[Andre2]

My kids are 18 & 17, and they listen to the Beatles.   40 years after the band is no more.  Their music is really good, albums were very well done.  Btw, if you have not seen Across the Universe in blue ray, you should...

[soundbitten1]

I love them but I don't think they are underrated.

Ditto

[Russell Dawkins]

The poll answers are incomplete.  They were VERY influential, but they were not underrated, either.  They have been rightly recognized as one of the most influential popular musical acts of recorded history. 
 
What is missing is just how good they were as songwriters, and their ability to connect with people as a result.  Trying to grade them from a technical ability regarding playing instruments completely misses the point of their value and influence.

Amen to all that.

To confuse technical virtuosity with musicianship is completely to miss the point of music as well.

For example, I don't think Paganini was a great musician in one sense, but a talented musician with technique to burn who wrote or modified everything he played. His music was mostly designed to showcase his prodigious technique enabled, it is thought, by a genetic condition which provided very long fingers. I think the same of Satriani and all the other blazingly fast musicians who rely more than anything else on speed and complexity to impress. Most of this stuff is no more musical to my ears than the (in)famous drum solo in "In A Gada Da Vida". "Too many notes" someone said.

The OP's phrasing was awkward and obviously biased from the title to the questions in the poll. In hindsight, as well as at the time, they obviously were "one" of the greatest (bands, not musicians was implied). Anyone who appreciated the Beatles would be unable to check any one of the answers, since they would not think of the Beatles as overrated.

[bside123]

Anyone who appreciated the Beatles would be unable to check any one of the answers...

Exactly!

I also had a very difficult time deciphering the way the questions are stated, and therefore, cannot respond. I guess the fact that there is a poll, with three pages of responses so far from audiophiles and music lovers, already begins to indicate their impact on modern music. I don't think that you can separate any of the elements (time, place, person, circumstances) from the overall Beatles phenomenon.

I'm thrilled that there even was The Beatles, and I am happy to have been alive to have seen such a thing. Sorry to get so philosophical.

[North Star]

Philosophy is the food of the artists, poets, musicians, songwriters, music lovers, ...

[Bob in St. Louis]

Being the young, spring chicken that I am ( ), my appreciation of music came along after they had reached their peak and broken up. The radio stations had three or four songs they forced down my throat for the next....say....twenty years. So to say that I wasn't impressed, "didn't get it", and eventually became annoyed by them summarizes my thoughts on the band. I find new bands on a regular basis, so exploring The Beatles history isn't high on my list of things to do. That's not to say that it couldn't happen, as I've "discovered" a few new (old) Clapton and Hendrix tunes that "do it" for me.

Suffice it to say that modern radio stations are killing music, as far as I'm concerned. I've "discovered" an amazing amount of music that is decades old, that I've never heard before by artists that I've despised in the past purely because I was only exposed to less than a half dozen of their songs, thousands of times on the radio.

Bob

p.s. I voted "they had their place". FWIW

[Phil A]

I hear what you mean about radio stations.  I can't even listen most of the time to the classic FM rock station in my area.  They probably play a few hundred songs over and over.  It gets shoved down so much, I even skip those cuts when I have them come up on the iPod.  Most of the time if I listen to radio, it is internet radio and I have a few favorite stations.  I had a nice FM tuner and had one modified and probably had a whole 10 hours on it before I traded it.  There was just nothing that great to listen to and even the quality was so so.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Exactly. I replaced the head unit in my vehicle over a year ago. To this day, I have not tuned in a radio station, they're all still on the factory defaults.
Between Pandora, Spotify, and harddrives, I have no desire for radio.

[Phil A]

Being the young, spring chicken that I am ( ),

I remember when there was no rock on FM and Dave Herman in NY had a syndicated show (I was in the Philly area) at the time that from memory was a whole 4 hours a week and really looked forward to it.  I really got into high end audio really likely FM and always had nice/interesting tuners and enjoyed them.  At home I have multiple system and pre-programmed FM in system when I put them in place (including HD Radio) and except for the 10 or so hours I put on the modded Sansui TU-717, I have not listened to it since at home.  When I am down in the Orlando area, there is a classic rock FM station that I like.  But who knows how long that will last before it becomes like the rest of them.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I remember when there was no rock on FM ......

