Just for post 1, a disclaimer: this is going to be a blog for all the long Facebook answers I type out but don't post. If points seem random, that's why.
Here's my take on it: when I was growing up (90s-2000s), the Beatles were having a 50th anniversary thing. They were on the radio on Christmas a few times, including the one where we had a pompadour-wigged taxi driver drive us 5 hrs back from Chicago on Christmas Eve one year. But I kind of doubt we listened to the same music, and when (or if) we shut off the radio, I doubt it was to put in the same CDs (I've only heard of Raekwon, not even that album tho).
The Beatles seem "blah" because they ARE blah. That's kind of the point, at first at least. The stuff you think of like "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Love Me Do," all the early stuff was basic pop with subtle variations (you could think of this in rap terms as almost every song being in 4/4 ballad meter, it's what they do that's slightly different that makes it cool). They got way cooler later. Probably not coincidentally when they discovered drugs. And they helped usher in the psychedelic era, because never had such a "blah" band gone in such a ridiculous direction with POP music. Remember, they are essentially the Biebers of their time.
Then we get to the more controversial part of it: the Beatles are nostalgic and blah, but you're also forgetting an important part: they're white. If you listen to primarily black artists around the same time, the Beatles are indeed blah. Black people were making jazz and blues into rock and roll around this time (Chuck Berry and motown spring to mind), and white people stole that shit like they owned it. So the Beatles are the first "cool" pop band to use the "scary" black sounds of earlier bluesmen (this is also true of Led Zeppelin and the Yardbirds/Clapton before them). That's why white people love them. Black people went on to make funk, acid jazz, most of the good music in the 80s, hip-hop, and finally rap. All of which are now (except maybe jazz and funk) mostly white dudes.
So when one says "Paul McCartney's gonna get a boost from Kanye!" one is really just exposing your white privilege-induced ignorance (so new). The answer is, because black people didn't listen to the same music white people did. I doubt your parents listened to classic rock stations like mine, or if they did, with the same veneration. My dad can sing some Lynyrd Skynyrd songs word-for-word (also, I can spell their name correctly). That's what I mean. It's two cultures that were more disparate a long time ago meeting. Paul McCartney played black music safely, just like Pat Boone. He's venerated by white people, and considered a part of the common culture we all grew up with. Just as an example, I didn't know who Stevie Wonder was until I heard he did a song with Paul McCartney.
I think it's silly for anyone to expect any two of us to have the same culture. The people who don't know who Paul is probably aren't gonna have the range needed to appreciate his music (not like physically, just like they don't really know a wide bunch of music). Kanye, on the other hand, is a brilliant musician and businessman. Who's his main audience? Suburban white kids, like me, who listened to the Beatles. The music is very 60s-pop style (though it actually brought a tear to my eye, I won't lie) with new auto-tune singing in it. It's not any more innovative than "Ebony and Ivory," but I assume it'll perform the same purpose. I mean, just look how many people listen to Stevie as opposed to like Marvin Gaye.
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