What If The Beatles.....

hawk11

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What if The Beatles didn't have the mop top period and their first album was Revolver. Do you think that they would've been as huge as they were back then and still are today or would they be thought as another 60's pop/psychedelic/progressive band?
 

Khor1255

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No. But that depends on the year they came out as well. Now if they came out in 1962 with Revolver I think it would likely have been dismissed by the general public as weird or beatnik crap. But being released when it was would also mean that someone laid the groundwork they did to prepare the general listening public for such sounds. Considering even their bubblegum albums usually had at least one or two hints of 'weirdness' it was The Beatles themselves that largely prepared the public for what they would later go on to do.

They are inexorably tied to their own fate musically so this is a hard question to answer with any detachment.
 

TheSound

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Who knows, but if there had been no pre-Revolver Beatles then they would have only had about a 3 year career. Their massive world-wide popularity was built really on all of those countless #1 hit singles from the early '60s, and the 100's of gigs they played and the TV exposure they got with all the screaming girls at the airports and Ed Sullivan and stuff. Plus, they never toured again after that 1966/Revolver period....and it's unheard of for a band to build any kind of global reputation and popularity without ever appearing/performing in public, so no, if nobody had heard of them before 1966 then in my view they would just have been viewed as an OK studio-session band who lasted about 3 years and who made 4 or 5 brilliant and interesting albums, and did a couple of movies.
 

AboutAGirl

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Definitely not. If they're releasing Revolver at the start of the 60s then The Beatles would have been an obscure but much-praised and influential band, like the Velvet Underground. If they're releasing Revolver in its original year, they'd still be big but I don't think they'd be anywhere near as big. Their popularity would probably be on par with Pink Floyd or The Who.
 

hawk11

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Who knows, but if there had been no pre-Revolver Beatles then they would have only had about a 3 year career. Their massive world-wide popularity was built really on all of those countless #1 hit singles from the early '60s, and the 100's of gigs they played and the TV exposure they got with all the screaming girls at the airports and Ed Sullivan and stuff. Plus, they never toured again after that 1966/Revolver period....and it's unheard of for a band to build any kind of global reputation and popularity without ever appearing/performing in public, so no, if nobody had heard of them before 1966 then in my view they would just have been viewed as an OK studio-session band who lasted about 3 years and who made 4 or 5 brilliant and interesting albums, and did a couple of movies.

Yeah but the main reason they stopped touring was because of the screaming fans during their concerts and all the other lunacy that went on. Though being we don't have the mop top period there would be no reason for them not to perform live and would have to being it would be unthinkable for a band to release 7 studio albums and not go on tour to promote any of them.

Also I should have mentioned that in this hypothetical scenario Revolver would've been released in it's original year. And despite preferring The Beatles post Rubber Soul music I agree that they wouldn't be as big.
 

Khor1255

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The live factor is something I (stupidly) didn't account for. I have to redact a part of my response to say that had live audiences heard this stuff possibly as early as the late 50s they may have started off small but gotten huge. People seemed to be much more willing to accept experimentation back then so while they may have started popularity as a 'musician's band' (totally different that what actually happened) I think general audiences would have warmed up to them rather quickly.

They may have been even bigger than they are today because remember, in the beginning these guys gigged like crazy. This energy and innovation would not have been lost on everybody.
 

Hurdy Gurdy Man

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By the release of "Revolver",the Beatles had amassed a great deal on industry clout.This is when they knew they could afford to experiment and maybe even get away with some things that perhaps an up and comer might not have("Tomorrow Never Knows").Take for example,Velvet Underground's first album,sometimes hailed as maybe one of the 20th century's greatest works of art of any medium yet only heard in certain fringe circles until I think sometime in the 80's.Why?Because the Beatles had previous to "Revolver" written and recorded so much marvelous music,people were willing to give their new sounds a chance and give the benefit of the doubt that it was something worth really listening to and analyzing.The Velvets didn't have a string of top twenty singles before the first LP therefore providing little reason for significant interest.The same thing happened to Arthur Lee and Love who gave us "Forever Changes",one of the most beautiful records ever made."Changes" too was little heard until sometime in the Madonna decade.Ever since then,these "best albums ever" discussions have spurred on major and well deserved curiosity.......
 

METALPRIEST

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I think it was their growth that made them stand out...so I really don't think so.
 

LG

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The Beatles seemed to arrive at a nexus in space time a generational change was taking place from the start of their illustrious career to the time when Revolver came out. The same screaming fans that drove them off the live concert tour circuit were changing with them, growing up and becoming more sophisticated when it came to the contemporary music of the day as you can see by the scale of innovation taking place in the music business back then. Bands were competing/inspiring each other to greater efforts and we were the beneficiaries of that magical time.

I don't know how to answer Hawk's question, it's possible without the instant credibility from their legions of fans of the early years the Beatles wouldn't have become the iconic band they did, and it's also possible that if they released Revolver as their debut album they would have shot to the top as well.

I prefer them from Rubber Soul to Let It Be, I do enjoy their early albums but the later stuff is what I play the most.

I think the strength of their later albums would have insured their success no matter what, goes to something I've always held to be true, "Quality Lasts".
 

Aktivator

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I guess it would matter a bit. However, Revolver has to many great songs, with three great songwriters, especially for 1966 that the Beatles still would be a hit. Plus they would have had to tour (and no screaming girls) who knows that could have changed them into a great live band. I can only imagine them being able to tour in the late sixties.

Would it have been different yes but the Beatles wouldn't have been just another band.
 

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