My friend and esteemed colleague Justin Rothberg recently suggested on Facebook that the Beatles, great as they were, were overrated. I beg to differ; my response to him is reproduced below for your enjoyment.

“Overrated? I don’t think so. The Beatles had two of the greatest popular songwriters of the twentieth century. They had two of the greatest rock singers of the twentieth century. Their third best songwriter and lead vocalist would have been the primary songwriter in 95% of the other bands working the same idiom at the same time. Their singing was almost perfectly in tune (except for Ringo) in an era when you got it live or didn’t get it at all. Their harmonies were spot-on, unique, and imaginative.

Their quality control, particularly in view of how much they recorded, and how busy they were on the road in the first four years of their career was stupendous. It’s hard to find an original Beatles song of less than B quality, and in my opinion 75% of their stuff was A- or better. Their artistic evolution was unparalleled. The writing went from “Love Me Do” to “Yesterday” in four years. Name another band that achieved a comparable amount of growth in a comparable amount of time.

Not only were the Beatles great studio players, three out of four of them also were influential stylists on their instruments (though admittedly not virtuosos). The only group of their era that topped them in this regard was Booker T and the MGs with four. (As much as I love the MGs, they don’t come close to the Beatles in any other regard.) In the two-hundred plus tracks the Beatles recorded, you can’t find one where the tempo is shaky, or varies more than a couple of BPM between the start and the end of the tune. There is not one gratuitous note in their basic tracks. Their playing was as economical and efficient as that of any of the great studio bands of the era.

In the eight years of their career, they not only sold more records than anybody else, they were an enormous influence culturally, they revolutionized record production, and they revolutionized the music business. Before the Beatles, groups that had no definite front person, wrote their own music, and played their own instruments were unheard of. After the Beatles, their model became the standard. After their breakup, each member continued to have significant, sometimes massive success under their own name for as long as they chose to do so.

You may not enjoy their music. But no other group in rock history did so many things so well and so regularly with that level of artistic and commercial consistency and success for that long.”

Please note that I don’t listen to the Beatles much myself, though before I was a musician I was an enormous fan. I can’t even play very many of their songs without a chart. But I call ’em as I see ’em, and this is how I see it.