The Beatles Are Overrated: Using Facts, Evidence, and Logic to Debunk This Contrarian Take

I’ve long since deleted my Twitter, but that sort of forum keeps drawing me back in like a vacuum or the undertow pulling you into the ocean. Like Twitter, Threads is full of all sorts of takes. Some good, some bad, some incredibly stupid, and some hipster-ass contrarian “I’m not like everybody else” takes.

Since my life revolves around talking about music, the algorithm serves me a lot of music takes and I’ve seen the tired “Elvis is overrated” and “The Beatles are overrated” clichéd contrarian takes. It’s tiring. I get so annoyed, but I’m going to take that annoyance and channel that into something positive and constructive and writing is a great outlet for that.

I’m more of an expert on 60s music so I won’t be addressing the Elvis is overrated take, but I will be addressing “The Beatles are overrated” take. After all, they were my “gateway band”, that’s how I got into classic rock. I’m not going to get all emotional and say “you’re a stupid head” for believing this or talk about how great they are in my opinion. Different people have different tastes in music and that’s okay! What I will be focusing on instead is quality, influence, historical context, impact, and numbers.

I’m going to be using facts, reasoning, evidence, and logic. I’m going to think like a scientist or a mathematician (despite these being weak points in my schooling). We’re taking MatPat’s Theorist approach in this debate. This approach will make it harder for contrarians to argue with. They can call me a sycophant all day, but you can’t argue with facts and evidence.

There are many points to back up why The Beatles are the greatest classic rock band of all time and I’ll go through them. I’m a classic rock historian who has been writing this blog for over a decade and I’ve been into classic rock for more than half my life so you can be assured that I’m well-versed in classic rock history and understanding the historical context, even though I was born 30 years after the release of A Hard Day’s Night.

Feel free to bookmark this page and share it with anyone in your life who pooh-poohs The Beatles or any contrarians on the internet who want to argue. I’m gonna keep it short and sweet and stick to five points.

1. The Beatles had the most consistently good discography of any rock band

Okay, this one’s more subjective, but hear me out. Every classic rock band has had a flop album, except for The Beatles. No rock band in my opinion has had as consistently as good a discography as The Beatles. Pink Floyd, The Who, and Led Zeppelin come close, but they’ve had their flops. The Beatles never had a flop album. For many of my favourite bands I can tell you where they fell off for me. But The Beatles never fell off for me. Some people will be like but “(insert good, short-lived band here) never released a bad album”! Yeah, but did they release as many albums as The Beatles?

Sure there are albums by other bands I like better than some Beatles albums, but if we’re zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, no rock band comes close in consistency in quality. I put The Beatles on shuffle and I’m way less likely to hit the skip button. There are very few Beatles songs that I would say are bad (I really can’t stand “Revolution 9”). To use an analogy from my travels, I had some incredible meals in Japan and while I wouldn’t say every single one was the best meal I’ve ever had (there’s a lot of contenders), the consistency in quality of the food easily made Japan one of my favourite places I’ve ever been. I never had a bad meal in Japan. I can’t say that about other countries!

The Beatles’ debut Please Please Me is a great debut album. There are very few rock bands that I’d say really started off strong with their debuts: The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Velvet Underground, and The Ramones are ones I can think of. The Beatles had a lot of eras and I know that everyone loves their later stuff, but I really love that early Merseybeat sound they had. I’m not alone in this. There was a rock band that based their sound entirely off their 1963-1964 sound, The Poppees (I interviewed Arthur Alexander from The Poppees and Sorrows). These sound exactly like songs The Beatles would have sang back in the early 60s in the Cavern Club.

The Beatles kept taking things to the next level with each album release. They took chances and it paid dividends. That is what a truly great artist does. A Hard Day’s Night was a big step forward the following year, as the soundtrack to their film of the same name. Then the following year you get Rubber Soul and what an album! And if you thought that was the best yet, they follow up with Revolver and then Sgt Pepper. Giving up on touring was a gutsy move. Long before Kate Bush and Enya eschewed touring, The Beatles retreated into the studio, experimenting, innovating, and pushing the limits of the studio, delivering unforgettable classic albums still adored 60 years later. The last couple of years they gave the fans a double album The Beatles and broke the mould by making the sleeve plain and nondescript. Then you end with Abbey Road and Let It Be, what a perfect way to end the discography. Or not… The Beatles even gave us unreleased posthumous tracks decades later like “Real Love”, “Free As a Bird”, and “Now And Then”.

