Prog/Non Prog Battle: Beatles vs Rolling Stones

Easily The Beatles.

Everybody has their preferences...But to me this is the stupidest debate in all of music. Ask yourself how many Beatles songs you recognize and how many by the Stones. For most this isn't even close. The Beatles were the best songwriters of the modern era. They changed the world. Their popularity was unparalleled, and they risked that continually to creatively push the envelope. To compare any band to them is simply anti-climatic. The only band that can even be seriously spoken in the same breath, in my opinion, is Led Zeppelin, and they're not that close.
The Stones were good, don't get me wrong. They had some good tunes--two or three that could possibly be considered great, but let's be honest. Most of their stuff is just the same old rehashed blues chords repackaged by a band of sleazy junkies and an awkward prancer. I just don't see what the fascination was. To be compared with the Beatles don't you have to be really good at something? And since songs are the bread and butter of what a band does, don't you have to have more than 2 or 3 songs that, ok make it 5, that are as good as the Beatles Top 50 songs?
The debate has raged for half a century, and it confuses me still.

I can't vote, but I still want to reply.  Even if you didn't consider The Beatles progressive rock, you can still make a strong case for them.  The Beatles music is far more varied than the Stones.  Overall, The Beatles are every inch the musicians as the Stones.  The Beatles were also better singers.

proggman wrote: I like both, but I prefer The Beatles.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand?
She Loves you yea yea yea?

You're just making my point. When they were young they started at that place, became the biggest stars on Earth because of their natural style and songwriting ability. Then CHOSE to change the landscape of music with albums like Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour EP, The White Album, and Abbey Road. The shear quality of their work was almost otherworldly in its perfection. Critics were dumbfounded at the time. Fans were ravenous as usual. Other leading artists, considered the greatest in their field, despaired in the knowledge they could never compare to what Lennon/McCartney and George Harrison were producing. Several have gone on record saying as much. And in just 8 years their recording legacy was over. Their careers had the intensity of an alien invasion.
And inoffensive? They seem so now because modern pop culture was reformed around them. But they weren't being inoffensive when they caused people to burn their records by breaking a taboo with a simple statement of fact--that, at the time, they were more popular than Jesus Christ. They weren't being inoffensive when they introduced longhair and drugs into the main stream. Yep, that was them. And when they introduced Eastern religion into the main stream. And when it came out that they recorded their first big hit Love Me Do (which I'm sure you'll agree with me was a piece of crap, but hey, they were teenagers) with John playing harmonica lead on an instrument he had stolen. They made being bad boys acceptable because they were just so good nobody wanted to miss out on their music. The sixties were not inoffensive and the Beatles played a big part in kick starting that whole scene. The Stones sort of rode their coattails and added the whole slimy blues junkie mystique to it.
Like I said...the Stones were good. They had chops and style. Combined interesting elements, though I wouldn't consider androgyny and quality as synonyms. They may have channeled the spirit of great blues legends, but those legends weren't as great as the original Beatles, who didn't need to imitate anybody. The reason American bands didn't do the blues sound as well was because they didn't want to. The re-discovery of the American Blues sound was a British scene that culminated when Led Zeppelin showed up and maxed it out. And you can rest assured the great blues guitarists of that scene did not consider Keith Richards as the guitar great you are making him out to be. It was an American who fled to England to be appreciated in the blues renaissance, and give the Brits an idea of what the modern blues could really sound like. His name was Jimi Hendrix. He was the TRUE embodiment of those great blues artists, and musically, technically, and performance-wise he was Uncle, Daddy, Big Brother, and God compared to Richards and the Stones. Other bands tried to be the Stones and weren't as good, but they tried because the Stones WERE successful without being so great they couldn't be emulated.
Nobody even dreamed of being in the same league as the Beatles, and in the Stones own genre, Jimi Hendrix.
But the Rolling Stones' grit gets under some peoples skin and never lets them go. That I can understand. It's an unspoken thing that's hard to put in words. I just never felt that with them, so I have a hard time understanding why someone could convince themselves the Stones were as good as the Beatles.


