Are The Beatles the greatest band of all time?

[Tyrone Biggums]

Elvis was a good looking white boy with not a ha'penny of talent of some of the emerging black artists at the time in the States. They are too numerous to mention here on a pop music thread.

Well that's the point. Popularity often clouds people's judgment and they judge less on things like instrumental talents/influence, originality, song writing talents, longevity, genre creation/influence etc and more on perception of talent.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Its all opinions

Indeed it is.

Which is why the Kinks are the greatest band ever haha

 

[Icy Gull]

I think Days by The Kinks is better than In My Life for a beautiful piece of emotive music.

Preferred Dead End Street myself equally as emotive but obviously darker.

Out of work and got no money, Sunday joint of bread and honey

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Preferred Dead End Street myself equally as emotive but obviously darker.

Out of work and got no money, Sunday joint of bread and honey

And neither come close to Waterloo Sunset for pop song perfection.

 

[Icy Gull]

And neither come close to Waterloo Sunset for pop song perfection.

I think we're agreed that the early Kinks stuff has aged much better than the Beatles equivalents, they did go a bit shit later as well though. Apeman

 

[Willy Dangle]

5 star or Motorhead for me.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

And neither come close to Waterloo Sunset for pop song perfection.

On the timeline on Tapatalk, it cuts your sentence half-way through and made me wonder whether you were offering Waterloo by Abba as a superior song...

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

I think we're agreed that the early Kinks stuff has aged much better than the Beatles equivalents, they did go a bit shit later as well though. Apeman

I always gave Apeman a pass due to it confronting issues we're only in the last 10 years realising we're in the shit because of.

The chorus was the major problem with the song. Very comical.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Oh Richard..... lets not fall out, however I hate the beatles with a passion....

The number of songs they wrote is not a good example of how good they are and no one, no one can tell me that songs like "please, please" or "Love me do" or "Michelle" are lyrical or musical masterpieces. When I was at school during music classes every song we did was a Beatles number and I asked the teacher why are doing them do you like the Beatles Sir..... "No I hate them" came the reply...... "eeerrrr well why are playing them all the time then Sir ?"..... "because they are so bloody simple" came his response..... Amen to that.

The Beatles killed Rock'n'Roll and were the first Boy Band as such, they jumped on the back of every craze that was going first they were Rock'n'Roll and covered Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins and the like, right through to jumping on the hippy band wagon that they did not start.

Hate the Beatles

This is a very similar position to that of the Meteors main man

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

On the timeline on Tapatalk, it cuts your sentence half-way through and made me wonder whether you were offering Waterloo by Abba as a superior song...

Well ABBA are in the top 3 greatest "pop" bands of all time.

Pop being music which is well crafted to capture the ear of as many people as possible.

The Winner Takes it All is a damn fine song, but not a patch on Waterloo Sunset!

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Stones ...Sympathy with the Devil 1968
Beatle ... Hey Jude 1968.

Different styles of music. Stones every day for me. Don't mind if the Beatle come on the radio - nice tunes - but I've never bought one of their records. Too soft for my liking.

Same here. Stones all the way and Sympathy is my favourite song ever. It's perfect in every sense.

 

[public school boy]

The Nolans for me followed by B*Witched

 

[Hamilton]

Yes.

Although the Nolans were quality I agree.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

The Nolans for me followed by B*Witched

But early Wham! for their combination of socio-political lyrics and hard-hitting hip-hop style.

Forerunner to Public Enemy.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I can easily list 30 STUNNING Beatles songs within a SEVEN year timeframe. I can't do that with any other band.

You can certainly do this with The Stones. They released 5 stunning albums in a 5 year period. Also, back in the day bands had much fewer touring commitments and were therefore much more prolific musically: Hendrix released his three albums over just 20 months I think. Floyd did 6 classic over 7 years. The Beatles were not unique in that they were were consistently releasing classic music. I guess you can add Led Zep to this list but then they did tour heavily.

 

[Insel affe]

This is a very similar position to that of the Meteors main man

Funny that !

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

A lot of music/sounds they are credited with came from other artists of that generation.

The Yardbirds were far more worthy of being labelled trail blazers than the Beatles.

Which is why they produced 3 of the all time great guitarists.

I really liked the Yardbirds, but don't agree with your view about trailblazers.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Oh Richard..... lets not fall out, however I hate the beatles with a passion....

The number of songs they wrote is not a good example of how good they are and no one, no one can tell me that songs like "please, please" or "Love me do" or "Michelle" are lyrical or musical masterpieces. When I was at school during music classes every song we did was a Beatles number and I asked the teacher why are doing them do you like the Beatles Sir..... "No I hate them" came the reply...... "eeerrrr well why are playing them all the time then Sir ?"..... "because they are so bloody simple" came his response..... Amen to that.

The Beatles killed Rock'n'Roll and were the first Boy Band as such, they jumped on the back of every craze that was going first they were Rock'n'Roll and covered Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins and the like, right through to jumping on the hippy band wagon that they did not start.

Hate the Beatles

I think Rock and Roll was dead way before the Beatles came on the scene. What was in the charts before they emerged in 1963. If anything they tried to revive it in some ways, sharing Chuck Berry, for example, as an influence with the Rolling Stones. And what is "I Wanna Be Your man", which they wrote for the Stones.

 

[Buzzer]

I can easily list 30 STUNNING Beatles songs within a SEVEN year timeframe. I can't do that with any other band.

Beach Boys.
Rolling Stones
Buddy Holly and the Crickets

And I would seriously question whether all of your 30 are 'stunning'.


Edit - oh, and add Queen to that list.

 

[Anchorman]

It's a yes from me. There can be no actual measurement of 'greatest' so it remains subjective and people then default to their preferences which isn't the same thing. They seem to be winning this poll, and I'm pretty sure the result would be the same in any national poll - I'd be fairly confident that some of the alternatives suggested on here wouldn't feature above them in any poll. A lot of the early stuff does sound dated - surely that's to be expected after 50 years, I don't accept that means that they gradually become worse songs.
And of course they would have been influenced by other artists - they readily talk about this in many interviews, they would have been pretty narrow minded not to have been - but way more artists were influenced by them, that they set the musical agenda throughout the 60's cannot be disputed.
I would recommend anyone to take half an hour or so out of their time and have a listen to Revolver, still regularly voted the greatest album of all time. I always think that the last track (Tomorrow never knows) might not be anywhere near their best composition, but I don't think there has ever been a track since that was as far ahead of its time as that was in 1966 - and they were only 24 when they wrote it.