The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most signifi cant or most

influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the grea test jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are stil l blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not tru e, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listeni ng to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignor ant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved. In a sense the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole : too much attention to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little attention to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as ste reotyped as one can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic wi ll waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for free for major labels, distrib utors and record stores. They simply publicize what the music business wants to make money with. Hopefully, one not-too-distant day, there will be a clear demarcation between a great musician like Tim Buckley, who never sold much, and commercial products li ke the Beatles. And rock critics will study more of rock history and realize who invented what and who simply exploited it commercially. Beatles' "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it r eplaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro at titudes with cute white-kid smiles. Contemporary musicians never spoke highly of the Beatles, and for a good reason. They could not figure out why the Beatles' songs should be regarded more highly than their own. They knew that the Beatles were simply lucky to become a folk p henomenon (thanks to "Beatlemania", which had nothing to do with their musical m erits). THat phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavou rs to this day. Nothing else grants the Beatles more attention than, say, the Ki nks or the Rolling Stones. There was nothing intrinsically better in the Beatles ' music. Ray Davies of the Kinks was certainly a far better songwriter than Lenn on & McCartney. The Stones were certainly much more skilled musicians than the ' Fab Fours'. And Pete Townshend was a far more accomplished composer, capable of "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia". Not to mention later and far greater British musicia ns. Not to mention the American musicians who created what the Beatles later sol d to the masses. The Beatles sold a lot of records not because they were the greatest musicians b ut simply because their music was easy to sell to the masses: it had no difficul t content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had no t invented "beatlemania" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time to read a page about such a trivial band. Note of 2010. The Beatles were not a terribly interesting band, but their fans w ere and still are an interesting phenomenon. I can only name religious fundament alists as annoying (and as threatening) as Beatles fans and as persevering in sa botaging anyone who dares express an alternative opinion on their faith. They ha ve turned me into some kind of Internet celebrity not because of the 6,000 bios that i have written, not because of the 800-page book that i published, not beca

use of 30 years of cultural events that i organized, but simply because i downpl ayed the artistic merits of the Beatles, an action that they seem to consider as disgraceful as the 2001 terrorist attacks. Jakub Krawczynski sent me this comment in 2010: I find it quite amusing that almost all of the Beatles songs have their own entr ies on wikipedia (nothing wrong with that in itself, actually), even if they are not singles, and each of them is meticulously dissected as if there were transc endental suites exceeding human comprehension, yet bands like Faust or Red Krayo la, etc. have biographies even shorter than just one article about any random Be atles song. Needless to say, none of their songs have any articles on them, yet I'm sure there would be a lot more to talk about. Moreover, if you had put any b ad review of their album on the site with the intention to show the broader scop e of opinions, you'd risk your "life" there, since such fanatics don't accept an y single sign of trying to be objective. You are seen as public enemy number 1 t o them. It's like your article is one giant cognitive dissonance to them and van dalizing your bio was the only way to reduce this dissonance. - The Deak