[MUSIC] Who Was the Greater Artist: Elvis Presley or The Beatles?

The only way to judge Elvis is to block out everything after 1960. It was just a very sad downward spiral. The man was too trusting, and he got too comfortable. Lennon was smarter, though. He pulled the plug before things got ugly. The Beatles ended on a high note, which is why they are still popular 42 years after breaking up.

 

All the people who say now that they were too cool for Elvis. John Lennon himself says what it was like seeing him:

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Watch this and tell me you wouldn't be another screaming fan in the audience:

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Manny, it's really artists verus an artist, and composers of their own music versus an amazing singer who sang what others wrote. Given those parameters, I would say that as a singer, I'd give the edge to Elvis. As terrific as the different Beatles were as singers, they were better, in my opinion, singing as a group. As creators of their own music, however, and being terrific singers as well, I give the overall edge to the Beatles. Trust me, I have some friends who would disagree, and they're Beatles fans. They simply prefer Elvis more. I love much of Elvis's work, the work that doesn't bowl me over (not in a good way) with its commercialism, but much prefer the Beatles when it comes to playing an LP. I also tend to listen to their solo work more than I listen to Elvis. But I love the best of Mister Presley.

 

The Beatles expanded the scope of and changed the way pop music is recorded.

Elvis directly stole black music and was palatable.

 

By that definition, every rock star on the planet would be guilty of "stealing Black music," including the Beatles, and they admitted the influence. And "palatable?" With all due respect, don't be rediculous!

 

Not influenced by or copycatting, but literal thievery. Like Led Zeppelin court case stuff.

And I meant palatable to whites.

 

The Beatles changed the music world by inspiring boys to pick up guitars and drums and be in a band instead of being solo artists. Any band in the pop rock genre see them as an inspiration as to where they want to go as bands.

 

Beatles changed music.

Elvis just copied Chuck Berry.

 

You don't understand Elvis, if that's what you think.

No voice was more distinctive than his. Period. Same as Chuck Berry's sound.

As far as palatable to whites, most whites thought that Elvis was vulgar, not palatable. Thanks for dumbing up the thread.

 

Nope. I'm not a girl.

[sexism]
I'm a fairly serious musician and I like listening to accomplished musicians, boundary-pushing artists, blah blah and so on... Anyway, whenever I go see a live artist, the crowds are always GUYS -- serious sausage parties -- which is fine, because I'm there for music, not to pick up girls. Ten years ago, I was mostly going to rock/metal shows, so this was to be expected, but my music tastes have really grown since then and I've seen classical, jazz, electronic, and way too many indie pop artists -- a good portion of which were female-fronted acts and even heavier on the estrogen appeal... and the audiences were still majority guys.
[/sexism]

My only association with a room full of screaming girls are the boy bands of the past few decades (e.g. N'Sync, New Kids on the Block, etc.). It was a weird moment for me when I put two and two together while watching videos of what I had accepted as rock musician pioneers with the same type of audience. What could I possibly conclude other than that Elvis, The Beatles, etc. were the original "boy bands": sex appeal sold through the medium of music for profits' sake. Okay, I should probably adjust that statement for the Beatles before I get crucified: The Beatles certainly have left a strong legacy and influence on pop/rock music, and it's not their fault they had sex appeal going for them. Even Led Zeppelin, who I personally enjoy, performed to crowds of tens of thousands -- what current artist do I have in my music collection that has any sort of comparable mass appeal?? None.

All that to say, I wonder if the best musicians, the real visionaries and revolutionaries were those whose names never made it big and were forgotten over the years. Now, of course, it's impossible to accurately judge this era without any context, and seeing as I'm only in my mid-20s, I pretty much have none. Perhaps the world of music was different back then; maybe popular music and high-quality music were one and the same? I don't know. I've yet to meet a person in their 60s to convince me, heh...

More on topic, having listened to a fair share of oldies ('50s-'60s), it's always been hard for me to see the great musical strides ascribed to Elvis and The Beatles into the rock era. However, listening to Little Richard and especially Chuck Berry, they seem to come from another world, as best as I can tell, compared to their contemporaries. I'm fairly convinced the history of rock'n'roll has been severely whitewashed.

tl;dr: I'm a bit of a troll, sorry.

 

Carl Perkins.

 

Elvis was more culturally influential than a musical trailblazer. He took African American music and made it popular and mainstream with a lot of style and showmanship. A critical role nonetheless.

I'd say Elvis was more culturally influential but from a music standpoint, clearly the Beatles did more to innovate and change music more than Elvis.

 

What a ridiculous thing to say. Elvis released his first album a year before Berry did.

 

elvis was not mainstream. do your history. he became mainstream, but his sound and movement was seen as unclean and vulgar and that's why they shot him from the waist up on his network television debut. this notion that white people just wanted a white face but black music is revisionist history. the white mainstream thought rock n roll in general was a gateway to sex and drugs, the whole black angle wasn't present.

after the fact, black critics came along and said that elvis owned all his success to his white face, because black people were doing the same thing for years and getting nowhere. but that is a simplistic (casual) point of shaky fact based on the idea that the popularity of an artist was affected by the racism of the time, which doesn't explain why white kids were going to see Little Richard and Chuck Berry in concert.

If all you had to be was white and sing black music, where were the other examples? That's like someone saying 30 years after the fact that eminem was only popular because he made rap music palatable to whites? Is that the case?

 

As usual, criteria for the question at hand will be too varied for this to be useful.

That said, I voted Elvis for the splash (size of it, and being first) but think the Beatles expanded their creativity to larger horizons. Plus, Elvis was one guy, they were four.

I'd rather listen to Beatles, and think they showed more creativity in the long run, but I think I'd give the nod slightly in Elvis' favor if the criteria is 'who was more groundbreaking in their creativity.'