Music: The Beatles, greatest "popular consensus" band of all time?

[Shareefruck]

Tastes change and every generati0n seems to need their own kind of music. The worst was that EDM(?).

EDM is dreadful, but IDM is surprisingly fantastic and can be eye-opening if you're put off by EDM.

 

[ORRFForever]

To quote Andreas from Sepultura

"The rolling stones have 50 years of longevity, still selling out stadiums and could play all their songs live. The beatles couldn't. They broke up after 10 years, which is pretty unimpressive"


I don't particularly care for either band though. Black Sabbath and gentle Giant had more of an influence on the bands I listen to today.

Zepplin and Sabbath people often argue over who really started metal. Its Sabbath. In attitude and sound

The Beatles couldn't play their songs live?

Re : "Zepplin and Sabbath people often argue over who really started metal. Its Sabbath. In attitude and sound"

What about in terms of quality?

 

[Ouroboros]

I'm not a big fan of trash metal (apart from Slayer, one of my favorite bands), so I wasn't even aware the black album was regarded as a genre killer. If anything, I think Nirvana's Nevermind killed the 90s genre music at large.

I don't know how much I really subscribe to the whole 'genre X killed genre Y' or 'this album killed genre X' narrative games people like to play. I tend to agree with DaaaaB's when he said that Black Album or not, thrash metal was probably in its death throes. It's not like a ton of high quality thrash albums came out in the early/mid-90's that were ignored. It ran it's course.

I think it's also worth pointing out that thrash was never a substantial commercial force to begin with. Metallica are the outlier here - and by a huge margin. Consider that Slayer don't have a platinum album in the USA. I think Megadeth may have one or two - I can recall them making some unexpected incursions into alt-rock radio in the mid 90's at least.

I'm not sure about Nirvana's impact either. Their commercial appeal [Nevermind is 10x platinum!!] suggests to me that they were not likely converting would-be metalheads into mopey grungers. They may have killed the glam/hair metal stuff but I don't know or care enough about that junk to comment. Ultimately things change and it's ludicrous to expect the cultural zeitgeist of one generation to carry over to the next. If you want to go down that road I suppose it could be argued that grunge itself was 'killed' a few years later by stuff like Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. That was a bad time for popular music.

 

[brokeu91]

Where do you guys who are really big into 60s/70s rock bands rank CCR?

They're my 2nd favorite behind the Stones just based on who I enjoy listening to the most. For the most part I've only listened to the hit songs from bands of that era tho.

I do enjoy CCR but they are behind, in my opinion, the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, David Bowie, The Who, Jimi Hendrix at least.

 

[Eisen]

I'm not a big fan of trash metal (apart from Slayer, one of my favorite bands), so I wasn't even aware the black album was regarded as a genre killer. If anything, I think Nirvana's Nevermind killed the 90s genre music at large.

Nevermind was released in 91. And it kicked loose a plethora of great alternative music.

 

[Shareefruck]

Where do you guys who are really big into 60s/70s rock bands rank CCR?

They're my 2nd favorite behind the Stones just based on who I enjoy listening to the most. For the most part I've only listened to the hit songs from bands of that era tho.

I do enjoy CCR but they are behind, in my opinion, the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, David Bowie, The Who, Jimi Hendrix at least.

While I do consider CCR a tad weaker than most of the guys mentioned, I would actually sooner lump CCR together with The Stones and Zeppelin (they kind of have a similar approach to music, IMO-- more driven by crowd-pleasing aesthetic sensibilities and almost serving as a tribute to their influencers but with a twist rather than wildly innovative, expressive, or personal artistic voices) than I would lump The Stones and Zeppelin with The Beatles and Hendrix, personally. In fact, I don't know what would make that group any stronger than bands like The Kinks or Jefferson Airplane (who I find more creatively interesting), either-- I'm surprised they haven't been mentioned at all.

 

[kihei]

Another band that needs to be mentioned is U2, who I believe are still the highest grossing concert band in rock history.

 

[OzzyFan]

The winner for #2 just seems to be the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin for all around reasons mentioned. I'd lean the Stones just because I think their music is more accessible, their hit songs ranged decades/their music ranged half a century, and this is all shown by the chart topping hits each band had(Stones had almost 6 times as many billboard top 100 hits and 8 #1 hits, spanning over the course of 3o years). Musically is obviously a whole nother discussion, but as far as popularity go, have the think the stones have a larger audience and approval of their music then Zeppelin do.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Lou Reed disagreed with all of our takes.

