Quote:
Originally Posted by Necromancer
The Beatles didn't have the blues/R&B/funk/soul influence to their music like the Stones did. And those are my favorite genres of preference. And without concern of their image which means nothing musically speaking.
The Who, would be a better band to compare with the Beatles, and The Who would win that one as well. They were a major influence on the punk genre for example, more so or just as much as the The Beatles, they experimented with a lot of different genres of music, opera rock, progression, ambient, whatever.. The Beatles did a lot, but not anything that is more significant or musically extraordinary than the music of the Stones/Who.
|
I`m glad the Beatles didn`t have the heavy blues/R&B influence to their music, because about 60% of all groups at this time were churning out this sound and just because they added some funk and soul influences hardly put the Stones in the same level of excellence as the Beatles. The trick of the Stones was very simple really and that was to take traditional southern american sounds and re-do them in their own style (whilst that makes them original it doesn`t necessarily make them brilliant but the trick worked) There are a number of other groups around at that time, whose sound was based on blues and R&B that I`d much sooner listen to anyway, where the Stones excelled though, was with their bad boy image combined with Mick Jagger`s cocky approach which contrasted with the more sullen aloofness of Keith Richards.
Musically though they lag behind the Beatles, they didn`t have the pop and melodic sensiblities of McCartney and the brilliance and experimentalism of Lennon or the soul and vocal beauty of Harrison and for these reasons the Beatles excelled. Also the Beatles progressed through a myriad of musical styles that was simply breathtaking and they did this without ever being a progressive band as such, they more or less just borrowed musical ideas off their contemporaries such as Dylan, Shankar, Beach Boys and the Byrds and then just created their own magical cocktail. In contrast to this, the Stones had their Brian Jones cover period and their period just after, which is all decent enough, but when they tried to do something really different as in psychedelia they failed miserably, but at least they had the sense to then turn back to what they knew how to do. Then came the so called golden era of the Stones the late 60`s and early 70`s, where they put out a bunch of very overrated albums ( I have these albums and after about 100 combined listens I`m still unimpressed) By the latter part of the 70`s though, the group and especially Mick Jagger had actually become a laughable parody of themselves and should have actually called it a day then.
I think the Beatles v the Rolling Stones is a good pairing, quite simply because they are the two most revered British groups ever, but I`d say the Who were far better to compare with the Stones though.
The Who and even the Pretty Things are one of the best comparisons to make with the Stones. When it comes to the Beatles the best comparisons are really the Byrds and the Beach Boys.
At the end of the day though, these were two very different bands that moved millions of people and are always well worth talking about. It`d be interesting from the Americans on here, to see who they think were the two most revered American bands of all time to make that same comparison. I certainly know which bands or artists I`d pick, but it`d be great to see an American perspective on this.