Beatles vs Rolling Stones

Beatles or Stones? Pick one!


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flux

594 & CU24
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Alright, heavy artillery time. Which do you prefer and why?

I enjoy both tremendously but the tale of the tape shows I own every Beatles record yet only (as of recently) have two RS albums, so, I'm going with that. Plus the composition, and amazing vocal harmonies.
 
Between the two of them, definitely The Beatles but when it comes to the British Invasion bands overall, The Kinks and The Dave Clark Five are my bands, especially DC5
 
I had just started high school when the Beatles came on the Ed Sullivan show. Not long after that I had to get a guitar and join a band. (At that time it was a bass)
 
Stones.

I didn't weigh in the other thread, since I started it, but I guess I can say what I want here. I wouldn't say one is greater than the other, but I think the Beatles had more immediate influence on the culture but the Stones had more lasting influence on music. The Beatles were among the best songwriters ever, but they were mostly writing pop songs. And because they led the British invasion and were the first to conquer America, they deserve and get plenty of props. And with all of Lennon's political stuff and Hari Georgison's eastern religious stuff, they they had a huge impact on the whole "counter-culture" generation.

But the Stones took the greatest (IMHO) musical form to come out of America, the blues, and first learned it and then twisted it into something new and totally their own and had a musical impact that you still hear every day in new bands and new guitarists. I think most of it is Keef, but the whole band played a part, and in the early days Brian Jones was driving it just as hard as Keith. I still hear Keith's direct influence in so many players. Maybe it's because I couldn't write a song if it jumped out at me with pen and paper and instructed me how to write it, but I don't hear that much of the Beatles in everything that followed. I hear snippets every now and then that I figure couldn't have happened without their influence on songwriting, but for the most part, I don't hear the Beatles living that far past their own era, amazing as that era was.

But I think Keef, along with Hendrix, was one of the two great guitar geniuses of the whole rock generation. Each in their own way, they totally re-wrote the language of the electric guitar. Jimi more with it's horn-like lyrical possibilities that nobody had ever explored 1/10 as much before he came around and everybody since has. And Keef on the rhythm side, with his classic (mostly open-G) riffs and his natural feel for driving a song and a band. Chuck Berry invented it but Keith took it to another level. Nobody sounded like either of those guys BEFORE they came around but damn near nobody who's come after could have sounded like they did without one of those two guys doing what they did.

Me, I'm a Stones guy all the way. They were never satisfied just holding your hand and I liked that attitude a lot more. I liked their blues snarl more than the Beatles sweet melodies. I love a lot of both band's albums but I still listen to the Stones as part of my every day thing whereas I only put the Beatles on for nostalgia every now and then. I'm still discovering new charms in Exile on Main Street, damn near 50 years after it came out. I guess I was a little too young to experience the cultural explosion of the Beatles (I was about 4 when they came on Ed Sullivan and I remember them from that period, but I was still a little kid) but I've experienced and loved the musical gifts and influence of the Stones for my whole life. Satisfaction was written when I was 5 and they were just getting started and were still making damn good records into my 20s. And still playing their best stuff really well for decades to follow. The Beatles were of a period and sound dated (great, but dated) to me now. The Stones are just part of the ageless firmament of the blues and their best stuff sounds just as vital today as Muddy Waters, BB King, Howlin Wolf, and Clapton and SRV and Robert Cray.
 
I must have had too much to drink last night. I could swear this was already done?
 
I must have had too much to drink last night. I could swear this was already done?
From what I have read it must have been. But I don't remember it.

But that doesn't change the fact that you did have too much to drink last night.:rolleyes:
 
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