 

[brokeu91]

While I do consider CCR a tad weaker than most of the guys mentioned, I would actually sooner lump CCR together with The Stones and Zeppelin (they kind of have a similar approach to music, IMO-- more driven by crowd-pleasing aesthetic sensibilities and almost serving as a tribute to their influencers but with a twist rather than wildly innovative, expressive, or personal artistic voices) than I would lump The Stones and Zeppelin with The Beatles and Hendrix, personally. In fact, I don't know what would make that group any stronger than bands like The Kinks or Jefferson Airplane (who I find more creatively interesting), either-- I'm surprised they haven't been mentioned at all.

I also like the Kinks and Jefferson Airplane quite a bit. I would probably lump CCR with them. I should have mentioned the Velvet Underground too. I also agree that The Beatles are in a category of their own and in my opinion so far ahead of everyone else that I shouldn’t have mentioned CCR with them.

 

[kihei]

I've looked at record (or unit) sales, concert ticket sales, hits on the internet and Wiki, cover versions, and longevity, and I have come up with an imperfect Top Ten:

The Beatles
Led Zeppelin
The Rolling Stones
Pink Floyd
The Eagles
Metallica
Queen
AC/DC
U2
Aerosmith

HM: Guns N' Roses; Fleetwood Mac; Journey

None of the above in necessarily meant as an endorsement, just a guess at "popular consensus"

 

[OzzyFan]

I've looked at record (or unit) sales, concert ticket sales, hits on the internet and Wiki, cover versions, and longevity, and I have come up with an imperfect Top Ten:

The Beatles
Led Zeppelin
The Rolling Stones
Pink Floyd
The Eagles
Metallica
Queen
AC/DC
U2
Aerosmith

HM: Guns N' Roses; Fleetwood Mac; Journey

None of the above in necessarily meant as an endorsement, just a guess at "popular consensus"

Aerosmith is surprisingly a band that never came to mind, although the star power and evidence are there. AC/DC crossed my mind but I felt they were a bit too repetitive/similar in their sound to be considered that great through popular consensus. Queen is interesting, as previously debated in this thread, I always found them more performance/live act than substance, one 'might' say a 'better musically' Kiss, or very similar to a Van Halen with more iconic songs/frontman.

 

[kihei]

Aerosmith is surprisingly a band that never came to mind, although the star power and evidence are there. AC/DC crossed my mind but I felt they were a bit too repetitive/similar in their sound to be considered that great through popular consensus. Queen is interesting, as previously debated in this thread, I always found them more performance/live act than substance, one 'might' say a 'better musically' Kiss, or very similar to a Van Halen with more iconic songs/frontman.

AC/DC really surprised me. I have always thought them to be a mediocre rock band not worthy of prolonged interest. However, they have sold more "units" in the US (72 million) than The Rolling Stones, Queen, Metallica, Van Halen, Aerosmith, and U2, often by a considerable margin.

 

[ORRFForever]

Watching them on PBS...

How about some love and credit to the BeeGees ?!

Lyrics were terrible but the music was great.

 

[mrmovies779]

I've looked at record (or unit) sales, concert ticket sales, hits on the internet and Wiki, cover versions, and longevity, and I have come up with an imperfect Top Ten:

The Beatles
Led Zeppelin
The Rolling Stones
Pink Floyd
The Eagles
Metallica
Queen
AC/DC
U2
Aerosmith

HM: Guns N' Roses; Fleetwood Mac; Journey

None of the above in necessarily meant as an endorsement, just a guess at "popular consensus"

Iron Maiden?

 

[Aladyyn]

AC/DC really surprised me. I have always thought them to be a mediocre rock band not worthy of prolonged interest.

And you were correct

 

[NyQuil]

While I do consider CCR a tad weaker than most of the guys mentioned, I would actually sooner lump CCR together with The Stones and Zeppelin (they kind of have a similar approach to music, IMO-- more driven by crowd-pleasing aesthetic sensibilities and almost serving as a tribute to their influencers but with a twist rather than wildly innovative, expressive, or personal artistic voices) than I would lump The Stones and Zeppelin with The Beatles and Hendrix, personally. In fact, I don't know what would make that group any stronger than bands like The Kinks or Jefferson Airplane (who I find more creatively interesting), either-- I'm surprised they haven't been mentioned at all.

I couldn't disagree more with lumping Led Zeppelin in with the Stones and, god forbid, CCR.

CCR was a swamp rock phenomenon - a band who had no real enduring impact on musical evolution with neither the incentive or perhaps the opportunity (4 years) to vary their signature style. John Fogerty went on to write songs as a solo artist that were really no different in any objective way.

Listen to this song by the Hollies which they openly admit was a blatant attempt to jump on to the bandwagon. I grew up hearing this on the radio and thinking this was CCR.



Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin went out and followed up their highly popular heavy metal debut albums with the extremely controversial Led Zeppelin III, a folk album recorded at Bron-Y-Aur using largely acoustic instruments.