2. The Beatles were the blueprint and they influenced everyone

Pedantic people will be like, “but The Beatles weren’t the first!” And to that I say does being the first really mean everything? Being the first is not the be-all, end-all. Sure The Beatles weren’t the first rock band. They weren’t the first British rock band to have a #1 in the US (that would be The Tornadoes with “Telstar”). They weren’t the first western rock band to use a sitar in their songs (that would be The Yardbirds with “Heart Full of Soul”). They weren’t the first rock act to have a movie or music video (Elvis was making movies long before The Beatles).

The point is while The Beatles didn’t do it first, they did it early on and they did it well and they were the blueprint for other rock bands. They were writing their own songs from the start when for the most part, bands weren’t doing that! Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building were big in the early 60s and record labels had their songwriting teams. That alone was game changing! Some people think their songs are simple, but there’s beauty and genius in simplicity. These songs inspired a wide variety of musicians, even ones who make music that’s so different from The Beatles, and still to this day.

When The Beatles came out, everyone tried to be like The Beatles. Other musicians were covering The Beatles or writing songs that sounded just like The Beatles. Just some examples from the top of my head of Beatlesque songs not by The Beatles: The Kinks’ “You Still Want Me” (the only Beatles fan in The Kinks was Pete Quaife), The Knickerbockers’ “Lies”, The Warriors’ “You Came Along” (Jon Anderson’s pre-Yes band), “She Was Tall, She Was High” by The Pretty Things (this one’s more like late Beatles), and Klaatu’s “California Jam” (psych Beatles).

The Beatles themselves even played a part in this, writing hits for others. “I Wanna Be Your Man” was first recorded by The Rolling Stones. Paul McCartney wrote “A World Without Love” for Peter & Gordon and “Come And Get It” for Badfinger. Brumbeat group The Applejacks recorded McCartney’s composition “Like Dreamers Do” and it was a hit for them.

Even after The Beatles breakup, there was always a search for the “Next Beatles”. Was it Badfinger? The Bee Gees? Todd Rundgren? Big Star? ELO? Cheap Trick? The Knack? Oasis?

Of course, we can’t forget all the media that was created, specifically inspired by The Beatles. The Beatles are the entire reason we have The Monkees. A group of TV executives saw the success of A Hard Day’s Night and Help! and wanted to create an American answer to The Beatles, cashing in on the craze. Strike while the iron is hot! Not only that, but you have Beatles parody group The Rutles, formed by Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s Neil Innes and Monty Python’s Eric Idle. They were comedy rock before Weird Al. You also have Beatles fan conventions, entire social media accounts and websites dedicated to The Beatles, you can get a degree in Beatles Studies, and there’s the whole Beatles tourism industry with people making pilgrimages to London and Liverpool. To this day you have bands like The Lemon Twigs and Sharp Pins who are heavily influenced by The Beatles. Name another band that has had that level of impact.

3. The Beatles have something for everyone

Some people will claim there’s not a single Beatles song they like and I call BS on that. The Beatles are not a band that had songs that all sound the same. Their albums each have a distinctive sound.

In 6-7 years, The Beatles recorded 12 studio albums (for our purposes we’re talking UK studio albums, but it was 17 in the US) and in that amount of time, they had covered a lot of ground musically. The 60s were really an exciting, dynamic time for music and fast forward a couple of years and the sound is so different. The Beatles changed along with the decade, growing up alongside their fans. Think of songs released in 1960 like Dion’s “The Wanderer” or The Shadows’ “Apache” and songs released in 1969 like The Beatles’ “Come Together” or Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. Those songs were from the same decade? It never ceases to blow my mind.