Wow. That's a long time ago.
That must have been before I got my first Superman record.   

[pumpkinman]

Exactly. I replaced the head unit in my vehicle over a year ago. To this day, I have not tuned in a radio station, they're all still on the factory defaults.
Between Pandora, Spotify, and harddrives, I have no desire for radio.

Me either 

[Devil Doc]

I couldn't live without VT. Public radio and WGBH. I depend on them for Jazz and Classical. I simply don't know enough about them without it being spoon fed to me by folks who know a lot. Did I mention they broadcast with minimal compression?

Doc

[PDR]

I remember when there was no rock on FM .......

Man, I remember that time as well.
Up here in Edmonton Canada it was the late 70's and
on Sunday nights from 9-12 the Country music FM station
would play Stones, Zep etc. It would always sound so
good cause it was in Stereo....AM ruled the day for rock.....and Disco...lol
Shortly after the FM Rock stations came and changed everything....thank God.

Thanks for the memories......hadnt thought about that in years.

[Chazro]

Fun thread.  I'm pushing 60 so yeah, the Beatles are a large section in the soundtrack of my life.  That said, the soundtrack of my life is HUGE!;)  The comments comparing their ability as musicians to Jazz musicians is silly (actually the words Neanderthal & moronic are closer to what I really feel!).  A different way to address the Beatles and Jazz is to think of how many of their songs are considered 'standards'.  Do you realize what an honor that is, or how difficult it is to write a song that can be considered a 'standard'.  THAN consider how many they wrote.  I can't think of any artist since, and certainly not any NOW that remotely comes close.

A Beatles tale....I'll never forget as a child watching the band on Ed Sullivan, the girls going totally apeshit, hysterically screaming & crying (I've read accounts about how the aftershow cleanup guys hated the Beatles due to the huge amounts of pee they were left to deal with, yuck!).   Anyhow, I clearly recall calling my mom over and proudly proclaiming; "look at these girls mom, there's never been anything like this before, ever!!".  She just smiled as she looked at me and said; "Frank Sinatra".  A 'teachable' moment if there ever was one!;)

[Chazro]

Yeah, radio today simply sux.  MY Denon tuner's been in my 'spares' closet for over a decade!  It's really a shame that today's youth will never know how much of a truly great source for new music radio used to be.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I respect every word you said. But then I think about Justin Beiber and the girl going apeshit over him. 
I shutter at the thought he's in the same league as the Beatles.

Anyway, I do recognize the impact they made on music, and can't deny the pure awesome they were in that respect.
It would be interesting to see how different todays musical landscape would be had the Beatles not existed.

Bob

[srb]

It's really a shame that today's youth will never know how much of a truly great source for new music radio used to be.

With the ability to choose from tens of thousands of radio stations across the planet, Internet Radio is a thousand times greater source for new music than local AM/FM radio ever was.

Steve

[Rclark]

Overrated in that much of their catalogue isn't aging as well as some other bands of the era. Some of their lyrics and themes sound downright quaint and old-timey.

[ctviggen]

Personally, I can't stand listening to the Beatles, since I've heard all of their songs way too much.  However, I do think they were great and the few times I can actually listen to their music, I still think it's great (though borders on the strange sometimes).

[Wind Chaser]

My recollections of seeing them on Ed Sullivan solidified my opinion at an early age.  Like the Bay City Rollers, the Beatles were synonymous with young hysterical women make that girls.  Sure they wrote some catchy tunes, but there was a lot of good stuff on airwaves that was every bit as good as anything by the Beatles. 

Of that era [more specifically the late sixties] I much preferred Stones.  Anything by the Stones was better than everything by the Beatles.  For me, the Stones were more about rock'n roll and rebellion than the Beatles could ever be.  Having said that, I could never wrap my head around Led Zeppelin.  To this day I cannot fathom why anyone liked LZ.  Robert Plant's voice is down right annoying... and Stairway to Heaven is 1000 X more overrated than anything and everything by the Beatles.