Without a doubt, Strange Days is the weakest of the Morrison-era LPs.

imo waiting for the sun is their weakest Lps :/
though it has (hello i love you,unknown soldier,yes the river knows & five to one) it still has more filler then great songs..

Pink Floyd.

First half Beatles albums. Second half Stones albums.

I'm not going to assume anything and say all kids today know or don't know whom the Beatles are/were, but I think there might be more than you think that do know whom the Beatles are. Especially because there music is still accessible and there are a few indie/alt bands that have some Beatlesque sound to them, it would be easier for them to get into the Beatles music than some one in the 60's who liked the Beatles to get into music from 18th, or turn of the 19th century music - if you used the same time difference.

Think about it if disliking the Beatles is due to an emotional reaction to people liking the Beatles too much then it would seem the next generation would go in the the oppostie direction of that and think it's cool to like the Beatles as a counter-reaction of people hating the Beatles too much.

I wouldn't write off Amy Winehouse or Sade either, really none of us knows what the future will entail. They might be legendary in the future as some female Blues or Jazz singer from the 20s was legendary for people during the 70's. It is all speculation anyway, no one really knows.


I don't agree. Saying we wouldn't have Alternative Rock if there wasn't a Velvet Underground is basically the same thing as uber-Beatles-fans are condemn for saying. I'm not trying undermind the talent of Pink Floyd or VU or trying to say they didn't indeed influenced other bands but I find that statement identical to "Rock wouldn't exist without the Beatles." - same thought process different variables. VU:Alt-Rock::The Beatles:Rock

In both instances there were plenty of other bands before them, and some where along the line another band come would fill the void as the most important. Could we have Alternative without UV yes, the music and lyrical contend of the bands they influenced would just be different that's all. Before VU there was Frat Rock, Surf, and Garage Rock, all very influential to the next wave of bands who in turn influence Alt-Rock bands. In a world without VU, Dick Dale could be seen as the most important.

I would say The Soft Parade. Besides the great epic title track, it's really not their strongest. True, they tried a different setting but sadly that wound up sounding really soft - a bit bloated. At least the PBS special they did around that time equaled things a bit in my opinion, though.

Love The Beatles, but groove for groove (side by side), I would say Stones, with the only change being for Revolver and maybe Pepper (I still think "2,000 Light Years From Home" is Satan's Trump Card).

In a way, though, I would have to throw in that the comparisons get a little out-of-synch at the end it's a bit odd placing MMT with the Stones' return to basics.

After the first three settings...
MMT vs. "We Love You/Dandelion" - in it's original UK release, the MMT Soundtrack was a Double 7 in The UK at first and only on the EP Charts. True, the US version that expanded it to a full album is the official release now, possibly the only thing Capitol did right with any of the original releases during their infamous Butchering the Discography days, though. Still, they were Psychedelic stand-alone singles back in the day. Here, it would be a Dark Psychedelic Tie.

"Hey Jude" vs. "Memo From Turner" (OK, a Jagger solo, but same attitude, and same era. Warner's held back the release of Performance about a good two years)

"Revolution" vs. "Child of the Moon" (B-Side War!)

White Album vs. Beggar's Banquet (A bit unfair to place a double with a 1-LP, but still due to The Glimmer Twins really going full force, BB is the winner over a classic assembly of tracks that still is great, but feels very fragmented due to it's history and when one reads too much about it...I admit I may read a little too much)

"Get Back" vs. "Honky Tonk Woman" (Back to the Roots Singles War!)

Abbey Road vs. Let It Bleed

Let It Be vs. Get Your Yas Yas Out - Sticky Fingers started a whole new era, so the Live '69 tracks are a far better comparison. The Greatest Live Band in the World era started here in style while classic the Beatles Rooftop tracks on Let It Be only hinted at what might have been.


Still, in the end it's been all done too many times over and over again, too many times. All win.

i love that album :) most doors fans hate it because it has a light and different sound with all the strings and such...but to me it's the smiley smile of the door's catalog :D

LA Woman is possibly a better album than anything the Beatles did save for maybe Abbey Road. Same thing with the Stones' Beggars Banquet.

