The Beatles were the greatest Rock Band of all time

[Taverner]

Even their really early Stuart Stutcliffe stuff is better than any other band playing at the time.

Is there an album greater than "Abbey Road"?

Is there an album greater than "Revolver"?

Post Breakup, what band had as many great solo albums as they did post-Beatles?

Shit, even RINGO'S album was good

Yeah there were a lot of other bands that were good. I love the Stones and Pink Floyd. I love almost any good music.

But The Beatles, they were beyond Rock. They were beyond roll.

You can play a Beatles album to a 5 year old, a 15 year old, a 25 year old, a 35 or 45 year old, a 50 year old, and a 95 year old. Chances are, all of them will love it.

[trof]

1. I dunno. I kinda liked the Chandelles.

:rofl:

[lunamagica]

2. YES!!!!!! eom

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. They weren't a rock band. They were bigger than a rock band.

My vote for greatest rock band of all time is an even split between the Who (ONLY with Moon on board) and the Stones.

The Beatles? They were in a category all their own, and beyond compare (except for a million wannabe and sound-alike bands).

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. +1

except that THE STONES are the greatest rock band of all time...however, it is true that The Beatles are in a class by their selves.

[Faygo Kid]

14. +2

[pacalo]

19. I go with the Stones. My first reaction to them was as momentous as everyone else's was to the

Beatles. I liked the Beatles' haircuts & I'll always be grateful for their role in bringing the mod styles & the British music explosion to the U.S., but back then in grade school, my heart belonged to Motown & the Beatles' music just didn't move me. It was love at first sight with the Stones, though; they had the scruffy bad-boy looks & their music was reeking with soul & very seductive. "Satisfaction" & "Get Off My Cloud" put them on the top of my list forever. Not to mention "Monkey Man" & "Sympathy For the Devil".

[Amerigo Vespucci]

29. There was nothing to compare to the sound of...

..."The Last Time" and "Satisfaction" blasting out of the crummy little AM radio speaker in my dad's car.

And "Jumpin' Jack Flash?" I'd never heard anything like that before in my life. When I found out years later that the sound was primarily over-driven ACOUSTIC guitars, I was even more impressed (this is my own scan of my copy of the single):



But it's still 50-50 for me...both bands hit me in different ways. Pete Townshend perfectly captured that adolescent angst in his songs, and "I Can See For Miles" was another car radio gem that was as perfect as perfect gets.

:toast:

[pacalo]

31. The Who's "Tommy" was a masterpiece.

[mwb970]

37. That's what I was thinking.

Calling the Beatles a "rock band" just doesn't get it. There were/are lots of "rock bands". There was one Beatles.

[Moondog]

4. All true.

Utterly unfair then to compare them to their contemporaries, many of which would have been considered generational greats but for the competition from the Beatles.

And your point is?

[MiddleFingerMom]

6. Water is wet.

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:thumbsup:
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[Demoiselle]

17. Agreed. Well put, MFM.

[Bake]

59. What you said.

End of story.

Bake

[IcyPeas]

7. someone posted a music organizational chart here....

someone posted here a month or so ago a fantastic organizational flow chart type thing of different branches of music and what genre branched off from what. It was pretty fascinating. Maybe they will see this thread.

I'm curious where the Beatles fell in these categories (it was genre of music, not necessarily bands). But I am curious which category the "beatle-type" music fell into.

I think they are in a class by themselves too, not to say they were the "best", but IMHO they certainly were the beginning of a "branch" so to speak.

How many Beatle song titles can you name in 19 minutes? (this was posted here too and I borrowed it)

http://www.sporcle.com/games/beatlessongs.php

[kwassa]

8. The greatest pop band of all time.

but they didn't rock as well as many other bands.

Stones take the rock title.

[pokerfan]

26. Thank you!

:headbang:

[MilesColtrane]

39. "they didn't rock as well as many other bands."

Ummm...."Helter Skelter"?

[jmowreader]

50. That's ONE song

Get someone who's a rock fan but not necessarily a Beatles fan and play them "Helter Skelter" then either "I Can See For Miles" or "You Better You Bet" and see which one he likes better.

Definitely don't play him "Baba O'Riley." That will definitely ruin your life--the Beatles never did a song that good.

[Paradoxical]

9. Radiohead.

[meow2u3]

10. Since '66, no Beatles hit sounded the same, unlike the pop (s)hits today

The Beatles were the vanguards of fusion. They mixed rock with all different styles of music. Even my mom--who despised the Beatles when I was a kid in the '60s (she went as far as not to allow me to listen to them), came around when she got old and exposed to the crap that passed for music in the late '90's and early 2000's.

The best thing about them is that their music was great even after they broke up. George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" still rocks after all these years :yourock:.
Ringo Starr was still his old, funny self, especially the "No Song."
and so on, and so forth.....

[riderinthestorm]

11. Across the Universe is the best Beatles adaption movie ever! nt

[Book Lover]

12. No, they weren't

"Is there an album greater than "Abbey Road"?

Is there an album greater than "Revolver"?"

