I was going to say the same thing. Jazz guys almost universally love the Beatles but very few I know care for the Stones. Now, blues is a different story because the Stones were so much more heavily influenced by blues than the Beatles were. But, the Beatles have been HEAVILY covered by jazz musicians. In fact, I just heard a GREAT cover of I Feel Fine by Curtis Stigers. It's killer.
The Stones were truer to the roots I think. I still think Keith Richards desperately wants to be Chuck Berry. The Rolling Stones in the early 60's were singing about drugs, sex, and all of your themes of despair and lonliness that never seem to go out of style. The Beatles were singing bubble gum love songs. Not that they were bad bubble gum love songs, and they did become much more interesting when they started getting louder and more psychadelic, but the result was creating pop music as we know it, and creating lame trends like nehru jackets and personal gurus. Stuff for screaming kids, that gave us the decadence of overproduced crap that overpopulates the airwaves and music stores of suburbia. The Stones on the other hand, with their less clean sound and more in-your-face contraversy, leaves us with everything from the Velvet Underground to Iggy Pop to Joy Division to Mazzy Star to the Smiths to the Old 97's to Radiohead as direct descendants. And going backwards, I think the progression is the same, all the way back to at least Al Jolson and Bob Wills. At least that's how I see it. Plus, how can you argue with a Telecaster in open G? But in all fairness, if you asked me up until my early twenties I would probably have said the Beatles. But I was wrong
One more little tidbit: The Stones were just a cover band (covering Chuck Berry, Bobby Womack and lots of Blues artists) until they met John and Paul. The first time John and Paul met the Stones, Mick and the Stones manager (Andrew Oldham) asked them if they could write a song for them. John and Paul borrowed a couple of guitars went over to a corner table in the club and wrote "I Wanna Be Your Man" for the Stones. Mick and Keith were blown away at how fast they knocked off the song and soon they started writing their own songs. So you see, no Beatles, no Stones.
The Beatles are the worst band in recorded history. I F...ing hate that offal. Stones at least have something. They can rock. Beatles suck forever in eternal damnation.
Yup, open up any "fake book" and you'll find at least 10 Beatles tunes. What other rock band can you say that about?
the rolling stones don't belong up with the beatles, they're more aerosmithian than beatlesqe. i'd say the two most popular/successful bands of all time were the beatles and led zeppelin.
Exactly. Listen to Brad Meldhau's cover of "Dear Prudence" on his Largo CD and you'll see why the Stones, while a good rock band, are not the groundbreakers the Beatles were. John, Paul and George were three of the greatest songwriters of their time......in one damned band! It was like the songwriting Dream Team.
You don't care for a band that is in your top five? Does that mean you only like 4 bands? I seem to remember you posting about Radiohead, Joy Division, and many others. Why would you rate a band you don't like above all of those?
Oh this is soooo easy. I saw the Stones the last time they toured. Best $150 bucks I've ever spent. The only semi-modern band that comes close to putting on as good of a show as the Stones is U2. It is because of the question in this poll that I have grown to hate the Beatles. Two down and two to go, is what I say. The only Beatles song I really like is "Help".
How can you put Led Zeppelin before the Stones, and then call the Stones Areosmith-esque? If anything, Aerosmith is Zeppelin-eque. I could be here all night listing the bands that have an obvious Stones influence. My favorite would have to be the best band of the 80s, Guns N Roses.
The Stones are pretty much a one-trick pony - they wrote some messy, guitar-and-amp rock. Although they wrote some ballads, I think these are pretty lame and prove (rather than disprove) their limitations. The Beatles wrote songs in a number of styles and utilized a wide variety of sounds as well. Their experimentation was far more successful than anything the Stones did (does anyone actually like Her Satanic Majesty's Request?). And they did "Yesterday," which is the most covered tune of all time. There's definitely a white bread quality to the Beatles that permeates their work (probably Paul's influence), so I think that's what many people respond negatively to.
If it is true that the Stones would never have written their own songs without the Beatles showing them it could be done, it is at least equally true the Beatles would never have made Sgt. Pepper or the White Album without Bob Dylan turning them on to weed. p.s. Every good rock and roll guitarist wants to be Chuck Berry.
