Would anyone among the BC massive say The Beatles are their fave band of all time, numero uno, creme de la creme....

[Beedster]

25 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

I tend to listen to The Rutles more than the Beatles these days.

 

"I have always thought
In the back of my mind
Cheese and onions..."

 

 

 

Let me spell it out for you

C-H~E-E-S-E-A-N-D-O-N-I-O-N-S

Oh yeh

[Cosmo Valdemar]

If you put me on the spot, I would state that The Beatles are without a doubt the greatest rock band ever, and if I could only listen to the work of one band for the rest of my time, it would be them. 

[Beedster]

1 minute ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

If you put me on the spot, I would state that The Beatles are without a doubt the greatest rock band ever, and if I could only listen to the work of one band for the rest of my time, it would be them. 

Not Steps then?

[casapete]

As a child of the late 50’s , the Beatles were incredibly important to me and my interest

in pop music, which has remained to this day. Then I heard The Stones and the 

Beatles took a back seat for the following decades.

Still a massive Stones fan, but I must admit the recent documentaries on Macca and

The Beatles have made me rediscover their greatness all over again. I think that both

bands have been key to most of my contemporaries, and influenced so many others

along the way. 

[Barking Spiders]

4 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't 'get' this stuff about what other folk think of X, Y or Z. We're all different, of differing ages, from different backgrounds, and have listened to, and liked or not, different stuff over the decades. What earthly point is there in this sort of comparing, or looking in the rear-view mirror..? Maybe it's just me. 

yep it's just you 😁 I see nowt wrong in asking. Makes a change from talking about tonewoods, bridges, pickup configurations etc. It's about being interested in others tastes and opinions. Makes the world go round. My question is quite pertinent IMO as it's kind of accepted wisdom that The Beatles are the GOAT. If that's so, among the 30,000+ music fans on BC what % would say the Beatles are their own #1 fave and how does this stack up against accepted wisdom.

I sort of accept what you say about age and background. I'm a child of the 80s and for me Kraftwerk have had a far more informative impact on my music tastes than the Beatles, Stones etc

Edited November 22, 2022 by Barking Spiders

[Barking Spiders]

48 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

Kind of odd to have an all-time favourite anything. It presupposes that one's tastes are frozen at a certain moment. At the time the Beatles were around, it was a toss-up between them and the Stones for me (I'm that ancient) as to which was my favourite. A few years later and things were very different, as my musical and educational horizons broadened. That's been a continuous process in my life and I hope it remains that way.

Then maybe I'm odd as over many years I definitely have formed some all-time #1 faves e.g. band, album, sitcom, alcoholic beverage, city, country to visit, motorcycle, novel. 

[Cosmo Valdemar]

43 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Not Steps then?

 

They're top 5.

[Dad3353]

26 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

yep it's just you 😁 I see nowt wrong in asking. Makes a change from talking about tonewoods, bridges, pickup configurations etc. It's about being interested in others tastes and opinions. Makes the world go round. My question is quite pertinent IMO as it's kind of accepted wisdom that The Beatles are the GOAT. If that's so, among the 30,000+ music fans on BC what % would say the Beatles are their own #1 fave and how does this stack up against accepted wisdom.

I sort of accept what you say about age and background. I'm a child of the 80s and for me Kraftwerk have had a far more informative impact on my music tastes than the Beatles, Stones etc

 

What is this 'Kraftwerk' of which you speak, young man..? 

 

...

 

 

[Beedster]

28 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

yep it's just you 😁 I see nowt wrong in asking. Makes a change from talking about tonewoods, bridges, pickup configurations etc. It's about being interested in others tastes and opinions. Makes the world go round. My question is quite pertinent IMO as it's kind of accepted wisdom that The Beatles are the GOAT. If that's so, among the 30,000+ music fans on BC what % would say the Beatles are their own #1 fave and how does this stack up against accepted wisdom.

I sort of accept what you say about age and background. I'm a child of the 80s and for me Kraftwerk have had a far more informative impact on my music tastes than the Beatles, Stones etc

Funny that, when I posted above about Beatles and cultural influence on essentially white music I was thinking about Kraftwerk’ influence on early hip hop, and especially Afrka Bambaataa’s opinion that without Kraftwerk there’d have been no hip hop. 

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

If you put me on the spot, I would state that The Beatles are without a doubt the greatest rock band ever, and if I could only listen to the work of one band for the rest of my time, it would be them. 

i’ve had a think as to whether I agree, and I probably do, at least with the second part 👍

[PaulWarning]

to fully appreciate to impact the Beatles had, (too quote one of our American cousins 😊) you had to be there, I can fully understand why someone under the age of say 65 would have another fave band, the music we hear in our teens stays with us forever, being a few years older than 65 I can say the Beatles are my fave band of all  time

Edited November 22, 2022 by PaulWarning

[chris_b]

The Beatles changed everything. There was Before Beatles and there was After Beatles.

 

They were the most influential band, ever. They wrote great songs which will still be played in 100 years time.

 

They are in my top 5 but if we are talking favorites, then there others ahead of them on my list. 

[Nebadon2000]

Yep Beatles are my Fave; Grew up with them from 1964 Ed Sullivan Appearance[I was 9] followed their Solo careers but less inspirational.

[WinterMute]

Never got it, always preferred other peoples covers of their work, thought both Lennon and Macca were utter c*cks and Ringo did his best work narrating Thomas the Tank engine...

