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Post by maarts on Sept 5, 2005 17:44:34 GMT -5
So let's revive the heyday of one of the best boards on RS- Beatles vs Stones....I'm pretty sure we've all regurged this discussion before but it could be a great step-up to discuss the relative quality of the output in the 60s and 70s as to today....
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Post by Kensterberg on Sept 5, 2005 18:03:17 GMT -5
Good idea maarts ... too bad I'm out of time for posting today ... anyway, I've voted, and right now the Beatles are killing the Stones!  Seriously, while I really love some of the Stones catalog, the Beatles were just about perfect. And in rock and roll, if not in life, it really is better to burn out than to fade away. Or as someone in Rolling Stone wrote a long time ago, they did it all, they did it first, then they went their separate ways. You just can't improve on that. |
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Post by Rit on Sept 5, 2005 18:32:39 GMT -5
I can't stand the Beatles. Something about them strikes me the wrong way. Even when i was trying the first time to get into them, when i was about 16 or 17, i just couldn't get it. I was primarily interested in Lennon's tough persona, then Ringo's drumming, then probably McCartney and finally George. Perhaps that's it: i can't stand Harrison's brand of wispy mysticism?!
If i were to reduce it to a basic tenet, i'd say that the Beatles represent chokingly artificial and stilted songwriting values for me. I MUCH much prefer the Stones' octane-fueled, raw, high-energy music.
I just don't like that whole artistic premise of (mostly McCartney-led) creating High Temples of unyielding Musical Statements. And i know which one wins out for me: give me sloppier (by comparison) Stones, Stooges, 1965 Dylan any day.
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Post by Galactus on Sept 5, 2005 18:42:32 GMT -5
I'll take the Stones 99% of the time. I don't think it's really possible to argue which is/was truely a better band. The Beatles seem to be a stage that I've passed where as the the Stones still seem relevent to me. That's not to say they are or aren't still relevent to music as a whole. Maybe as Ken said the Beatles, musically, are perfect. Perfect is boring. The Stones for all their flaws, for the crap, completely embody rock in a way the Beatles never did.
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Post by strat-0 on Sept 5, 2005 19:55:45 GMT -5
Beatles.
When you get old, DED, you will still be hearing a lot of Beatles tunes. Maybe a couple of Stones tunes. The Stones are the greatest garage band in the world. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Hope I die before I get old
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Post by Weeping_Guitar on Sept 5, 2005 20:23:58 GMT -5
They both are certainly fab, but it's the foogin' Beatles. Been listening to tons of Stones lately, though.
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Post by Galactus on Sept 5, 2005 21:16:20 GMT -5
Beatles. When you get old, DED, you will still be hearing a lot of Beatles tunes. Maybe a couple of Stones tunes. The Stones are the greatest garage band in the world. Not that there's anything wrong with that... Hope I die before I get oldSorry strat, I don't agree. Based largely on the fact that I don't hear that much Beatles now. You'll all think I'm crazy but I think the Stones have much more consistant generational appeal then the Beatles. The Beatles are the Beatles but the Stones are rock 'n roll. The Stones represent something basic whereas the Beatles don't really. As time goes on The Beatles will more and more be seen as fluff, a symbol of of the sixties and early seventies. That place in history will never be taken from the Beatles, but the Stones aren't tied to a decade, they aren't tied to specific period. Odd as it may seem the fact that they've been around forever vs. the fact that Beatles never had a chance to decline will work out in favor of Mick & Keef. They, in the end, will seem real and tangible but the Beatles will be placed on higher and higher shelves until eventually people stop looking. |
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Post by phil on Sept 5, 2005 22:17:21 GMT -5
Fluff ??
Bah !
Nevermind ...
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Post by luke on Sept 6, 2005 0:57:25 GMT -5
Can't disagree with that. The only time you hear the Beatles is on commercials for Beatles collections. The Stones still get played consistently on the radio, in movies, on television, etc.
As a 23-year-old, I can say that, growing up, I had to track down the Beatles to hear anything by them. The Stones were always all around me.
So I really don't have an opinion on who is better (fuck, Foreigner still gets a lot of play, too), but you hear a helluva lot more Stones than you do Beatles.
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JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on Sept 6, 2005 0:59:54 GMT -5
The Beatles are the Beatles but the Stones are rock 'n roll.
You know that old saying, "Rock and roll will never die"?
It's a lie.
But the Beatles music, whatever you want to call it, will thrive long after the corpse of rock and roll has fed the worms.
As time goes on The Beatles will more and more be seen as fluff, a symbol of of the sixties and early seventies.
Well, seeing as how they broke up before the advent of the seventies, I don't know how they'll be a symbol of that decade...but regardless, I fail to see how you would associate the sixties, arguably the most revolutionary period in popular music history (and the Beatles certainly at the forefront of that movement) with "fluff".
It's not your cup of tea, that's fine. It's not "raw enough for you", okay, whatever. But FLUFF? Give me a break.
You say the Stones "aren't tied to a decade"...implying that the Beatles are. I guess that's why the Beatles' 1 album was at the top of the charts for so long in the year 2000...You don't sell that many records as a nostalgia act (hence no similar attempt by the Dave Clark Five).
