Music Chat: How Can We Tell That The Beatles Have Become "Classical?"

One piece of evidence suggests that The Beatles no longer belong in the category of "popular music," and that aside from being "classic Rock," they have become "Classical," plain and simple.

[@Mooseman327]

Well, this phenomenon is even more clearly seen in what we call "jazz" music. The music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, among MANY others, was, at the time they were conceived and first recorded, popular music. People would throng to record shops and buy these tunes as soon as they were first released. In fact, record shops used to blast the latest tunes from their shops and into the streets to attract people to come in and buy them. But, today, these popular songs are as far removed from the current consciousness as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven are. Ask anyone under 50 to name ONE Ellington song today and all you'll get back is a blank stare. Many won't even know who Duke Ellington was. But the same people WILL know that Mozart is a long-dead classical composer. Perhaps it will take a viral video advertisement for shampoo or sneakers to revive the name of "Ellington" and put it back into the popular consciousness.

[@allisonandrews4719]

@@Mooseman327 Sorry but you’re wrong. Too strongly stated. Younger people do know this music. Get to know more young people.

[@christophermacintyre5890]

My guy, I've met people who have not only not heard Jazz, but have never even heard OF Jazz. I encountered a young person once while some Jazz was playing. They had an extremely puzzled look on their face, and turned to me, asking "What kind of music is this?". "Jazz", I answered. She looked even more puzzled, and struggled to even prounounce the word back to me. I had to phoenetically spell it out for her, "Juh-Aaaa-Zuh'". She was utterly baffled that music could exist without words to it. "So... this is.... 'singingless' music?" I mean, I was pretty ignroant about until about 20 years ago, but I was NEVER that ignorant. I at least could reconginze it when I heard it, identify the genre, and probably could name a handful of Jazz artists if pressed.

[@luke9947]

@@christophermacintyre5890 those people are a minority

[@christophermacintyre5890]

@@luke9947 Are they, though?

[@davidblackburn3396]

@@christophermacintyre5890 YES

[@wouterdemuyt1013]

What brings The Beatles even closer to classical music is the fact that they are played by other artists, sometimes even "HIP". Last year I went to a performance of The Beatles' Abbey Road album by The Analogues. They used the exact same instruments used in the recordings (including a Moog synthesizer and an anvil). They didn't try to imitate their voices, or body language, or mannerisms or clothing. But they performed the music perfectly, as if it was "classical music".

[@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks]

You confuse "classical" with "classic". The songs of the Beatles can become a classic of rock music, but they will never be classical music. Classical music is a genre of music. There are classics of classical music, there are classics of jazz music and there are classics of rock music.

[@wouterdemuyt1013]

@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks It depends on how you define "classical", as Dave says. But I get what you mean. That's why I wrote "closer to classical music".

[@MarauderOSU]

The Beatles are to rock and roll what Duke Ellington is to jazz, what Johnny Cash is to country, and what Beethoven is to classical music. Even if you're not normally into those genres, you know those names. I'm more of a classical guy and not normally a rock guy, but I love the Beatles, because they did so much for music in general. It's hard to imagine any other rock and roll group that had a major impact and changed music forever the way they did.

[@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks]

It's like to say that Mc Donalds is the best fast food. Beethoven, Mozart et al. are the best restaurant gourmets, The Beatles are the best fast food. Do you see the difference?

[@stephenbaraban3850]

😅ewe+qqqr=sss m 3:06 ​@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks

[@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks]

@@stephenbaraban3850 What do you mean?

[@Doug_Piranha]

@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks No. What you're saying just shows that you're a snob. Good music what ever genre is good. Period. (And it shows that you obviously have no knowledge of good fast food.)

[@stephenbaraban3850]

​@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracksI'm sorry, I accidentally sent nonsense in some process equivalent to "butt-dialing" though not precisely that.

[@davidblackburn3396]

We're all witnesses to history all the time, aren't we Dave? We just don't look at it that way in the moment. I first heard "Please Please Me" in mid-January '64, at age 10. I was so knocked out by it that you could not have dragged me away from the TV when they made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show Feb. 9, '64. After that, as you said, they were "in the air." Unavoidable. Because at the time when it came to pop music and mass media it was variety shows like Sullivan's and Top 40 radio and that was about it. Nowadays there are so many different ways to consume music. The Beatles are literally "Classic Rock." Furthermore I think the Beatles are a special case for two reasons.They were such craftsmen, so good at what they did, and they were the first pop group to become so successful that after a while they knew they didn't have to write "hit singles." They knew their fans would buy whatever they released. Hence "Sgt. Pepper" and the rest. For what it's worth.

