Born Seventy Years Ago Today

If I can't remember the last time I played any Beatle albums except for side one of Yellow Submarine

(though to be honest, it's George's great two songs that bring me back over and over) and side four of the White Album

it's because I can retrieve any Beatle's song I want to hear in my head upon command. Still, I remember like it was a minute ago where I was and who I was with and what it felt like when I heard John Lennon was shot.

Beatles were #2 in KEXP's silly-ass voter countdown during Fall Drive of the best ever; here's the top 30:

• 1 - Radiohead
• 2 - Beatles
• 3 - Clash
• 4 - Pixies
• 5 - Dylan
• 6 - Zeppelin
• 7 - Arcade Fire
• 8 - Bowie
• 9 - Nirvana
• 10 - Smiths
• 11 - Johnny Cash
• 12 - Bob Marley
• 13 - Cure
• 14 - Stones
• 15 - Wilco
• 16 - Neil Young
• 17 - REM
• 18 - U2
• 19 - Modest Mouse
• 20 - Pink Floyd
• 21 - Elliott Smith
• 22 - Pearl Jam
• 23 - Hendrix
• 24 - Beck
• 25 - Talking Heads
• 26 - Tom Waits
• 27 - Joy Division
• 28 - Velvet Walmart Employees
• 29 - Beastie Boys
• 30 - White Stripes

Pere Ubu didn't make it and Arcade Fucking Fire wasn't top three, so as always I hope for GAH! and end up served meh, and truly, there's nothing surprising or particularly outrageous beyond the list's utter predictability. I'm curious what the core demographic of KEXP listeners is; I'm sure it's older and wealthier than even I'd guess, but I mentioned this earlier this week: the college kids I know, who I hear talk, the music they play in the coffeehouses they run, are listening to classic rock, classic pop, and that Top 30? is overwhelmingly your grandfather's Top 30, it's... draw your own conclusions why...

And Arcade Fire, since a few of you have asked: it's not that I hate their music (I don't like their music, but hate is far too strong a term), I don't get why their music gets the adoration thrown its way. I never got Nirvana either in exactly the same proportion. I assume there's a generational disconnect, that I didn't (and couldn't) know what Nirvana meant to those of its age, that I can't (and don't) understand what Arcade Fire means to fucking hipsters those of its age, and that's probably true but this too: it's not so much Nirvana and Arcade Fire I dislike as the hundreds of shitty bands that Nirvana and Arcade Fire's success bred. It's Hemingway and Raymond Carver in pop music: Nirvana's, Arcade Fire's goodness is dwarfed by the oceams of suckitude their goodness spawned.

Anyway:

I think that theory also explains a great deal of the virtiolic hate some have towards the Beatles, too.