I've been a Beatlemaniac all my life, so it's time I found a new group to be obsessed with. Tell me which modern bands you think are better than the Fab Four
The Beatles: Rock Band may well see the Fabs adopted by the globe's gaming teens
A grimace akin to looking at the sole of your Reebok after a race down the main street of San Antonio at 3am and a sneer of "really?" That was the response I got the last time I told someone my favourite band was the Beatles. The previous occasion, over pints with a couple of women in their mid-twenties, my confession was met with "we're not that bothered about the Beatles, our parents liked the Stones". Usually I just get derisive laughter and looks of incredulity, as if I'd announced that I watch nothing but Betamax videos and consider Beowulf to be the pinnacle of poetry.
I can see their point. Am I not, as a pop-culture pundit, supposed to have been exposed to every outlandish and inventive facet of modern rock? Have I really not come across another band to match such an antiquated canon? Have I not heard the new Horrors album? The sneers say that I've just not tried, that I'm acceding to the most hackneyed branch of received critical opinion, and that I'm being, well, a bit of a Noel.
For all the reassuring hype surrounding this week's release of the remastered back catalogue – all the gruff bellows of solidarity stating that anyone who claims not to like the Beatles is either "a fool or a liar" – I've found that being a Beatles fan in 2009 is decidedly uncool.
I see it from the opposite viewpoint: it's far more ridiculous that no band in the last 40 years has managed to make 13 consistently great records in a row or produce a pan-genre double album as imaginative and inspirational as the Beatles.
These naysayers seem like the Neanderthals who thought the wheel was overrated, but this opinion is increasingly prevalent. With there having been no Beatles songs available for download until the release of The Beatles: Rock Band this week, the band have drifted off the radar of the iTunes generation. It's natural for new generations to define themselves by tearing down their parents' totems; when punk tried to kill off the Beatles the music was still too fresh to be denied. But now that mainstream radio playlists have moved on, and recording and distribution technology has advanced, Oasis have appropriated the Beatles as Godfathers of Dadrock. And since the Fabs have thus far refused to move with the download revolution like a grandparent terrified of flying with Easyjet, Beatle-worship seems as archaic as sacrificing a goat.
The Beatles: Rock Band may well see the Fabs adopted by the globe's gaming teens, but even as I sink into the remasters with childlike reverie, it strikes me that maybe I am stuck in the mud. Maybe these records seem unmatchable because they were so formative in my pre-teen introduction to music. Maybe I need a new favourite band. So I welcome your suggestions of modern bands that are better than the Beatles, and pray for my critical credibility's sake that one of you is right.
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