[@metaljay842]

Even Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler were unable to avoid the genius that was the Beatles' music. I'm not sure if Fiedler himself made any comments about it beyond his work to conduct Beatles songs with the Boston Pops, however Bernstein did host an entire program dedicated to the then-current trends in pop and rock music in 1966-67 and offered praise for what was being done at the time. What we call "pop music" now in a general sense will become part of the "classical" canon decades from now. There's always quality among the fluff, even today.

[@sleepjar7013]

@metaljay842 Bernstein did an entire segment on the construction of the song She Said She Said. It’s somewhere on YT.

[@mgconlan]

@@sleepjar7013 And on one of the "Young People's Concerts" Bernstein used the song "And I Love Her" to illustrate sonata form. It's in ABA form with the exposition repeated.

[@claudiomonteverdi2243]

@@mgconlan ABA is ternary form NOT sonata form. "And I Love Her" is NOT in sonata form.

[@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks]

A piece of rock music doesn't become classical only because it's a good piece. It can become a classic of rock music, but it doesn't become classical music.

[@mgconlan]

I remember when the Beatles' "Live at the BBC" compilation was first issued in 1994, there was an oddly triumphalist magazine review (I forget what magazine) proclaiming that the Beatles were no longer relevant to contemporary popular music, and saying this was a good thing. My own reaction to the CD was quite the opposite: I loved the album precisely because it showed how much the Beatles had drawn on the rock tradition of the 1950's, Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins in particular. As rock has ceased to be the pop music of the young (rap and so-called "EDM" - electronic dance music - have replaced it), it has naturally become more removed from the contemporary audience and hence more "classical," as happened to jazz after 1945.

[@sleepjar7013]

Great words Dave, especially regarding connoisseurship and snobbery. I must remember them.

[@jackdolphy8965]

In the mid 1970s I was in a record store, flipping through the stacks. I was a sophomore at university, music major of all things lol. A younger kid working the stack next to me suddenly found gold and with great excitement showed me an album, and said this is the new record by Paul McCartney and Wings!!! That’s cool, I said. Then sensing something, I asked him, do you know what band McCartney was in before Wings? He looked at me with a very blank almost gasp. He was in a band before Wings? he said. Yeah I said, it was a band called the Beatles, you might like them.

[@christopherwilliams9270]

All genres develop a sense of "classical" canon over time, even when it is important to maintain a distinction between genres, just in order not to devolve into incoherence. This is because all serious love of music develops a sense of connoisseurship. As others have pointed out, jazz has developed a serious "museum piece" quality that can be compared to the classical canon; the same thing has happened with rock and pouplar music, with the Beatles as an important cornerstone. The same process , believe it or not, has begun to take place with rap music, which is why many of the most highly regarded rap musicians today are noted for incredibly complex layers of reference and intertextuality.

[@dglreg1]

I’ve always thought of “Popular Music” as including music that at some point was popular, even if it no longer is. Particularly true of music from the jazz and swing era, and could also be said of songs upon which many classical works are based.

[@Steve_Stowers]

Is it that the Beatles are no longer popular music, or is it that there IS no longer "popular music" in the sense of songs that "everybody" is familiar with (at least enough to recognize titles on a game show)?

[@christophermacintyre5890]

You could argue even further that netiher popular nor classical music exist any longer as they were commonly understood. Neither genre has had the universality or singability much any more. I mean, sure, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Sting (maybe) (add to this list if you like),. How many others wrote still living wrote tunes that are instantly recongizable? It's not that the Beatles are "classical" (I personally feel they aren't, buit won't argue the point), it's that so few artists in ANY genre have writtten the type of music that is both broadly appealing and well--written enough to last. Go to the local supermakrret and tell me most of the music being played has any distinct melodic appeal, or even intersting timbre. Step into a time machie to a grocery store in the late '70s and early '80s and the difference would be both shocking and obvious.

[@estoote]

It was in the summer of 1979 that I was in a PACKED dance club near Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where a band called the Spongetones replicated the tunes of (mostly) the Beatles and a sprinkling of other bands from the 1960s. The realization that dawned on me at that moment was that the Beatles' music had become CHAMBER music: played by small ensembles, faithful to the original compositions, for the entertainment of (mostly) people who already knew and loved the music. And that this music was always going to be listened to, loved, and performed.

[@peterhaslund]

There's this fun film in which a guy wakes up in a world without the Beatles, but the guy remembers a lot of their classical songs and starts to pretend that he wrote them!

[@bobriedinger5287]

The movie, from 2019, is "Yesterday" -- in case anyone not already familiar with it is interested/curious.

