Nerd Pride Radio

I think my first nerd obsession was The Beatles. So I'm representing here.

People talk often about "what if" The Beatles kept going. What would they sound like. Would they have started swearing in their songs? Maybe. Would they go disco? Of course!

Lately I've been thinking about "what if" The Beatles broke up earlier. How'd we consider them if they stopped after 1, 4, 6 albums?

I think their legacy would be okay if they just did "Please Please Me". There's a bunch of bands that got by on one great album. I think people would admire their songcraft.

If they ended after "A Hard Days Night", one that'd be crazy, but ending on a great pop album and a great movie too. Lennon/McCartney would be considered like Goffin/King, great songwriters who were perfect for their era.

If The Beatles stopped with "Help!" it would now be considered one of the greatest albums ever. I mean it begins with one of the best pop emo songs and ends with with anyone-else's-pinnacle "Yesterday". People talk of how apt it was that The Beatles ended with "The End", but ending with "Yesterday" would be equally potent. A lament of what could have been.

They could have ended with Rubber Soul, Revolver, or Sgt. Peppers, with their stamps on popular music were pretty much set. You can debate that "The White Album" and "Abbey Road" were not giant leaps for music, and more inspired by other artists (like "The Band") that being the lead inspiration themselves.

I still maintain that Abbey Road is the closest to a perfect album that will ever be produced.

Not that this is an especially original argument by any means, but I think that the influence that The Beach Boys had on The Beatles is often understated.

There's a zero percent chance in my opinion that Sgt. Peppers ever gets made in any form that we would recognize it today if Pet Sounds doesn't get made the previous year.

They obviously were influenced greatly by many different groups and genres, but that one particularly stands out to me.