The protagonist would play all those songs and no one would give a shit. They wouldn't recognize them as landmark songs, they'd just be yet more well-done songs in a sea of undifferentiated talent. The Beatles were launched to success by a combination of things, and luck played no small part, along with their apparent sex appeal, the draw of British rock in general, etc.
shareIn "reality", all the music produced by artists influenced by The Beatles would have to disappear as well. That's, uh, a lot of music.
shareApparently that was basically the plot of the original, darker script, before Richard Curtis got a hold of it. I would actually like to have seen that, it could have made a powerful statement about the state of the modern music industry. In reality he would have played Yesterday and his friends would have said "hey, that's a pretty song" and got on with their lives. There is still great music being made today, but it goes completely ignored and the charts are full of talentless hacks with an Instagram account.
shareThat would've been a far more interesting concept to ponder, though surely less satisfying as a movie. We all like to imagine that the things from culture we hold dear are there for a reason, that they were selected by merit, but it could be a combination of things, and luck might be no small part of it. That, and powerful people manipulating the market.
share