La Woman the song is great but La Woman the album is the doors 2nd worst album imo...rubber soul alone is better than anything the doors ever did...morrison wanted to make strange days bigger than anything the beatles did but they failed...the closest any american group came to being competition with the beatles were the beach boys..that's pretty much it.

Queen II is better than anything The Beatles could have dreamed of.

Freddie has an amazingly strong voice that is unlike anything I've ever heard vocally. :)
Nevermind the Beatles, Pet Sounds is greater than queen's whole catalog.

Yuck. The Beach Boys is another band I loathe. They have maybe two songs I liked.

why? they made the greatest album of all time :) and is one of the most influential groups that ever existed.

Just doesn't do anything for me. Their songs seem to trudge on and on and their sound ... I dunno. It's damp. Like a cassette that's been sitting in a basement for 100 years.

Why do you say that?

Is it because you genuinely think that and you were around at the time to see & feel it's true impact?

Or is this just a lazy opinion you're repeating because you've heard so many 50 somethings preach it like it's gospel?

Personally I think anybody under the age of 50 who picks an album from the 1960s and says it's the best album ever made should be shot.

Give me all the stick you want for me calling Screamadelica the greatest album ever but at least I was 17 years old when it was released and it actually meant something to the generation I grew up in.

But ELO were better.

Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt.Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour, White Album, Abbey Road.

Doors, Strange Days, Waiting for the Sun, LA Woman

I'd say it was their second best album.

Ohhhhh now you've made me go all weak at the knees

What everyone here is getting at is that you have to back-up your opinions with logic that's all your own. You can't just regurgitate what Pitchfork and Rolling Stone tell you.

It irrelevant if you like The Beatles or Nicki Minaj as long as you can clearly state why. That's how you open up minds. Not by "they're the best because they have the most sales."

Drastic much?

Here, have some stick.

Fuck these backward thinking mongoloids.

Why on earth would you want to live of your parents past glories? At least have the gumption to pick something to the fucking time you grew up in that was actually relevant to the culture around you from the time and have the balls to defend it against other backward thinking mongoloids who think Revolver & Pet Sounds was the be all & end all in music. There's nothing wrong with liking those albums, but calling them the best ever? C'mon really?
I didn't even hear those albums until I was in my late 20s, why? because I was too busy enjoying listening to music from my own generation. I didn't want my parents fucking cast offs defining what I liked. Don't just repeat what some fucking 40 or 50 something journalist says in some dinosaur rock publication, go out live it yourself.

Urgh people like that make me sick and are the reason there's so much terrible music around.

As long as it's brown & sticky

Well now that we've got our semi-annual Beatles debate out of the way, who's ready to get a head start on our semi-annual Radiohead debate?

You need to remember people are like sheep. If often takes some guts and desire to reach your own independent opinions.

YAWN.....

To be quite frank I doubt there's a single facet of knowledge remaining in the Beatles/Stones debate that hasn't been fathomed in great depth, discussed, critiqued, analysed, outlived it's welcome and become boring.

Equally tiresome is the astonishment and disbelief from the Beatles fanatics that somehow not everyone thinks they are the best band ever to have existed as Urban rightly pointed out, and personally I'm throwing out that I'd even prefer Bon Jovi over the Beatles any day, even if Jon is as annoying as Paul, at least no-one cares if you don't like the guy and you can get away from them. No such luxuries for Beatle related boredom.

However, I suppose there's still no harm in looking a little bit at some of these comparisons, as long as it's not serious in any way.


Abbey Road vs. Sticky Fingers is the most interesting here, and of course in terms of album art I think the Beatles win hands down if we consider the Spanish cover for Sticky Fingers:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ckyF-Esp71.jpg

However such superficial grounds is the only aspect in which Abbey Road is superior. The defining song from Sticky Fingers is I think "Wild Horses", excellently described by an MB member a while ago as "six minutes of pure emotion". However the two most relevant are "Dead Flowers" and "Sister Morphine", which actually talk about drugs, don't pretend to be pleasant or comfortable in any way, they just talk about it.
"Why does the doctor have your face?" - I'm confused, what the fuck is happening to me?