[@rogerchristensen5792]

It was astonishing that they did not know those songs. The Beatles broke up before I was born, but as long as I can remember I have heard them everywhere. Perhaps even more now than 20 years ago. Even if I like many of their somgs I have thought to my self that I would like them even more if I did not hear about them for a year or two. But that’s me, for others it is obviously different.

[@fredericmorris2931]

Anticipating Dave’s main point, The Beatles made it into the 1977 Penguin classical record guide.

[@jimmartyn333]

Amusingly, they credit as follows : Music principally by Paul McCartney; words principally by John Lennon.

[@Schneitz1]

Not so much a thought as a question: Are art songs classified with popular music and is jazz a separate category? Back in my day, DJs would refer to older pop standards as "golden oldies". It's hard not to sound snobby, but what has been regarded as classical music, in Europe anyway, was first, music for church, then entertainment for nobility, or at least the wealthy. There was always concurrent popular music of one kind or another. Whether the Beatles' output can be called classical music as generally understood, is debatable, regardless of quality, I think. Same as many excellent songs by Irving Berlin and other Tin Pan Alley and popular song writers of earlier times.

[@nigelhaywood9753]

I get your point but I think that you’re perhaps slightly underestimating the quality or at least serious intent behind music like the songs of the Beatles. In Mozart’s day concert audiences were not so distanced from ‘classical music’. Many people may have preferred the lighter songs on offer but they would not have felt alienated by the ‘art music’. But at the time of the Beatles we had atonality, Pierre Boulez and many composers who were and still are completely unknown to the vast majority of people. The Beatles and many who followed them filled a gap that had not existed a hundred years earlier.

[@karenbryan132]

As a lover of what's become known as the Great American Songbook---Gershwin, Berlin, Arlen, Warren, and so on--I am astonished how few young people (by that I mean people born later than, say, 1980, which gives you an idea how old I am) have any idea who these guys were. Sure, they know "God Bless America", and "Over the Rainbow", but they can't tell you who wrote them. The thing is, the vast majority of what at any given moment is "popular music" fades, over time, into the dustbin of history. If you go back to the '30s and '40's and look at the hits of the day (I have a book that lists the Billboard Top Ten over that period, month by month), and listen to some of them, you'll start laughing before long. (Gotta confess my own soft spot for certain of the country-music greats, the wheat nearly lost amid the chaff. Hank Williams is one of our great songwriters--for me, at least.) By the way, I get a great kick out of a disc by pianist John Bayless--his own arrangements of Beatles songs in the style of Bach. His "Penny Lane" in particular is delightful.

[@stangibell4274]

My feelings mirror yours in that my musical expertise includes stage musicals, related topics as well as the "classical" repertoire. To my mind, the musicals created in the 20th and early 21st Centuries have also achieved the status Dave ascribes to the Beatles. To me, the most interesting element is that the oeuvre continues to grow, and inspires further purchases to add to my collection and expand my knowledge and familiarity with the genre.

[@bbailey7818]

One thing noticeable about the "Great American Songbook" is that classical artists who were contemporary with its creators from Berlin to Porter sang these songs on public. Steber, Kirsten, Tibbett, Crooks, Pons, etc etc .all sang them on the radio, in recitals, and on records. Sometimes adapting their vocal style, often not, but they sang them as Classics at the time of their creation and due the same respect and care they gave to Schubert, Wolf, Brahms.

[@karenbryan132]

@@bbailey7818 The one I think of first is Eileen Farrell. She did a radio show with Marian McPartland (part of the "Piano Jazz" NPR program), which just delighted me.

[@duncanmckeown1292]

Even in the early days of opera it was treated more like a 60s pop festival than a matter of connoisseurship (at least among the nobility and richer bourgeoisie that attended). In the boxes you might be more interested in ogling the countess's decolletage, or exchanging gossip, than listening to the work with rapt attention. Perhaps only in retrospect do we see lasting value in the best music. I used to dance to the Beatles...many screamed at them!...now I listen with appreciation!

[@samuelstephens6163]

I certainly can't reject the idea. They embraced certain Classical composers like Vivaldi (when he was being rediscovered). But is this really the process? I know Stephen Foster's music has been recorded by Classical labels, but I've never considered him as part of the Classical tradition. He's firmly in the Popular Music tradition which grows out of the need for simpler tunes which can be sung or played by anyone and whose sound is generally non-operatic. And yes, the two often interact, but when you get to Muddy Waters we don't retroactively categorize him as Classical like Foster.

