Bob, I'm not denying Dylan's influence on The Beatles. It was profound. An album like Rubber Sould could have never happened without Dylan. He also introduced the Beatles to marijuana.
BUT,
You can't underscore the influence The Beatles had on Dylan. It may have not been immediate, but it was there. Sure, Dylan never tried to do anything psychedelic or orchestral, but it was after his exposure to The Beatles that he started moving away from the whole protest thing. I remember an associate who was close with Dylan saying that it was because of Lennon that Dylan went out and purchased an electric guitar. That alone speaks volumes, as it would shape two and a half of Dylan's pivotal mid-60's albums: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. It's also widely known that "Fourth Time Around" is heavily inspired by "Norwegian Wood."
As for noise's comment:
noiseradio wrote:
You're a Dylan fan, and that's cool. But the Beatles did more to change the face of modern music than any other artist or group, hands down.
I agree with you, although one could argue that without Dylan's influence, The Beatles wouldn't have become innovative. But you could also say that about a lot of different influences.
I dunno, for me it's hard to imagine popular music, or any form of music without The Beatles or Bob Dylan having ever existed. Both are extremely important to the development of music as we know it.
The Beatles and Dylan both pushed the limits when it came to genre... The Beatles can't simply be called a pop band, and Dylan can't simply be called a folk artist.
Both Lennon/McCartney and Dylan, and even Harrison had groundbreaking songwriting methods that would influence generations upon generations of songwriters.
The Beatles (thanks in part to George Martin) used ground-breaking and production techniques in the studio, which led to many future classics of the 70's, 80's, 90's, and today.
In the case of Dylan, he proved that you didn't have to have a conventional "good" voice in order to be an effective singer/songwriter.
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