You like R&B? The Beatles have covered a lot of songs by Black American R&B musicians and always gave them credit and acknowledged their influence. They covered:

• The Top Notes’ “Twist and Shout”
• The Shirelles’ “Baby It’s You”
• The Cookies’ “Chains”
• The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr Postman”
• Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven”
• Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)”
• Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got A Hold On Me”

You like more uptempo, cheerful songs from their early days?

• “I Saw Her Standing There”
• “Please Please Me”
• “All My Loving”
• “A Hard Day’s Night”
• “Can’t Buy Me Love”
• “I Want To Hold Your Hand”
• “She Loves You”

You want something slow and beautiful?

• “And I Love Her”
• “In My Life”
• “Blackbird” (love the acoustic guitar)
• “Here Comes The Sun”
• “Let It Be”

You want sad, moody songs?

• “Don’t Bother Me”
• “No Reply”
• “I’m A Loser”
• “Eleanor Rigby”
• “For No One”
• “Yesterday”
• “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

You like jangly guitars?

• “You Can’t Do That”
• “If I Needed Someone”
• “Nowhere Man”
• “Ticket To Ride”
• “And Your Bird Can Sing”

You like fuzzy guitar?

• “Think For Yourself”
• “Taxman”
• “Fixing A Hole”
• “Revolution”
• “Helter Skelter”

You want something psychedelic?

• “Tomorrow Never Knows”
• “She Said She Said”
• “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”
• “Strawberry Fields Forever”
• “Blue Jay Way”
• “I Am The Walrus”
• “It’s All Too Much”

You want World Music influences?

• “I Call Your Name” (check out the ska rhythm at 1:10 in)
• “Norwegian Wood” (sitar)
• “Love You To” (even more Indian influences)
• “Within You Without You” (Indian influences)
• “The Inner Light” (Indian influences)
• “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” (reggae/ska)

The Beatles are a great go-to band to listen to when you’ve got a group of friends and want to pick something everyone will like. They’re also the greatest at making tuneful songs that you can easily sing along to and are memorable and get stuck in your head in the best possible way.

4. The Beatles’ chart success in the 60s is unparalleled

This is the most stats-nerdy point here and it’s the hardest one to argue with. A while back, I wrote a blog post about every single #1 performed by black artists and in that post I made some notes about trends that I noticed. One of the big ones was of course, the British Invasion. A little excerpt from that post:

“By 1964, you saw a takeover from the British Invasion, but Motown was a powerhouse during this time and you saw The Supremes show up over and over again as well as other acts like the Temptations and Four Tops. Generally speaking, don’t be an American rock band in the early 60s hoping to make it. There’s a little thing called The British Invasion coming and it’s incredible how British Invasion acts took over the charts in 1964 and 1965. I was expecting the British Invasion to be dominant for longer, but I guess that’s my bias speaking and I prefer the British side of music in the 60s to the American side of music in the 60s. It wasn’t until 1966 that we finally see a lot more American rock bands making it big, but this time the American acts were new names.”

Here are some key statistics of The Beatles chart success. If you’re a nerd who loves numbers and statistics, you’ll love this!

According to Official Charts, the equivalent of Billboard or Cashbox for the UK, The Beatles got:

• 18 #1 singles
• 15 #1 albums
• 29 Top 10s
• 39 Top 40s
• 70 weeks at #1
• 194 weeks in the Top 10
• 373 weeks in the Top 40

According to Billboard, The Beatles set many records:

• 20 #1 hits
• 6 #1s in 1964 alone!
• 59 total weeks at #1
• 2 consecutive self replacements at #1: “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to “She Loves You” to “Can’t Buy Me Love”
• 29 Top 5 hits (not a record, but will discuss this in the following point)
• 35 Top 10 hits (the most of any band)
• 10 Top 5s in 1964 alone!
• Only artist to ever simultaneously claim the top 2 spots on both the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Charts and Hot 200 Albums Charts
• 19 #1 albums
• 132 weeks at #1 on the albums charts
• Only act to get a new #1 album for 7 straight years

And on top of all of that, they have the most album sales at over half a billion!