[@danielreid5114]

Great video - I live in Liverpool which has become a Mecca for Beatles fans with Beatles and Merseybeat music always part of the atmosphere - I think Beatles songs have become ‘classical’ in the sense that they’re a complete set of songs from the past similar to sets of songs from the great classical composers such as Schubert, Mahler, etc - coming from Liverpool I feel a bit embarrassed that I don’t care too much for some Beatles songs but I think Yesterday is one of the great Beatles songs - best wishes! Daniel

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Who said you have to like all of them just because you were born where they were? That's nuts.

[@michaelharris7926]

The best Beatles songs have a melodic strength that make them sound great in any style -- rock, jazz, country, blues and, yes, classical. The latter was proven back in 1965 with Joshua Rifkin's splendid recording "The Baroque Beatles Book." Another delightful example is John Rutter's 1977 "Beatles Concerto" for two pianos and orchestra.

[@neilcameronable]

Woah! i had this conversation with a music student of mine a couple of weeks ago.And i was shocked about their lack of familiarity with the Beatles canon.I think its an age thing.Tastes come and go and so does time.Though i do chuckle that my music students are save more with Beethoven than the Beatles these days.20-25 years ago that wasnt the case.However in time to come i suspect the Beatles will be part of the Classical canon.

[@geraldmartin7703]

The Monkees songs were written by professional songwriters, not "gifted amateurs".

[@leestamm3187]

There have been good recordings of orchestral covers of Beatle songs since the early 1960's, thru to current times. Popular music has found its way into the canon since the beginning, by way of folk music, tavern songs, sacred music, etc. Recordings, of the Beatles or anyone else, have just broadened the base from which stuff is winnowed.

[@jppitman1]

One advantage of KZbin platforms is that this now classic music CAN be accessed by chance or by choice and simple clicks. Enter Wings of Pegasus who is a UK guy in his twenties analyzing The Kingston Trio and the auto-tuning “to within an inch of his life” of Paul McCartney`s singing in a recent football (soccer) commercial. And there are now countless reaction videos out there of people of various types reacting to the “songs of old” and even “films of old”-things they have never heard or seen before, suggested by their followers. The “reactioners” are amazed at what went on in the past and what was accomplished “back then”……..especially “House of the Rising Sun”. It’s really quite a revelation for them. And that’s a good thing! That’s how we mature.

[@bbailey7818]

I forget who it was, but a man took his teenage son to a light concert that included a vocal of "Hey Jude." The kid was convinced they were singing, "Hey dude." Tempus fugit.

[@achibolod]

I wonder how you see the fact that Beatles songs exist first and foremost as recordings, even though they may have been subsequently notated and written down. A new generation of musicians interpreting, say, Beethoven, seems to be a different type of thing than musicians "covering" the Beatles. Does this have any bearing on the Beatles' music being classified as "classical music"? I also wanted to say how grateful I am to you, that you make all these videos. Your channel is an unbelievable resource. It's almost like I have received so many presents from you because what could be better than knowing which Sibelius (etc.) recordings are the best ones? So thank you, thank you!

[@luke9947]

There are cases where the recordings by themselves are the artwork, and are not simply recordings of the artwork. The most extreme example of this is probably concrete music, where the trchnology of recording is part of the creative process. A less extreme example would be the song “Tomorrow never knows” by the Beatles, which is innovovative more from a production perspective than a purely musical one.

[@SO-ym3zs]

It's interesting to me that from childhood until now, classic rock radio has never played the Beatles, as far as I can recall. As the decades have passed the "classic rock window" on radio has moved forward to where you hear less and less music from the 60's and 70's and more and more from the 80's and 90's, but when they still play stuff from the 60's, it's the Stones, Hendrix, Steppenwolf, etc., but not the enormous juggernaut that was the Beatles. Perhaps their music is too poppy or artsy for the format? Either way, the one place you'd expect to still hear their music, you usually don't. So like so much great music, you have to work to discover it, whether it's old or obscure rock, jazz, classical... But the Beatles still pop up in popular consciousness from time to time: the 2019 film Yesterday, for example, or the Beatles LOVE Cirque show at the Mirage in Vegas (which is extraordinary, btw).

[@christophermacintyre5890]

That's because most radio stations are mostly owned by large conglomerates. They exist mostly to sell advertising, not to promote classic Rock and pass it on to the next generation. It's more a tool to make people of generations that spend money to get in the mood to shop.

[@rg3388]

Connoisseurship is also the target of rationalization in the form of upward-looking snobbery on the part of people totally dependent on social promotion. I try not to be a snob. But neither do I let people make me feel ashamed of what I know. Instead, I'm proud of it and I celebrate it.

[@user-jz6lc2ui1i]

Hello Dave, Love your channel! I purchased a childrens book I found at a flea market, had to buy it, the title is, "Who where the Beatles?" The copyright of this book was 2006, published by Grosset & Dunlap. I was absolutely floored finding this, proof positive that my time has passed. Please keep up the great work!