Edited by efoman2 - January 23 2014 at 11:49

Slartibartfast wrote: There's a reason why one is here and one is not and one is winning the poll...

Right. The reason is that this is a prog site, and the Beatles are considered to be foundational to prog's origins. That's the reason.

If you sift through critics' polls of the greatest albums ever made, you'll find that most of those albums and bands aren't here at Prog Archives - from Astral Weeks to What's Going On to Highways 61 Revisited to VU & Nico to Innervisions to There's a Riot Going On to several Stones' albums. (And we're very unlikely to see Genesis, Yes, or Tull albums on those critics' lists.)

I'm not critiqing PA, that's the way it should be.


Edited by jude111 - January 23 2014 at 12:13

efoman2 wrote: I Wanna Hold Your Hand? She Loves you yea yea yea? You're just making my point. When they were young they started at that place, became the biggest stars on Earth because of their natural style and songwriting ability. Then CHOSE to change the landscape of music with albums like Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour EP, The White Album, and Abbey Road. The shear quality of their work was almost otherworldly in its perfection. Critics were dumbfounded at the time. Fans were ravenous as usual. Other leading artists, considered the greatest in their field, despaired in the knowledge they could never compare to what Lennon/McCartney and George Harrison were producing. Several have gone on record saying as much. And in just 8 years their recording legacy was over. Their careers had the intensity of an alien invasion. And inoffensive? They seem so now because modern pop culture was reformed around them. But they weren't being inoffensive when they caused people to burn their records by breaking a taboo with a simple statement of fact--that, at the time, they were more popular than Jesus Christ. They weren't being inoffensive when they introduced longhair and drugs into the main stream. Yep, that was them. And when they introduced Eastern religion into the main stream. And when it came out that they recorded their first big hit Love Me Do (which I'm sure you'll agree with me was a piece of crap, but hey, they were teenagers) with John playing harmonica lead on an instrument he had stolen. They made being bad boys acceptable because they were just so good nobody wanted to miss out on their music. The sixties were not inoffensive and the Beatles played a big part in kick starting that whole scene. The Stones sort of rode their coattails and added the whole slimy blues junkie mystique to it. Like I said...the Stones were good. They had chops and style. Combined interesting elements, though I wouldn't consider androgyny and quality as synonyms. They may have channeled the spirit of great blues legends, but those legends weren't as great as the original Beatles, who didn't need to imitate anybody. The reason American bands didn't do the blues sound as well was because they didn't want to. The re-discovery of the American Blues sound was a British scene that culminated when Led Zeppelin showed up and maxed it out. And you can rest assured the great blues guitarists of that scene did not consider Keith Richards as the guitar great you are making him out to be. It was an American who fled to England to be appreciated in the blues renaissance, and give the Brits an idea of what the modern blues could really sound like. His name was Jimi Hendrix. He was the TRUE embodiment of those great blues artists, and musically, technically, and performance-wise he was Uncle, Daddy, Big Brother, and God compared to Richards and the Stones. Other bands tried to be the Stones and weren't as good, but they tried because the Stones WERE successful without being so great they couldn't be emulated. Nobody even dreamed of being in the same league as the Beatles, and in the Stones own genre, Jimi Hendrix. But the Rolling Stones' grit gets under some peoples skin and never lets them go. That I can understand. It's an unspoken thing that's hard to put in words. I just never felt that with them, so I have a hard time understanding why someone could convince themselves the Stones were as good as the Beatles.

Perhaps the Stones weren't 'as good' as the Beatles were, but that doesn't stop me from liking the Stones more. Precious few Beatles tunes match up to things like 'Can You Hear Me Knocking' or '2000 Light Years From Home'. Me, I will always find more time to listen to my Stones LP's than Beatles'.
...........and naturally, more time to listen to Magma than the Stones.....

Edited by Tom Ozric - January 24 2014 at 01:50

Not that I'm slamming the Stones or anything, they were just never my cup of tea.

jude111 wrote:   I think there are Beatles experts in here who could ...