RagingLeonard t1_iy4gmxa wrote
Reply to comment by Huguirur in People who think the Beatles are overrated ¿Why? by Huguirur
There is a compelling argument that the British Invasion bands, led by the Beatles, further segregated rock and roll, leading to separate top 40 lists for non-white artists.
cdmat76 t1_iy4ld36 wrote
That’s just nonsensical BS. Even an inversion of the reality. Race records existed long before British Invasion and segregated audiences were the norm up until the 60s. Artists like Elvis in the 50s, British Invasion bands and British blues boom bands in the 60s contributed to bring this music to a white audience that in a vast majority was not listening to black artists. They all contributed to make things change to that regards in the direction of a more mixed audience in term of music listening habits. Many white guys were introduced and discovered black artists thanks to the covers or artists like The Beatles, the Stones, Clapton, Mayall…
RagingLeonard t1_iy4nfoe wrote
There's a difference between covering the music of black artists and pushing black artists out of the way. There is a solid argument that the rise of the British Invasion pushed black music out of the mainstream. It's a fact that Billboard resurrected the R&B chart a year after the Beatles' US debut.
I agree that a lot of white kids discovered the blues through UK rock bands, but it's not like John Lee Hooker was selling records anywhere near the levels of the Beatles, Stones, or Animals.
cdmat76 t1_iy58zbn wrote
Where did you see they did “put black artists out of the way” …? There were much more back artists in the pop charts in the late 60s and 70s compared to the 50s and early 60s. And the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Clapton, Mayall and all greatly helped in that direction by introducing that music to a larger audience and helped break the barriers between segregated audiences.
Regarding the R&B charts it was stopped late 63 because there was a disconnection with its initial target (yes mostly black people at the time): there were too many white artists in it due to the way music was labeled R&B (this was BEFORE British Invasion and Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show) and Billboard decided to stop it and revived it only early 65 with a revised formula intended to target more black artists. Beatles chart success had nothing to do with it from what I’ve read. And artists could be present on BOTH pop and R&B charts.
Seems to me you are rewriting history to support your argumentation. 🤔
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