5. The Beatles did all of this in about 6-7 years, without social media, in a less globalised world, during a time when pop music was hyper-competitive.

This point here brings all of the above together and only amplifies how significant these achievements are. Whereas the last point was more of a stats lesson, this point is more of a history lesson. Sure, some artists have broken The Beatles’ records, like Drake and Taylor Swift, but they took more time to do it. Imagine doing all of this in a time period of 6-7 years. Not only that, but without the benefit of social media, which helps you connect with fans like never before. Fandoms of the past had zines and fan clubs, but online there are virtual versions of that and more! Fanbases on the internet do wonders for publicity. Think of the BTS Army or the Swifties, they do free advertising for their faves for the love of it.

If that’s not enough, keep in mind that the world 60 years ago was so different. The world population was less than half of today’s! The world was not nearly as globalised then as it is now. Intercontinental flights (scratch that, flights in general) back then were really expensive, only for celebrities and rich people. Though overseas flights were out of reach to many, The Beatles’ influence still reached countries that they’d never stepped foot in and every country had their Beatles copycats. Even just looking at the charts, there were local charts back in the 60s, like cities and regions in the US would have their regional charts. My dad and his brothers would go to the record store as kids every Friday afternoon after school like clockwork to check out the latest WLS charts and buy the singles. Because the concentration of media ownership wasn’t like today there was much more variety in what you’d hear on the radio. Because there was no cable TV back then, people were much more unified in enjoying pop culture, which is why record-setting most watched TV broadcasts were from ages ago and you’ll never get that again because of the shift to streaming and on-demand entertainment options. Does anyone listen to the radio anymore? Maybe in the car! People consume media way differently now! People aren’t buying albums as much as they used to. Everything’s switched to streaming and so charts had to adapt.

When you think of popular music of the 1960s, there’s a lot of good stuff. The competition was incredibly tough. The Beatles were competing with so many other groups for the top spot. On the British side you had The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Hollies, The Animals, The Small Faces, The Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, The Zombies, Herman’s Hermits, Donovan, The Move, and many more. On the American side you had The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Byrds, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix (well, the Experience were British), The Monkees, The Mamas & The Papas, Jefferson Airplane, The Association, The Turtles, Sly & The Family Stone, and many others! Even with so much competition, The Beatles claimed the top spot more than their contemporaries and more than those who came after them.

The most famous creative “rivalries” were Beatles vs Beach Boys and Beatles vs Stones, and to some extent Beatles vs Who. This competition pushed each of these great bands to be better and take their music to the next level. You can see how The Beatles made Rubber Soul, The Beach Boys responded with Pet Sounds, and The Beatles responded with Sgt Pepper. The Beatles were strong in albums and singles, The Stones were strong as a live band and had an edgy, stylish rock and roll look, and The Who outshone The Stones at the Rock and Roll Circus. The Beatles and Who were exploring concept albums and more complex rock with sequences with Sgt Pepper and the medley on Abbey Road and “A Quick One While He’s Away”, The Who Sell Out and Tommy. But there were other groups exploring this too like Nirvana with The Story of Simon Simopath and The Pretty Things with SF Sorrow. The Who and The Beatles competed for heaviest song with “I Can See For Miles” and “Helter Skelter”, and we all know who won that battle, but this paved the way for groups like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep who would make rock and roll even heavier. These bands were all pushing each other to be better. I think the tough competition is what makes 60s rock music so great.

In Conclusion… The Beatles are GOATed

I think it’s safe to say that The Beatles are one the greatest rock band of all time and are absolutely not overrated. While their career was so short, it was so prolific and they broke the mould and paved the way for generations of not only rock and pop musicians, but musicians as a whole. They weren’t afraid to innovate and take chances. There is no substitute. There will never be another band like The Beatles. They are true one in a lifetime talents and what a privilege it is to hear their music. I’d love to go in a time machine and travel to different eras in the past to show them The Beatles.

Say The Beatles are overrated one more time… I dare you!

In this house we love and respect The Beatles!

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