Much like Bob Dylan's electric album, people openly questioned their decision-making and direction. This idea that you are peddling that Led Zeppelin went out of their way to make commercially-friendly music as part of their ethos is so misguided that it really begs belief.

You've argued that the Beatles made music that mainstream audiences wouldn't appreciate, and those albums you cited ended up as their most best-selling albums. Commercial success does not preclude creative development.

Led Zeppelin would go on to experiment in all kinds of ways that diverted significantly from their heavy-feedback guitar-fuzzed metal anthems with albums like Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti. Their soundscape evolved from the stripped down sound of their early days into all kinds of new instrumentation and new studio techniques. How many radio unfriendly songs did they craft, with song lengths that extended well over 5 minutes?

Your problem is that, by the time you were alive and cogent, Led Zeppelin's catalogue was already completed and part of the mainstream rock musical history. A lot of the sharp edges and controversy have been smoothed over by time. Their music had been dissected, analyzed and replayed over and over again until it reached that saturation point.

I like CCR and the Rolling Stones, but they are far more similar to each other than they are to Led Zeppelin. The Stones and Zeppelin share their roots as English blues-influenced rock bands, but Mick and Keith were far more content to follow their formula than Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were.

I mean, Jimi Hendrix is also about as blues-influenced as it gets, so I don't really understand why you've separated him out. Probably because he died before he turned into Eric Clapton.

 

[kihei]

I mean, Jimi Hendrix is also about as blues-influenced as it gets, so I don't really understand why you've separated him out. Probably because he died before he turned into Eric Clapton.

Though in truth, given the direction his music was going in when he died, I don't think there was much danger of that happening to Jimi.

 

[NyQuil]

Though in truth, given the direction his music was going in when he died, I don't think there was much danger of that happening to Jimi.

I really think he would have as he aged.

He idolized the blues (much like Clapton), and a lot of artists go back to their roots as they emerge from their 20s.

I always liked this story about Clapton and Hendrix:

The night that Jimi died, I was supposed to meet him at the Lyceum to see Sly Stone play. And I brought with me a left-handed Stratocaster. I’d just found it – I think I bought it at Orange Music. I’d never seen one before and I was going to give it to him. The next day – whack – he was gone and I was left with that left-handed Stratocaster.

He's my brother's favourite artist so I've read a fair amount of literature about him over the years.

Jefferson Airplane turned into Starship so it's certainly not inconceivable.

 

[kihei]

I really think he would have as he aged.

He idolized the blues (much like Clapton), and a lot of artists go back to their roots as they emerge from their 20s.

I always liked this story about Clapton and Hendrix:



He's my brother's favourite artist so I've read a fair amount of literature about him over the years.

Jefferson Airplane turned into Starship so it's certainly not inconceivable.

Oh, I completely agree Hendrix would have kept his interest in the blues. I just think Hendrix might have taken blues somewhere really uncharted, perhaps pushed the envelope several times over, maybe landing in a kind of jazz eventually. To me the big difference between Hendrix and Clapton is the difference between an originator and an interpreter. Hendrix could create stuff that wasn't there before; Clapton could refine stuff that already existed. Had Hendrix lived, it would have been a very different legacy than the one that Clapton has left.

 

[NyQuil]

People always expect the best to continue from artists who die in their prime.

Lennon, Cobain, Hendrix.

It’s why I think they get an unfair advantage when it comes to retroactive evaluation.

 

[brokeu91]

People always expect the best to continue from artists who die in their prime.

Lennon, Cobain, Hendrix.

It’s why I think they get an unfair advantage when it comes to retroactive evaluation.

To be fair to Lenon he had been doing amazing stuff for a fairly long time by the time he died. Cobain and Hendrix May have gone downhill like many other artists given they didn’t produce that much yet. It’s impossible to know, but I feel Lenon had a proven track record long enough to believe he would still have been cranking out great music.

 

[NyQuil]

It’s difficult to know, but I feel Lenon had a proven track record long enough to believe he would still have been cranking out great music.

Well, the corollary to that is that you have guys like Neil Young and Bob Dylan still out there performing, and while they are still undoubtedly inspirational and influential to entirely new generations of artists, they don't play like they used to.

If either of those guys had died in their prime, I think their legacy would be greater, as sad as it is to say.

 

[brokeu91]

Well, the corollary to that is that you have guys like Neil Young and Bob Dylan still out there performing, and while they are still undoubtedly inspirational and influential to entirely new generations of artists, they don't play like they used to.

If either of those guys had died in their prime, I think their legacy would be greater, as sad as it is to say.

That’s a very good point. I guess we will never really know.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Another band that needs to be mentioned is U2, who I believe are still the highest grossing concert band in rock history.

highest grossing does not equal influence