[evouga]

I think a lot of what's happening is that there is not necessarily a correlation between the technical quality of a piece of art and its cultural influence and legacy. The former is far, far easier to evaluate "in the moment" than the latter is to predict.

For The Beatles specifically, I don't think it's a particularly controversial take to say that while the Beatles made great music, they (with perhaps the exception of Ringo) were unremarkable musicians. Lennon's butchery of the bass line in "The Long and Winding Road" is one famous example but hardly an outlier. I don't think we need to be too harsh on critics who compiled a long lists of technical failings in the latest Beatles album without recognizing its importance to the trajectory of pop music.

The counterexamples are perhaps even more interesting: cases like The Ramones's debut album that were commercial failures but recognized, correctly, by contemporary critics as the start of a momentous change despite its technical failings.