Who is the most influential rock and roll band EVER?

Hey how's NYC going b****. You know who this is. How's the egg man.

 

Setting the Beatles aside for a second...

No mention of Black Sabbath?

Ric already mentioned them in passing, but KISS.

 

if we're going to talk about EVER, then I'll have to go with Radiohead.

if we're going to talk about EVER UP TO NOW, I have to vote The Beatles. and I don't really even think it's close. especially when you consider the extra-musical aspects of being a "rock band", The Beatles pretty much started every rock cliche that I know of, and I know of a lot.

try to think of a rock cliche that you can't trace back to the Beatles.

okay, I thought of one: lighting the guitar on fire. that would have to go to Jimi. in fact, Jimi should have been on this list even though he's not technically a band.

rock cliches that do trace back to The Beatles:

- growing long hair
- dramatically changing up your style of music
- dramatically changing up your public image
- studio innovation and experimentation
- the concept album
- making a movie about yourself
- drug experimentation

and of course. . .

- breaking up

I'm sure there are many more, but those are just off the top of my head.

I think that, if The Beatles "invented" what it means to be a rock band, though, Zep perfected it.

and I also think it could be argued that Zep was much more the true "rock" band. The Beatles definitely went beyond rock into pop.

 

uhm... drugs have been as much a staple of music as instruments. the beatles can lay claim to many innovations, but drug experimentation is merely a tradition they continued.

 

What?! No Journey? No Van Halen?

Wait: let me get one of these in here:

 

Influential to rock and roll music and bands or influential to any band or music? I see a difference, although I cannot think of one.

Like, most blues bands would be influential to rock and roll bands and music. They lead up to it, imo. Rock and roll bands don't influence each other as much. But maybe they influenced another genre.

So, what does the most influential rock and roll band ever influence?

 

or do they have to influence music at all? could they be more influential culturally? or politically?

something to think about, imo

 

No other single rock group or solo performer has EVER inspired more teenagers and young adults to form rock 'n roll bands and play the guitar than The Beatles .

In recent polling done among recording artists, The Beatles ranked # 1 as the music industry's most influential performers of all time .

If not for the 20th Century's greatest songwriting team ( John Lennon & Paul McCartney ), rock musicians of today would still be singing the same sugar coated rudimentary sclock tunes that the record companies A & R men once made them sing !

No other rock 'n roll act has generated more quality recorded music in so short a time span ! ( 13 complete albums ( CD's ) and 2 complete albums worth of additional singles all within 7 yrs. time ) .

Without even one of the Beatles taking formal music lessons, ( heck, none of them could even read music ! ), they shattered all boundaries of music conventionality . The word " can't " was simply not in their vocabulary .

 

Was this supposed to be a joke?

 

I agree with most of this, but to say that rock music would be sugar-coated schlock without the Beatles is not really true. First off, Bob Dylan had brought a poetic lyricism to rock music before the Beatles had even come to America.

More importantly, I think a group like the Beatles was inevitable. If they hadn't done it, someone else would have (perhaps the Beach Boys, who are equally responsible for experimentation in rock music). And the experimentation of their music reflected the tastes of their audience - the majority of the record-buying public in the late 1960s simply wouldn't have stayed loyal to sugar-coated crap.

But the Beatles output is simply unparalleled and you have to admire the fact that they kept such control over their artistic output (a reason why N'Stync will never have a legacy like the Beatles).