genre. But, I can't really define for you what Rock really is. All I can tell you is that I know it when I hear it (And when I feel it.) And so do you, even if your idea of Rock is different than mine. Which is why I don't object to people calling The Beatles rock even if I really don't agree.
  
  Sorry for rambling. I just love Rock and Blues, and love talking about them.
  
  Edit:Formatting error.

but Chuck Berry was still in America and most of his popularity came from American audiences. The Beatles introduction to rock as they came to know it, often referred to at the time as "Skiffle" music, was from black artists from the US who moved to the UK in an attempt to gain popularity. The Stones were a more egregious example of this, but the Beatles weren't innocent either. historically speaking, rock and roll was a significantly less racially mixed affair following the British invasion, and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are often pointed to as the reason for that.

source: What's That Sound? An Introduction to Rock and Its History by John Covach, a textbook for my rock history class

EDIT: if y'all wanna learn more about all this, here is a great book about it

http://www.amazon.com/How-Beatles-Destroyed-Rock-Roll/dp/019975697X