[@Delius1958]

Hi Dave, thank you! I‘m a listener of classical music, but sometimes it has to be The Beatles. I think, they still are in the collective memory, your three dudes shouldn‘t be regarded as representative, I think. - May I suggest another talk? Well, what do you think HOW we should listen to the uncountable choices in classical music? Sure, one solution is: listen to what you like when you are in the mood for it. But maybe there are ways which are more worthwhile or more systematic at least. Make the way through musical history (wide)? Learn everything about a handful or so composers(deep)? Follow a conductor? How did you get on this road, how have you‘ve been collecting your library and how do you choose your music when you want to listen for fun? You have unbelievably many choices! Sorry for the many questions! Your channel is a great help anyway! Greetings from Berlin, Harry

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

That is the entire point of this Channel.

[@andreysimeonov8356]

I would say that many other rock groups beside The Beatles (e.g., The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Queen, Yes, Rush, AC/DC, to name a few) can be considered Classical music. In fact, they stand as true 20th Century Classicists that could easily replace Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, Honegger, Boulez, and other Modernist 'geniuses' without much loss to be incurred...

[@geertdecoster5301]

Went into a British bookshop today. A nice one with still a very nice selection. But would you put Moby Dick under Modern Classics together with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? Next to a record sale in a chapel. Nothing much there. Not even André Rieu. Now there's someone who tried to make Classical Music popular. Personally, I'd embrace any way by which anyone comes to listen to Litvinovsky's Pinocchio for example

[@FREDGARRISON]

I remember SPLIT SECOND hosted by TOM KENNEDY back in my younger years. I remember that the one who won the game had a choice of five automobiles. The one car that started meant he won that car. The other four would not start. As for the BEATLE songs, even I could have figured them out. THANKS DAVE.....

[@IP-zv1ih]

It’s funny, but I have never encountered one of these snobs, although I suspect I’d rather like them if I did. Maybe the reason why 99.5% of the population have zero interest in or expose to - say - Lieder and will go through life with no knowledge whatsoever of the classical song repertoire is the more pressing question? I’d like to hear Dave’s view on that.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

That was in an earlier video.

[@normanmeharry58]

Yes, what you say has veracity. Yet online platforms are now riddled with reaction videos where current generation onliners upload their responses to "hearing for the first time" last millennium music (which includes Beatle songs and even entire albums) and the responses are most often positive. This doesn't fit with your idea of connoisseurship, but it is a growing phenomenon whereby old forgottens are resurfacing and getting passed around onliners who may discover these as new music enthusiasms for themselves.

[@ahartify]

Yes, if I go to a cafe or restaurant the chances are they will be playing on their speaker system a diverse selection of songs from the 1950s, 60s, 70s to 90s to the present day, even if their clientele is quite young.

[@idflux]

Excellent!

[@nigelhaywood9753]

About twenty years ago a friend of mine who plays piano in the street, ie. busking, told me that as far as most people are concerned, jazz is classical music. I thought about it and saw that he had a point. More recently I’ve realised that well loved and respected rock or pop music has also started to be viewed in a similar way. It makes sense. Pop music really has more in common with classical music than jazz did. Perhaps jazz has more in common with baroque music anyway, when it comes down to the details. Or is that splitting hairs?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Songs have more in common with other songs. Talk about musical genres, not styles.

[@nigelhaywood9753]

@@DavesClassicalGuide Ok, that's a part of it, but I was thinking more of how jazz interpretation has something in common with the basso continuo style. Classical music fixed the interpretative details, especially those of the accompaniment with figured bass pretty much disappearing and I think something similar happened in the sixties. The harmony was simplified and the specific details of the arrangement became essential to the identity of a song. You can generally do a legitimate interpretation of Gershwin's 'the Man I Love' for voice and piano by just following a lead sheet and filling out the chords in an interesting manner but something like Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence would really have to start off with that I,V, II,V, I,V, II,V introduction high up somewhere and the closer you stick to the original chords the better. That's the way I see it any way.

[@DavidJLevi]

I've thought for sometime now that The Beatles songs and similar popular music would, over time, if the songs were good enough to continue to be played, pass into the realm of folk music.

[@culturalconfederacy]

I would highly recommend hearing the Hollyridge Strings version of Beatles songs. Their rendition of I Am The Walrus and I Love Her are a must hear.