 

However, I know all the bloody words, acknowledge their place in musical history and watched Let It Be with increasing admiration for all of them as musicians and people. Macca is/was some sort of genius I think, and Ringo was a machine.

 

Lennon's Above Us Only Sky documentary very nearly changed my mind about him as well, although I still think he's a second rate Dylan who is himself a second rate Cohen... I work with Eddie Veale a lot, the guy who engineered Imagine and built studios for Lennon and Harrison, he speaks very highly of both of them.

 

I bought the Let It Be stripped back mix album and will tolerate a few track when they come on the random playlist, although Lennon's "charming" interjections still fosters me off. Same with the Stones, and a lesser extent, the Who, who just seemed a bit more modern to me.

 

Not a fan.

[Passinwind]

8 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

the music we hear in our teens stays with us forever

I hear this quite often, but not so much in my case, and I am in my 70th orbit. The Beatles might have been in my top 20 or 30 favorites at age 15, but by 18 I had had enough already. 

[Paul S]

10 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

What is this 'Kraftwerk' of which you speak, young man..? 

 

...

 

 

 

They used to make cheese triangles, wrapped in silver foil.  I use the term cheese loosely.

 

I don't think there is any band - not even the ones I favour the most - where I like all of their output.  So it is always a balance of % good/bad.  And for me, despite growing up in the 60s, the % of good in the Beatles is very low.  I like a few songs, especially when they were a Chuck Berry tribute band :), but mainly not my thing.  But that is music for you - just like any art form it is subjective.  Not liking the Beatles doesn't make me a bad person*.  Plenty of other things, perhaps, but nothing Beatles related. 😂

 

*I was in a band for 5 years where the other 3 were all massive Beatles and Zappa fans.  Especially Zappa.  I had to endure lengthy passes of song lyrics being quoted and everyone giggling.

 

[Woodinblack]

The beatles have never been that much to me. I listened to them more as a kid (and had those two albums from the picture earlier) but they weren't that significant. Something was the first guitar solo I learned though.

Now with time they mean even less, not something I would ever intentionally listen to, but also not anything I would rush to turn off - like sonic wallpaper I guess, just there.

The stones mean even less, never really listened to any of that, and the who, I doubt I even know most of their songs, I guess that is just mummy and daddy music.

[40hz]

I'm 36 and I'd say, after the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Beatles are my all time favourite band. They changed music completely. The sheer amount of incredible songs they wrote is beggars belief, all while young men in their 20's and early 30's. 

 

I sometimes see 'they weren't good musicians' bandied about as a counterpoint to them, which;

 

A - is absolute tosh

B - smells a little bit of the same attitude that we see online when people say they like a certain bass player.

 

"I like flea!, He's the best!

"How can you like Flea? Les Claypool and Mark King are much better technically, therefore they are superior bass players!"

 

Kinda defeats the point of music. It's about the songs created, not technical ability, and judged by that metric, no-one can touch The Beatles.

[Guest]

The endless chaos of The White Album suited me very well when I was 14 and 15. 

 

Revolver I find too good, too varied for me to actually enjoy listening to it all in one go. 

 

I pity anyone whose ears are so jaded that they can't find satisfaction in Rubber Soul.

 

For The Benefit Of Mr Kite is the only good track on Sgt Pepper.

 

Never trust anyone whose favourite album is Abbey Road.

 

John Lennon's performance of Rock & Roll Music forgives him everything and anything.

 

A lot of their songs become more interesting once you forget about the idea that great artists = good people, eg latching onto the mean spirit running through Paperback Writer gives it a lot more depth, having the defiance of I Am The Walrus pointed out unlocked the song for me (tho' knowing Liam Gallagher's rendition of it should have made me realise that already)

 

Going through the collections of early B-sides etc to pick out individual songs is well worth the effort. 

 

But despite having all these, and far too many other thoughts, no, the Beatles never had any chance of being my favourite, they're just a constant presence.

[gjones]

 I like a lot of the later Beatles songs (not keen on the moptop stuff). Are they the greatest band ever? Maybe not, but when you see them in an historical perspective, the work they produced between 1962 and 1970, redefined pop/rock music. 

[Leonard Smalls]

Just now, gjones said:

Are they the greatest band ever?

It's not possible to say if any band is The Greatest Band Ever... Simply because, unlike in a 100m sprint where it's easy to tell who's the fastest by virtue of them reaching the line first, music is entirely subjective. So saying either Little Mix, or The Beatles, or Gaye Bykers On Acid are the best band ever just shows that you like that band. But as objectivity isn't really possible in matters of personal taste, one can't definitively rate bands above or below each other - they all have equal subjective merit.

Apart from Bootsy's Rubber Band and Parliament, who blow them all out of the water 😁

As for the Beatles, not my cup of tea...

[cetera]

I prefer Wings - "They're only the band the Beatles could have been!"

 

 

[Nicko]

18 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

 

They're top 5.

I'm assuming S Club are at 7?

[Nicko]

I think the Beatles are a bit over rated.  Some of their stuff is OK but I find a lot of it utter shite.  I hear all this stuff that without the Beatles we wouldn't have modern rock music but Jimi Hendrix and Lou Reed surely weren't a result of the Beatles and defined genres of music that came later.  And if I had to choose a band from the 60/70s pop scene I think I prefer the Kinks.

[Muzz]

As a matter of interest, how many of us are gigging with a setlist that includes more than one (or indeed any) song from The Greatest Band Of All Time? Given that giddiness, you'd expect everyone to play several in their setlist...we're only halfway to the 'still be playing them 100 years later' mark so far...