“A bit contrived”: Why Ian Anderson thought The Beatles sounded twee
The classics might be classics for a reason, but sometimes they’re not for everyone. Perhaps they’re regarded as being part of a scene or musical movement that simply doesn’t grab your attention, or perhaps there’s just something about an artist’s style that others fall head over heels for that simply irks you. For example, you might not like folk, and while that might be a weak excuse for not getting into Nick Drake, it’s enough to let it slide.
We’ve all got at least one hot take about a great artist or album that just doesn’t flick that switch in the brain’s pleasure receptors for us, and that’s what makes the beauty of music criticism such an evergreen method of sharing opinions on what’s hot and what’s not. Whether or not you agree with the contents of them, you’re going to keep reading list articles forever, either to feel vindicated about your point of view or to silently seethe at the writer’s decision to place a record at number seven on a list when it’s clearly deserving of a top 3 spot.
It’s easy to debate these arguably trivial differences of opinion until the cows come home. Still, sometimes controversial praise or denouncement of a record can provide a fascinating window into much more than just an individual’s tastes and can sometimes offer a greater insight into our intrinsic differences.
For Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, it’s clear to see how traditional folk and psychedelic rock would have shaped his tastes and what he would later go on to do with his career, and it’s understandable why he would look towards albums like Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn as being hugely influential to him. On that same thought, though, you’d also think that an album like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band would also have had a profound effect on Anderson as well, but in an interview with Louder Sound, he claims that was far from the case.
Speaking to the magazine about the records that changed his life, Anderson said that the two albums, both released in 1967, were battling it out for the attention of fans of progressive pop, but it was Floyd’s debut that grabbed his attention more.
“The Beatles were a pop group,” stated Anderson, “so I thought their stuff was a bit contrived, a bit twee.” Using the t-word in this instance feels a bit like a loaded insult, but the flautist was quick to justify his reasons for his preference. “I liked the singer-songwriter element to Floyd more. Syd Barrett’s songs were strange and funny, and they perfectly complemented the radical, druggy instrumental stuff the band did.”
It’s no secret that the Beatles were becoming seasoned psychonauts around the release of Sgt. Pepper’s as well, but when you’re actively choosing to follow a track like George Harrison’s spiritual odyssey in ‘Within You Without You’ with one of Paul McCartney’s most egregious ‘granny music’ endeavours in ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’, then perhaps the accusations of tweeness have some substance behind them.
“You saw pictures and presented them with words and sound, rather than as paintings,” said Anderson, explaining the difference between the two albums. It’s probably fair to say that one did truly voyage into the strange a lot more than the other, and that album would be Piper over Pepper.