[@TheRejectAmidHair]

Hello Dave, I’ve been enjoying your videos for some time now, but this is the first time I’m commenting. (And please do ignore my rather silly screen name: it’s an anagram of my real name - Himadri Chatterjee.) A similar issue came up in an online book group I used to be part of, when someone asked “What makes a book a classic?” My own view was that if it survives, for whatever reason, it’s a classic. Doesn’t matter if it’s Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” or something very intellectual like a late Henry James novel - if it has been read across generations, if it has been enjoyed or admired, and continues still to be enjoyed or admired, then it’s a classic. I think the same argument can apply here. If some music has been enjoyed by generations, and continues to be enjoyed, then it’s classical music. What other reasonable criterion can there be? Thank you very much for the videos you put up here, and best wishes, Himadri

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Thanks for commenting at last!

[@heatherharrison264]

I have had the idea that, over the passage of time, all music either becomes forgotten or becomes classical. Even music that has been forgotten retains the potential to be rediscovered and become classical as long as it hasn't been completely lost. There are plenty of examples, but I can see this in three broad genres of music. First is the large blob of music in the "early music" category. Back when this music was current, it consisted of a variety of genres, including church music and various types of secular music (i.e. minstrel songs, dance music, ceremonial music, and theatrical music). There was certainly also folk music that was passed on in oral traditions, but it only survives to the extent that it influenced music that was written down or persists in oral traditions to this day. I suppose much of this secular music would constitute the popular music of its day. Of course, this music got taken up by the HIP crowd and is now firmly within the umbrella of classical music. The second is the vast repertoire of 19th century piano-accompanied songs, other music written for amateur performance in the home, and salon music. I have a few bound volumes of general interest 19th century magazines that were designed for a middle class audience. Many of the readers of these magazines would have had a piano or a harmonium in the home. It isn't unusual to find some sheet music within these magazines. Much of the 19th century song repertoire is not of a virtuoso nature and would have been possible for amateurs with a little musical training to perform. Until recording technology became available, if regular people wanted music in the home, they had to perform it themselves. Some songs became big hits and sold lots of sheet music, while others remained relatively unknown. This was the popular music of its day, but it is now well within the domain of classical music. The third is jazz, which has been mentioned elsewhere in the comments. This genre was the basis for popular music of the late 1910s through the 1950s, when it was gradually supplanted by early rock music (which itself takes some influence from jazz). Jazz is certainly still a viable genre, but it has taken on the character of classical music. The old jazz standards have become classics. The music has become increasingly complex and virtuosic over time, and there has been stylistic fragmentation within the genre, much like what happened within 20th century classical music. Jazz is now a sort of classical music that is appreciated by a small but devoted audience. Currently, rock music seems like it is going through the same process that jazz went through a few decades earlier. It is fading from mainstream popularity. The earlier foundational songs have become classics. It has fragmented into numerous subgenres, some of which could be categorized as "art music" - music that is highly complex and requires virtuoso performers. This situation feels a bit strange to me, as rock was the main type of popular music when I was young, and it felt like it was going nowhere. Now, I am watching as this genre of music, which was once ubiquitous, slowly but surely becomes classical.

[@NigelRamses]

Your point is well taken, and I agree this will happen to the Beatles in time, I’m not prepared to say we are there yet on the basis of three gameshow contestants. The Beatles seem to have had a resurgence in pop relevance among millennials and perhaps with enough gen z folks as well. Interesting though.

[@JarrettMehldau]

Millenials often got the love for The Beatles via their parents. As a Millenial myself I feel The Beatles were still hugely important for many of us. However for Gen Z that role, ergo music from their parents' generation, is taken by music from the 80s or 90s, so I feel there's considerably less interest for The Beatles from Gen Z.

[@johnaquillo3397]

I agree with you...but it's hard to image Taylor Swift will become "classical" music in the 2060's but it may. Rather unlikely I'll be still around to see if I'm right though!

[@bostonviewer5430]

There is something about art becoming "classical" whether books, paintings, sculpture or music that is hard to predict and slow to happen. I think most important is that whatever the medium it has to speak to "the people" which indicates it has to be accessible and interesting which seems contrary to the idea that "classical" should be for the few not for the masses. Certainly the Beatles' songs have become "classics" in their way and it also explains why so called "academic music" is constantly disappearing. It hasn't and doesn't appeal to people. Whatever the medium it has to be memorable and the Beatles are.

[@davidstrumsky7012]

I wonder if it also takes a certain temperament of persons, grouped together, to make or break history? (To remember and/or conserve and perpetuate art forms.) And the more powerful those individuals are in a culture/society, the more lasting their impact will be. "Classical music" owes a lot of its longevity to the character (class?) of its patrons (the wealthy or religious or politically powerful or, nowadays, the educated). And without being in powerful groups, even those connoisseurs/conservators won't have much sustainable influence. Yes, these are the people that write the history, but they're also the people that run the industries that perpetuate consumer interest, the tail that wags the dog. (Of course genre names need to be discarded along with other arbitrary, superficial groupings such as race.) Speaking in generality here but hopefully you catch my drift.