Just the other day I was listening to "Tomorrow Never Knows" with my 10 year old son (who has, by the way, fallen in love with the whole Revolver album...what a chip off the old block, eh?), and I had to make the remark that the Beatles, especially with this song, were so far ahead of their time that they sound like something one might hear on a college/indie station. I'm not saying that's true of all their work, but enough to warrant the statement.
They, in the end, will seem real and tangible but the Beatles will be placed on higher and higher shelves until eventually people stop looking.
I don't think that's how it works.
The Beatles are no less "real and tangible" for "not having had the chance to decline" (how absurd is that?) than the Stones are for capitilizing on their chance to decline (hee hee). Lots of folks could care less about how "real" and "tangible" their favorite artists are, as long as the music itself is "real" and "tangible". Much of the Stones' output definately falls in that category, granted, but moreso and more of the Beatles' work does.
I guess I'm just at a loss to comprehend how you equate "real and tangible" with "occassionally sucking". It's not as if the Beatles never recorded a dud ("Don't Pass Me By" is my favorite example, though I know some here actually like it).
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Post by Mary on Sept 6, 2005 1:35:34 GMT -5
Well I always vote for the Beatles in this perennial question, and I still did this time, but things have changed, nonetheless. It used to really be a vote FOR the Beatles, now it's mostly just a vote against the Stones, who have always been one of my blind spots - try as I might, with the exception a few songs, i just can't get into mick n' keef n' company. Whereas I have, at various times in my life, been obsessed with various Beatles albums - especially Rubber Soul, Revolver, and The White Album. The Beatles were, from my perspective, more consistently great. Though I'd be hard-pressed to judge the best Beatles songs vs. the best Stones songs - that's a fuckin tossup. OK, now, all of that said - truth is, lately, I've just lost all interest in the fab four. I don't think I've listened to a single Beatles song since I was 24. (And I'm turning 28 next week...) I'm honestly tired of hearing about how they're the greatest rock band of all time. It's been repeated so much it's just become a pure article of faith, as though anyone who denies it is just deluded. I remember I pissed someone off on the old Beatles vs. Stones board when I objected to the baby boomer narcissism which refuses to even cotemplate the possibility that a post-60s rock band could possibly seriously vie for the title of greatest band of all time - but I didn't mean to suggest that everyone who thought the Beatles were the best were just narcissists. Or that the Beatles weren't great. I only meant to suggest that the "canon" which enshrines the Beatles at #1 is tired and nostalgic and has become soooo entrenched that challenging it is heretical. Funny thing is, despite voting for the Beatles, I kinda see what Rit means when he says the stones will endure while the beatles will fade into 'fluff' - ultimately, I disagree (in fact, I think both bands will endure) - but I can see how the beatles might sound "dated" to someone, whereas the stones could sound...perennial and timeless. Now, I don't actually think sounding "dated" is bad. I never really liked the word "dated" as a criticism. But, that said, a lot of Beatles songs do sound very very much of their time, they instantly give me a sense of nostalgia - and I don't get that with the Stones. Doesn't mean the Stones are better. By and large I prefer the nostalgia I get from the Beatles than the absolute indifference I get listening to the Stones  But I can imagine why, if you dug the Stones' sound, you would offer them as a more pure distillation of the "spirit of rock and roll" or some such business. Aaaaaaaaanyway, if I'm forced to engage in this ridiculous boomer nostalgia, I would like to propose the real winner in the Beatles vs. Stones competition: THE WHOCheers, M |
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Post by Dr. Drum on Sept 6, 2005 8:04:46 GMT -5
I’ve found that in situations where I’ve encountered it unexpectedly, the Stones’ best work can still sound as vital as ever but otherwise amen, amen, amen to that, Mary.
I also voted for The Beatles but there was a short period, as I believe someone on the other board was suggesting, when the Beatles and Stones were a yin/yang proposition. So I was tempted on that basis to forget all the rest of it and cast a 'they are both fab' vote.
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Post by maarts on Sept 6, 2005 8:07:19 GMT -5
I'm not 'forcing' anybody, Mary, you just like to indulge |
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Post by maarts on Sept 6, 2005 8:27:43 GMT -5
What surprises me is how long these bands have been named as influential and important, yet there's less and less a fanbase to support that nomination. I rarely see kids buying Revolver nor Exile On Main Street. Ask the youth of today about good and influential bands and they might come up with anything from Green Day or Destiny's Child some other flavour du jour. Music is less and less the influential force on youth then it was when I was growing up; kids have to divide their interests into games, DVDs and whatmore. For what I consider to be my life, for kids these days music is a consumption product as the cornflakes they eat in the morning.
So how long before a classic album like Revolver gets replaced by something like American Idiot come the next poll of Influential Albums in MOJO, RS or Q?
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Post by phil on Sept 6, 2005 8:44:36 GMT -5
Destiny's Child ... ??
Now THAT is the definition of fluff ...
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But I can imagine why, if you dug the Stones' sound, you would offer them as a more pure distillation of the "spirit of rock and roll" or some such business.