Yes. It is called "A Night at the Opera"

[Taverner]

15. Freddy Mercury sang sharp

He only sounded good because of the studio

[TuxedoKat]

34. I don't know

did you ever hear him sing "Barcelona" with Monserrat Caballe? You have to have a pretty good voice to sing with an opera singer and not sound bad or ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wixz_r7v51E

[MilesColtrane]

41. Notice that they are not singing into microphones.

And, you can't get that sound out of a lavalier mic.

They are lip synching to a pre-recorded track.

[TuxedoKat]

48. I knew it was prerecorded

What I was commenting on was the quality of his voice and how well it sounds with Montserrat Caballe's. That said, they may have done some things in the studio to enhance his voice too, I don't know for sure though. I just know that whenever I have heard other recordings of other pop singers with opera singers they come out worse for the comparison (John Denver, Julio Inglesias and some others I can't recall), so for FM's voice to sound so well with M. Caballe's great voice makes me conclude he had a pretty good voice himself. One of these days I will ask my niece her opinion; she is a trained opera singer who knows way more about these things than I ever will!

[JitterbugPerfume]

46. Barcelona is awesome

Freddy Mercury was one of the greatest.

[WinkyDink]

52. Ok, try "Sgt. Pepper's LHCB."

[cemaphonic]

13. Gonna hafta disagree on the 'solo albums' part

All Things Must Pass is great.

Lennon has about 1 1/2 albums worth of great songs spread out over a decade of albums.

McCartney's solo stuff is awful. I can't understand how he could have churned out classic after classic with the Beatles, and then lost it entirely. Maybe he really did die.

I do like that one hit from Ringo's album, but can't say I've heard the rest of it.

Otherwise, yeah they were a really great band, no doubt.

[Taverner]

16. I dunno, I like McCartney and RAM

The Wings' stuff is OK - it's a let down if you compare it to the Beatles, but if you compare it to, say, Joe Cocker, or any other contemporaries, it stacks up

Lennon - his stuff is hit or miss with me. "Gimmie some Truth" is one of my all time favorites, same for "Imagine." "Cold Turkey" gives me goosebumps every time too.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. How can anyone even BEGIN to mount a dispute of that?

Transcendent.

[Bucky]

58. If you read the thread, you'll see that several people have indeed.

I've noticed that taste is highly differentiated among you humans.

[Joe Fields]

20. Amen, brother. No other group even comes close...

[Bennyboy]

21. Sorry but NO....

The Rolling Stones had albums as good or better than the Beatles. Some of the best songs in the history of msuic were penned by Jagger/Richards.

The Grateful Dead played more shows to more people than anyone, and increased the size of their fan base throughout their history.


Both had long careers with excellent recordings made at all points in those careers. Hell, the Dead had a hit with Touch Of Grey in 1989!

BTW< when I think band, I think live not studio. Hell Steely Dan is great int he studio but suck ass live.

[Lindsey]

22. The Beatles - a class completely by themselves...then there's

everyone else.

[Taverner]

27. "The Rolling Stones had albums as good or better than the Beatles"

That depends - was "Exile on Main Street" better than the White Album? Probably

Was Exile better than Abbey Road? Of course not.

Was any song on Abbey Road as good as Gimmie Shelter? Of course not.

But was Let it Bleed as good as Abbey Road? Of course not.

You really can't compare the two groups.

They were both awesome in very similar and some very different ways.

[MilesColtrane]

44. "Hell Steely Dan is great int he studio but suck ass live."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTDRd0Z0O4o

LOL

Kinda makes the rest of your post hard to take seriously.

[Bennyboy]

51. As the only person you will ever know that saw the Dan on that tour...

They were SAVAGED by the press and the Dan never toured again after that until the 90's. Whne they had other players than the originals (Skunk Baxter etc)

The first band I thought was great, but the review crap they put out there now just blows monkey chuncks.

[Iggo]

23. Have you come into the light?

I thought you were a Stones guy.

[Taverner]

24. Dude I love the Stones

Amazing band!

Can't I like both?

[Iggo]

25. I dunno, man.

(Of course you can)

[Terra Alta]

28. no arguement here.

The Beatles are awesome.. and John Lennon is one of my heroes.

[jakestake]

30. Yes they were.

For the reasons you mentioned plus probably a million others.

I could recite the words to probably 100 Beatles songs. The melodies, lyrics, etc. were perfect music for the time they were released, and have stood the test of time better than anything since.

[GReedDiamond]

32. I'm not sure how to put this...

...I have a somewhat dichotomous opinion of The Beatles.

On the one hand, I think they were somewhat overrated, and if I never hear some particular Beatle songs ever again, I will not suffer by it, or even care. I've heard them so many times, I can play them in my head, at will.

On the other, there is no doubt that they had some unbelievably great tunes, and they set the bar very high, as far as being the all-time greatest rock/pop band, the ones to top in order to actually BE at the the "top of the top" in the contemporary music biz.

And by that I mean: judged on the overall high quality of their material -- the songwriting, the musicianship, and the production values; the epic sales numbers the band generated; the creative impact they had on their contemporaries in the music world in general, across almost all musical genres -- not to mention their influence in crossing-over into film, fashion and other non-musical forms of pop-culture, or their impact on society in general, through their counter-culturalism/anti-war stance, and the use of cannabis and psychedelics; and the idolization of the band through their manipulation and use of the pop-culture "news" media (anything a Beatle did, good or bad, was front page, stop-the-presses newsworthy), etc, etc.