I could go on, perhaps I might observe "Moonlight Mile" is one of my favourite closing tracks on an album, "Brown Sugar" with it's further uncomfortable references to slavery, really going quite out of the comfort zone for an album.

I must stress at this point though I do not care. The Stones who remain are all sad, ugly, old and shitty, there are indisputably better bands around.

The point is, we had fun. The point should not be that we're trying to impress people by affiliating ourselves with cult music acts that command a lot of respect. Neither should it be about trying to regurgitate other people's ideas, I doubt anyone genuinely believes that "Pet Sounds" is actually the best music ever made in the history of man.

Anyway I'm bored. Someone PM me obscene photos or something, I demand some entertainment and this discussion is not doing the trick.

That much really is true. People are like sheep with everything though. You gotta have a drive to go out and listen to new stuff and stuff out of your comfort zone.

Meh. I guess I'm with you in the sense that my contenders for best album ever largely came out in my formative years, but is this really the music of my generation? Most of the people making the music I loved so much back then were not from my generation, they're from some generation in between me and my parents. So what difference does it make for me to latch onto Robert Smith and Al Jourgensen verus Brian Wilson and John Lennon in terms of my generation? All of them are actually old enough to be my parents, technically speaking.

That said, I do get a little suspicious when people go for the easy choices though. I mean your favorite album doesn't have to come from some Rolling Stone top ten list.

Or you could appreciate good music for being good music despite what era it came from which is irrelevant?

I see your point, maybe it was different for me. Most of the bands I listened to in the 90s were bands that were formed in the 90s so most of the time they were only a few years older than me.

I said there was nothing wrong with liking those albums. But you really want your favourite album of all time to be something you weren't around to see the impact it made first hand?

Was this a reply to me or just a general comment?

Bit general and bit directed at Urban H.

Who cares how much it impacted the generation. It's mostly about who and how much it was valued by the population. It has nothing to do with how their production faired as musicianship. Sure, we didn't have the opportunity to see them in action (which there is usually a record of), and that's the only point I see. Culture is a different matter.

Also I'd like to add by your logic Clubbing music is the most dominating music culture in Australia. So does that mean my musical merit should be mostly directed towards trashy Ministry of Sound slut albums because of its huge impact to our present culture?

i love their soft harmonies :)
have you ever heard pet sounds or smile?

it seems like you're attacking me lol..
well i wasn'nt alive when it was released i was actually born in the 90's but i remember the first time i heard that album i was speechless it was like everything i loved about music on one whole album i just can't explain how amazing it is to me...completely blew my mind away :D i have to thank my dad for showing me it.

I recant my previous statement. This thread is hilarious.

Yup. Does nothing for me.

wow that's suprising :O

More importantly, have you listened to Love You?

The Byrds as musicians were techanically more skilled than The Beatles. And so was Les Paul, Chuck Berry, Duane Eddy, Dick Dale, The Ventures & Jimi Hendrix - read 'em and weep.

The Byrds were probably on a par with the Beatles and certainly better than the Beach Bods!!!

To continue Neopolitan's list...

Frank Zappa, too. The Mothers of Invention seriously out-ranked a lot of bands when it came to instrumental skill.

Love as well. Check out the first side of Da Capo for a serious ride of Rock, Jazz, and even one of the fastest songs of the day ("7 and 7 Is"). Forever Changes as well. Arthur Lee, Johnny Echols, and Bryan MacLean were clearly advanced, plus one-album member Tjay Cantrelli added some major flavor to the show for a while. They were THE US band to check out for a while, especially in the original line-up. They were high and above almost every Mid 60's band.



John Cale of The Velvet Underground also deserves a serious mention.

The Doors' trio of talented musicians are outstanding in their power.

Ron Elliot of The Beau Brummels, too.

There's a lot more...

Well maybe when it came to creating pop songs, but when it comes to guitar playing Roger McGuinn and Clarence White were more skilled, though John Lennon was under-rated as rhythm guitarist. When it comes to the 12 String guitar: Bells of Rhymney > Ticket to Ride. In fact George Harrison country licks (on Let It Be era) were inspired by Clarence White's playing, on the earlier albums it was Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins, and Buck Owens.

that's the first new wave album to come out ;)