I’ll listen to Roy sooner than the Beatles.
Especially hippie-dippie doofus “message” Beatles (which, BTW, I think had a lot of “gay” goofy arrangements).
I like the early Beatles but they quickly morphed. It just occurred to me maybe their AIM was to be hippie-dippie and they just used the pop market to get it so everyone would listen to their self-important pieces, which hit very soon after Ed Sullivan. Sort of the Vogues syndrome.
I love Roy. But Pretty Woman gets overplayed as if it’s a 1-hit wonder (actually, they tend to play “Only the Lonely” tons, too - and none of the classics in between).
They seemed to have changed drastically during their trip to India.
The Beatles were a rock n roll band when they started. black leather jackets, playing dingy bars all night long...
Brian Epstein cleaned them up as he shopped around to different labels here they recorded songs like sweet georgia brown and besame mucho.
their first albums have some original hits but also a lot of covers, sold a lot of albums but they had to pay a lot of publishers. And they were hit with a high income tax bracket.
they started writing a lot material. along the way lennon meets dylan and also starts using harder an harder drugs (including ls an heroin).
The entertainment world consumed them.
Paul and Ringo haven’t written “important” or “heavy” songs in decades.
Maybe some of the shift in the 60s was an attempt to stay relevant and prove they weren’t just some gray suited pop quartet.