As a result, The Beatles brand, to this day, looms large in the music industry and in pop culture legend. Perhaps Michael Jackson approached The Beatles in that regard, but, honestly, I'm not a real big MJ fan, so I'm not really sure about that.

As I think has previously been mentioned, The Rolling Stones were always hyped as "the Greatest rock n roll band in the World" or some such thing, but they never topped The Beatles, because The Beatles were much more than a "rock n roll band."

As individuals, The Beatles are of great interest to me.

I will often hear from others, many times musicians themselves, that Ringo was a kind of sucky drummer, but I think that Ringo is, in fact, underrated. He has a real signature, identifiable sound (which works very well with the rest of the bands' playing), as do most if not all of Ringo's prominent drummer peers from the era: Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Charlie Watts, John Densmore, etc, they all have their own unique playing styles/sounds, as did Ringo. He may not have been as capable or electrifying as a Keith Moon or Bonham, or as technically proficient as other drummers of the day, but he's a perfect fit for The Beatles.

As a solo artist, Paul has often disappointed me, but certainly has some great gems that redeem him.

John bared his soul, no doubt, with some truly great, and also sometimes "interesting" stuff (I'm a big Yoko fan), but my favorite solo Beatle just may be George. I've always liked his solo work, even his "hare krishna" stuff, and I'm an atheist.

If ever the day comes when The Beatles are dethroned, I suspect I'll be long dead. The music industry today is too mega-corporately controlled to allow artists like The Beatles to emerge and thrive.

[trackfan]

33. I'll have to agree with you on this.

They're even the best country band of all time. I'll Cry Instead. What Goes On. Many great covers.

[jmowreader]

35. Sorry, but The Beatles never did anything for me

The Who and the Rolling Stones were better bands.

As far as the solo albums go...get a copy of Lennon's "Some Time in New York City" and listen to it. That album sucks so bad you could use it as a feedwater pump on the Fukushima nuke plant.

[Frank Cannon]

36. Neither for me, but I think it's because their music was so massively overplayed.

You couldn't go anywhere in the '60s without hearing a Beatles song being played pretty much 24/7.

[Bucky]

38. They were a great band, but they mostly wrote military marches, not rock songs.

[kid shelleen]

55. You mean U2, not the Beatles

The Beatles transcended genres and labels. Not to take anything away from the Stones. On a good night they could tear it up with the best of them.

[Bucky]

57. If I said the Beatles I meant the Beatles

From Day in the Life to Yellow Submarine, it's just one oompah beat after another. U2's beats were much more complex than the Beatles'. No platoon could do a short order drill to "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

[kid shelleen]

64. You may be on to something here

It's a little known fact that if you play Norwegian Wood back-wards, it sounds exactly like the 'She's Too Fat For Me' Polka. Coincidence or not???

[center rising]

40. The Beatles revolutionized music

[mcollins]

42. When you listen to their album 'One'

you really get a sense of how their music changed over time.

[hifiguy]

43. Agreed

And no other band, however great <cough, Pink Floyd> even comes close.

The Beatles were and are a singularity.

[JitterbugPerfume]

45. two words

Rolling Stones.

In my mind they are equal.It is impossible to say which was "best"

[struggle4progress]

47. Loved em way back when. But frankly, heard em too waaay much.

[WinkyDink]

53. Which shows how great they were. They weren't especially long-lived as a group.

[RedCloud]

49. Only because the Moody Blues politely shifted the battle of the bands from London

Imagine the Moody Blues being financed the way the Beatles were.

[musette_sf]

54. Listening to "Meet The Smithereens" right now

Basically it's "Meet The Beatles", performed by the 'Reens.

Gotta say, the Fab Four ARE the greatest rock band of all time!

Next I'll listen to Smithereens "B-Side The Beatles", with all the B-sides you know and love (e.g., "You Can't Do That", "I'll Get You, etc)


The 'Reens really do a nice job of it.

Personal fave Beatles album: "Revolver"

[slay]

56. Pink Floyd

Grateful Dead. Jethro Tull. The Beatles. All 4 while very different have never been equaled and all are amazing in their own way. What a time period for music back then.

[Arkansas Granny]

60. I never cared much for the Beatles. Back in '63 & '64 it was like being force fed.

[Brigid]

61. What? Nobody's mentioned CCR? And the Eagles?

And Bob Seager and the Silver Bullet Band? The Moody Blues? And worst of all, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band is left is left out? Lots of great bands left out here.

[HEyHEY]

66. Yeah and you only named two of em

:P

[Lucian]

62. I hate The Beatles.

Their music sucks.

But I come from a younger generation.

Edit: The Eagles are so much better.

[Recovered Repug]

63. I've never understood the attraction of the Beatles,

maybe it's a generational thing. I do think this is funny, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgKCQJfAVgI

[HEyHEY]

65. Newp, TRUE rock from that era was the Animals.