That is an astute observation, Kai. The Beatles started out as a pop band, indeed the archetypal “boy band”. As things changed (I won’t say “progressed”) in the 60s I believe they were conscious of not wanting to be left behind and suddenly become dated so their music changed with them. And don’t forget that at that time none of them was more than 25 years old.

When an artist emerges who is not only groundbreaking but influential, it can be hard to understand many years later what all the fuss was about. Because their influence may have been so pervasive that what was once fresh and new has now become commonplace.
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This is also noticeable in films, and now especially in “special effects” — I recently watched “La Belle et la Bête” by Cocteau, which had super-duper-de-looper cinematographic effects in 1946, but now is, well, kind of cheesy.
The story line has some of the same problems: it was praised at the time for its deep, and sometimes funny, characters, and its touching romance, but now the plotting is quite dated.
And let’s not get started on “Star Trek: The Original Series.”

That’s weird that he didn’t know that. Maybe because it was the 80s. Anyone who was young in the 60s would certainly know about their covers, but maybe he was too young to remember. The ones that immediately come to mind for me are “You Really Got a Hold On Me” (a great song) and “Till There Was You,” which is from the musical “The Music Man.”

There are many more, too. Here’s a list of 10 of them, and it’s not all-inclusive; it’s supposed to be the top ten covers they made. Here’s a list that I assume is the definitive one. There are a LOT of songs on that list. But a great many hadn’t been recorded yet when you had your bet with your friend. However, a great many already had: 25 of them.

Griffin, thanks for the titles. Yes, we have differing tastes. That’s cool too.

Love, love, love…..

Another one that comes to mind, and I’m sure Beatles lovers will disagree, is the song “Across the Universe” as performed in the film “Pleasantville” by Fiona Apple. While the original is good, I thought the Apple version really captured the spacey ethereal feeling better. She also slowed it down. I somehow missed the fact that it was a Beatles song, so when I first heard it I assumed it was an original of the female artist. Then years later I heard the Beatles version on the radio.

Disturbed – https://youtu.be/u9Dg-g7t2l4

Puddles – https://youtu.be/U3RXf0E_Vuw

Postmodern Jukebox on YouTube does a selection of retro covers…

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCORIeT1hk6tYBuntEXsguLg

Some translated backwards better than others, but there’s some good stuff in there. I think (after watching a lot of PMJ) that a good song will still be a good song in a different style, but a bad song will still suck. I also believe that if I were a professional musician, I wouldn’t consider my career a success until Weird Al covers one of my tunes.

When an artist emerges who is not only groundbreaking but influential, it can be hard to understand many years later what all the fuss was about. Because their influence may have been so pervasive that what was once fresh and new has now become commonplace.

A more limited example of the same effect is Jimi Hendrix. A while back I listened to his album “Axis: Bold as Love”, recorded in 1967, and heard nearly every rock guitar cliche of the past 40 years. Then I realized they *became* cliches because every rock guitarist in the 70s and 80s was trying to copy Hendrix.