That was certainly true back then, but probably not as much today. The thing about the Beatles is that they re-invented the recording process along with George Martin and invented sounds never produced on record (they were the first to actually use guitar feedback). Most importantly, they changed the very structure of American popular music. Up until the Beatles, bands and artists didn't write their own material. They either played standards, blues songs or the songs of songwriters. It was also true that bands didn't generally play instruments. Artists might play guitar but most "groups" were singing groups with backup bands. Nevermind the fact that they introduced pop music fans to styles of world music rarely if ever heard by them - Indian, Latin, middle eastern. They also were the first band to incorporate truly complex orchestral arrangements into pop songs. Even renowned arrangers like Nelson Riddle didn't come up with some of the widely varied orchestral arrangements like Martin and the Beatles did. The thing that always blows me away is the fact that they completely altered the song form. Until the Beatles, popular songs were exclusively written in AABA format. Verse, verse, chorus, verse. Basically, all jazz standards fit this form and many of the Beatles songs do as well. But, they began writing songs in alternate formats - verse, bridge, chorus, etc. After that, the American popular song form was completely altered. Songs today are rarely if ever written in the traditional AABA format and the Beatles started all that. I like both bands (and, for those who mentioned Zep, they are one of my all time favorites), but if you want to talk about the most influential band of all time, its not even close. The Beatles literally changed the way music was written, performed and recorded.
Agreed on all counts, Jeff. Though, when talking influence, Dylan's right up there with the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles (especially John and George) were among those most meaningfully influenced by him. He also had a huge impact on rap, which owes a great deal to Subterranean Homesick Blues, which, itself, owes a lot to Too Much Monkey Business. It all comes back to Chuck Berry.
I'll be thirty seven years old in a few weeks, and I've never owned any Bob Dylan music until recently when most of his stuff was released on SACD. I have to admit.....I'm really enjoying his music. Good stuff.
Dylan had plenty of influence on everything, including the Beatles. He actually taught them a different way to write songs. I believe it was during Dylan's '65 tour of England. Dylan, John and Paul were sitting around Dylan's hotel room with maryjane when John asked Dylan how he wrote songs. Bob pulled out his typrewriter (which he always wrote his songs on) and proceeded to write a line. He then asked John to write something (he told him just write the first thing that comes into your head) Paul went next, then Dylan, and so on until they had written an entire song. John adapted this style of writing starting on Revolver. Songs like Tomorrow Never Knows, Baby Your A Rich Man, Come Together and many others use this style of writing.
I used to think this too. Despite the Stones' amazing run of flawless LPs (Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street - consecutively!) (followed by Goat's Head Soup, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, Black and Blue, and Some Girls - not a bad run, either), the Beatles are clearly THE band musically of all time. Why do you think they are so widely covered, especially by jazz guys? Obviously because their melodies are so musical, and because most every song contains two, three, four distinct melodies. I swear I can put on Rubber Soul or anything following and just isolating the bass line and listening to it will literally bring tears to my eyes. But anymore I have to say that the Beatles were cooler also. I mean, Beatle boots, the 12 string Rickenbacker, giving up playing live so they could simply make music? There's not a lot cooler than 70's-issue Keith, but I have to say that the Beatles qualify.
Let me be clearer about that, Hydra. The Stones are in my top 5 but that doesn't mean of bands that I like. It means bands that I feel were important to music. I cannot deny the impact that the Stones have had on music, but it doesn't mean I like them. If we were going by my "favorite" top 5 bands of all-time, my list would be as follows: 1) Pink Floyd 2) The Cure 3) Led Zeppelin 4) Radiohead 5) Smashing Pumpkins
Agreed. I think Dylan's influence was just different than the Beatles. He influenced lyrics and innovation in rock music. He encouraged experimentation and emphasized storytelling. The Beatles influenced melody and instrumentation. They revolutionized the pop song and made it ok to play a 7-minute-song on the radio. They altered the foundation of songwriting for popular music and (along with Hendrix) essentially invented the recording studio industry. No average music fan knew about Sun Studios or Muscle Shoals or the Hit Factory until the Beatles taught everyone about Abbey Road. I think the point BobFinn* makes is a good way to see it. When asked how he wrote songs, Dylan pulled out a typewriter. But, ultimately, you don't get a song without the music. In the same way Dylan revolutionized lyric-writing for popular music, the Beatles revolutionized instrumentation.