[@howard5259]

I'm interested in the subject of popular knowledge versus connoisseurship. I know details of the works of 'classical' composers because that is the music I chose to listen to in my youth. Conversely, I know lots of rock and pop music without being able to put a title to it or name the performer in most cases. I couldn't name a single song by one of the big names of the current pop scene. Though I hear (and often like) many of those songs, I'm just not interested enough to take those details on board. I know about certain things I like and other people know about the things they like. So, the art may be 'higher', arguably, but that doesn't automatically bestow a higher level of connoisseurship on the lover of a musical style.

[@davidthedude327]

I would think also Paul Simon ( Simon and Gafunkel era, and his solo work including his world music) would be considered classical. I also do believe Dylan would be in the same vein. In the world of Jazz it would be the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Brubeck. That's just my opinion.

[@chickenringNYC]

Dave, not sure how to contact you otherwise but please give us your take on Yawnick's new Brahms cycle. I have...thoughts...but I won't say anything for now.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I will when I hear it.

[@robhaynes4410]

Near the end of the most recent Star Trek reboot movie, Scottie figures out he can destroy the enemy ships with some sci-fi frequency something or other that's in music. So he blasts the Beastie Boys & the enemy ships start blowing up (I'm not kidding). McCoy overhears the music & says to Spock, "Is that... *classical* music?" Spock responds, "Yes, I believe it is." Of course it's totally dumb, but it's funny. Classical music is just something very *old*. Even the Beastie Boys!

[@carlcurtis]

An interesting video. I will say, however, that the Beatles are iconic (yeah, i know, whatever that means). My kids (now in their thirties) know who the Beatles are. When the Rolling Stones appeared at Super Bowl halftime, they (my kids and the college TV room where they were watching) didn't know who they were. The Stones were, to them, five old men making idiots of themselves. I know Stones' fans will resent this, but that's my experience.

[@user-wp4ju4hp5w]

Eleanor Rigby is a good example of a Beatle s song using a String Orchestra

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Actually I think it's a quintet--I forget exactly but it's a chamber ensemble.

[@jimmybyun]

Any pop genre will never become part of the genre of classical music just as African tribal music from the past and ancient Japanese court music will also never become part of the classical tradition as we know it today. The instruments are different and the performing practices are not what today’s standard classically trained performers are used to. An unfortunate result of our human desire to catogorize. The Beatles might if a major contemporary composer who becomes a huge name in the classical genre in posterity orchestrates and makes it performable for classical type singers which by I mean opera singers. Very interesting topic though.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

This is about as wrong as it's possible to be. Musically, there is little difference between a song by the Beatles and a song by Josquin, whether we are talking form, subject, harmonic practice--you name it. They belong to the same musical type: the Western song. All of the rest, the instrumental arrangement, style, performance technique, etc, is just window dressing. The musical essentials are basically the same. Your comparisons are completely inappropriate.

[@jimmybyun]

