Battle of the Bands: The Beatles Vs The Stones

Beatles! Don't play the stones much these days.

Stones - no question. The way Keef plays is the epitome of rock guitar for me.

Stones rock, obviously.

Beatles didn't really.

cheers

Nigel

Beatles no question.
Exile on mainstreet is an all time favourite though.

Gunnar

Beatles, naturally. As long as we're allowed to ignore the entire discography of Wings.

The Rolling Stones are what criminals listen to.

quote:

---

Stones rock, obviously. Beatles didn't really.

---

Buy the "Beatles Live At The BBC" and listen to the guitar part in the middle of track 11 ('Some Other Guy'). If they don't rock here, who does ? Otherwise there's plenty of rocking stuff on their live recordings. John had the reputation ob being the rock singer but Paul is far from being a softie too (so-called album Beatles At The Shea Stadium)! But their most rocking album was IMO A Hard Days Night.

And I guess when we naimies say that a system 'rocks', then we mean that it induces foot-tapping. As I can remember the way we listened to the Beatles when we were kids, we felt the Beatles were the ONLY band that rocked ! Great memories.

Cheese

Stones were good rockers, but for me the Beatles had so much more and were really listenable on a lot of different levels.

Beatles

Since the poll question is framed in terms of personal musical enjoyment and I've never been suficiently arsed to acquire a Beatles album I really must vote for the Stones.

All I need now is a criminal record!!

Olly

I love the Stones ... Fred, Wilma, Pebbles, BamBam ...

That depends if I'm in the mood for apples or oranges. Was listening to Abbey Road last night, 40 Licks a couple of days ago. One's good, and the other one's good too but in a different way.

You're not seriously suggesting the Stones did nothing worthwhile post 1972 are you? Good grief, you are!

Pete.

"Goat's Head Soup" was their 'jump the shark' moment.

Matthew

My interest in Rock music (it was called Pop then) started in 1964 with Beatles. I was 6 years old and half of the fun was that the parent's thought they where awful, with long hair and everything. We also had a Beatles band in my kindergarten, used peaces of wood plank for guitars and screamed "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" over and over again until the teachers told us to shut up. Then we went over to the girls part of the premises and made ourselves unpopular in some other way.

Today I must say that you can put on a Beatles album, anyone (well not the White one) and all the songs are good! One can't do that with 'Stones.

JohanR

From a geological POV, the Stones rock the most

As to which I prefer, it’s got to be the Beatles. Only recently found out that my Dad saw them live in Wolverhampton as a support band in 1961. He didn’t even rate them at the time!

Steve

If I hadn't voted "Neither -- Get with the 21st Century Daddio", my vote would have to have been for The Beatles - if only because during my childhood they somehow circumvented the walls of my household (which was essentially a classical-only zone) enough to impinge on my consciousness.

I have happy memories of nursery school at the age of four, joining in with the other children to sing:

Viiiiiii nayell-a-summareeeeeeeeee
nayell-a-summareeeeeeeeee
nayell-a-summareeeeeeeeee
nweeeeor liiii
Viiiiiii nawa shi-ngup macheeeeeeeeee
nawa shi-ngup macheeeeeeeeee
nawa shi-ngup macheeeeeeeeee
nweeeeor liiii...

Even in my late teens, all I knew of The Rolling Stones was their name - and possibly Mick Jagger's face - I'm not even sure of that!

--J

Not sure what Matthew means by this phrase (nice image), but I was always very fond of Goat's Head Soup. Love 'Silver Train' and Star Star, and most of it really. In fact rather more likeable than 'Exile'.

Saw the Stones at Bristol Colston Hall in 1971, where they played two houses (630 and 830 pm) to 3000 people each!! Obviously they were the best band I'd seen. Not counting Zeppelin at the same venue in 1970.... Salad days...

"Jump the Shark" is the moment a TV programme runs out of ideas and starts the rapid descent into cancellation. Named after a "Happy Days" episode which was based around a sharp jumping waterskiing competition.

See http://www.jumptheshark.com/

Matthew

Changing Rooms about 5 years ago?

Nice site, will have hours of fun exploring that one.

Never bothered with GHS as it was generally derided. However, that hardly means everything since is trash. Is the second half of Forty Licks really not worth anyone's while? Was listening to Tattoo You just t'other day, and it's great!

I remember the shark episode. Particularly the Fonz water-skiing in his leather jacket!

Pete.

I reckon the early Stones albums were superior to those of the Beatles [and certainly hold up far better today]. Aftermath or Beatles For Sale? No contest, I think.

Then at around Between the Buttons / Revolver the moptops took over and Stones albums became distinctly patchy, although at the time one tried hard not to acknowledge this. Satanic Majesties, while immensely enjoyable and charming, is very much a 'me too' sort of a thing, and after that there are a few tremendous tracks on each album and a lot of filler usually involving extensive pretending to be American, always a bad move for a British group, and something the Beatles had long since given up. From what I've heard of the most recent albums, this thesis still seems to hold true.

Forty Licks is a fabulous compilation, and to me seems well mastered to boot. Are the new lot of reissues this well done?

throb

quote:

---

I reckon the early Stones albums were superior to those of the Beatles [and certainly hold up far better today]. Aftermath or Beatles For Sale? No contest, I think.

Then at around Between the Buttons / Revolver the moptops took over and Stones albums became distinctly patchy,

---

Sort of agree with this. I don't think there's much in the early albums, but from Rubber Soul to Abbey Road the Beatles just took everyone to a completely different ball park.
Just as the Beatles were falling appart the Stones hit their purple patch and: Let it Bleed; Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers can at least compete with the best of the Beatles.

So in a round about way: Both are fantastic at their best, but prefer the Beatles

greeny
You´d forgot beggars banquet wich is stones second best album imo. Some might say the best.
satanic... well they abandoned that route did´nt they? But 2000 light years still good though.

Lyrically Stones had some great moments in the 60´s and early 70´s. Just listen to "mothers little helper". Love that one.

'Beatles' - Girlie stuff
'Stones', 'Beggars Banquet', 'Sympathy for the Devil' - the True Essence

David

quote:

---

Originally posted by GUNNAR JANSSON:
greeny
You´d forgot beggars banquet wich is stones second best album imo. Some might say the best.
satanic... well they abandoned that route did´nt they? But 2000 light years still good though.

---

Yes this is indeed a great album, but to me comes just behind Bleed, Exile and Fingers.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stevie Dempster:
From a geological POV, the Stones rock the most

As to which I prefer, it’s got to be the Beatles. Only recently found out that my Dad saw them live in Wolverhampton as a support band in 1961. He didn’t even rate them at the time!

Steve

---

Funnily enough my parents saw them in Hanley in 1962. They weren't top of the bill ( Helen Shapiro was) Dave Allen compered and they hated them.

That's when I realised rock had bypassed my folks.