Thanks for your reply, Dave. My comparisons are wholly appropriate to my argument which is not against the Beatles but to the categorization of what we call classical music. Ok. I wanted to keep this short in my first comment but you’ve forced my hand. Get ready Dave. This is gonna be long. I do agree with you that Beatles songs and other pop songs in the western tradition are molded from the same harmonic language as historical European compositions from the dawn of equal temperament. And the form it uses are similar to the short forms used by classical composers of songs. But I stand by my claim that they will never become “classical” for several reasons. And if you’re asking if the songs by the Beatles have become classics, I would say that they have. But classics of the pop genre, not “classical” music. Firstly, your criteria for the possibility of the Beatles entering the classical genre in its current state is based on the idea that connoisseurship will be enough to do that. I partly agree. I disagree that connoisseurship from listeners will be enough. Which is what I assumed you were alluding to. Connoisseurship from other composers, however, now or in the future, might do the trick though. To give an example, a Japanese court music piece will never make its way into the classical realm as we know it today. Even with an abundance of listening connoisseurs in Europe and America, it will still be categorized as world music and never ever as classical music. But had Liszt made a piano arrangement of said Japanese traditional court music, then it might become a part of the classical genre. But even then only the arrangement not the original. The peasant songs Bartok arranged in various forms have entered the classical genre only as pieces by Bartok. The original songs will never be accepted as classical music in today’s categorization of what classical music is. In the same way, the Beatles songs require instruments that are not part of the classical tradition and the style of the vocals are different as well. Of course these are superfluous if you are considering purely their compositions as notes. Instruments can be changed and styles of singing are extremely varied in contemporary classical music compositions. Window dressing as you say. But I doubt any attempt to “classicalize” them with the “right” window dressing to make them fit the genre will ever be considered more than crossovers, unless a composer who will go on to have a big name in the future, arranges them as songs to be performed by standard classical forces namely an orchestra or a chamber group consisting of western acoustic instruments. The disparity between your argument and mine, Dave, arises from our points of view about what constitutes this genre we call classical music. To you, I feel your opinion is that music is music and everything deserves to be appreciated as such. Therefore pop songs are equally music as Schubert songs are. Which in turn gives pop songs the chance to enter the classical genre in posterity. This is an idealistic view which does not match the realistic probability based on the current state of society. Human beings have an evolutionary bias toward categorization. It is instinctual and part of our genetic make up. As such, we have conveniently labeled and rigidly stuck by the boundaries we have set. Therefore the boundaries of classical music as we know it today are rigidly cast and the industry will uphold those boundaries as will the general listening public. I am with you a hundred percent on the idea that the Beatles songs are masterpieces and as well written as any song by classical composers of the past. I am also with you on the ideal that such songs deserve to stand alongside “classical” songs as great music. But I’m afraid we don’t live in a society that will accept the mix, my friend. Classification and categorization are there for a reason. And I stand by my argument that pop songs will never be considered classical music as we know it today. Unless as arrangements by a future dead superstar composer in the Lisztian or Bartokian class.

[@stephenbaraban3850]

Dave, I very much respect you but really wish you would not get so aggressive--"as wrong as its possible to be" with people stressing genre distinctions. There are some Beatles songs that strongly overlap with Classical art songs--for instance "She's Leaving Home" and "For No One" (to jog people's memories, the one with the French Horn and the lyrics "and in her eyes you see nothing/no sign of love beyond the tears/cried for no one". Other great Beatles songs ROCK OUT--for instance "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". "Penny Lane" sounds to me wonderfully "Pop", despite the contribution of British classical trumpeter David Mason, who Paul McCartney had seen on TV playing a Brandenberg Concerto. (And, wow, when he accepted the summons to do a session with the Beatles he had never heard of them!--though he soon came to admire them).

[@beatlemaniacwaltdisneyfan4753]

so, is this a bad thing or a good thing for the beatles????

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

It just is.

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

Next year, Dave: "And the white scarf of h0otspah goes to... this cr*ppy historically informed performance of The Beatles' 'White Album' on 1960s electric guitars played with no vibrato at all because, according to their instruction manuals, no vibrato was used in the '60s. The sound is... Bleargh! With no cunsistency at all, we all can agree George Harrison actually was using finger vibrato which in this CD isn't used. Keep on listening folks, but not to such g*rbage." [Throws away the disc.] Jokes apart, I think something is classical when it becomes a model and is part and representation of the wider culture. The Beatles were perfectly a representative part of the Beat-Gen / "Counterculture" era of the 1950s - '70s, and now are a model being studied for songwriting and popular music, thus they clearly are a classic. I'd dare to say, more than many post-World War 2 "classical" composers which actually have (largely by own choice) been marginal to the rest of the world.

[@dansavik7137]

The same goes for Elvis Presley, I think.

[@gregorystanton6150]

If it’s good enough for Cathy Berberian…

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Very true. Her "baroque" version of "Ticket to Ride" was priceless.

[@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks]

You confuse "classical" with "classic". The songs of the Beatles can become a classic of rock music, but they will never be classical music. Classical music is a genre of music. There are classics of classical music, there are classics of jazz music and there are classics of rock music.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

That is completely false. The "genres" are musical genres, such as (in this case) songs. To call "classical music," which comprises everything written from Gregorian chant to last week's latest piano sonata (or whatever) a "genre" for anything other than commercial purposes is meaningless.

[@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks]

@@DavesClassicalGuide If you go to a concert of classical music, they play sonatas, symphonies, concertos and quartets written in the last centuries, including pieces composed in the last 30 years (the so called "contemporary music"). They don't play great pop songs. The commonly accepted meaning of classical music is clear. It's about style/form/technique. If you write a piece in this tradition it can join the repertoire of classical concerts, otherwise it can not. A rock song is rock, not classical. Futhermore, rock is not academic music: it's not serious music like classical music. To play rock songs in classical concerts would lead to a dumbing down of classical music.

[@Doug_Piranha]

@@ClassicalMusicAndSoundtracks You're the perfect definition of a snob, sir. 😂😂😂