Post your top 5 rock bands of all time

[suds79]

I know I'm in the minority here but would a lot of people really choose to listen to something from The Beatles over everything else?

I just don't get it and find them highly overrated. I feel like it's the default answer as to greatest band ever and that title could never be challenged. Basically they get the Michael Jordan treatment.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by suds79

I know I'm in the minority here but would a lot of people really choose to listen to something from The Beatles over everything else?

I just don't get it and find them highly overrated. I feel like it's the default answer as to greatest band ever and that title could never be challenged. Basically they get the Michael Jordan treatment.

I don't dislike The Beatles but I've never actually owned anything by them until last week when I picked up used copies of the remastered Revolver and Abbey Road.

The Rolling Stones are another major band that I've always kind of been "meh" about.

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by suds79

I know I'm in the minority here but would a lot of people really choose to listen to something from The Beatles over everything else?

I just don't get it and find them highly overrated. I feel like it's the default answer as to greatest band ever and that title could never be challenged. Basically they get the Michael Jordan treatment.

Yes.

First off, Paul McCartney wrote the book on playing rock and roll bass guitar.

Second off...the sphere of the Beatle's influence cannot be overstated. Every single musician who plays any kind of music except classical, jazz, and opera has been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the Beatles.

Take, for instance, any and every metal band from Metallica to Cradle Of Filth. Well, 'heavy metal' was basically inverted by Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, yes?? Well...both Ozzy Osbourne and Ian Paice were absolute Beatles nuts. Ozzy had Beatles pictures all over the wall and dreamed of his sister marrying a Beatle. It's why he got into a band. It's why EVERYONE got into a band back then.

Like, seriously - the American gov't stamped out rock n' roll by the early 60's; Elvis was in the Army, Little Richard was preaching, Chuck Berry was in jail, Eddie Cochran died in the same crash that paralyzed Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee was in purgatory for marrying his 13year old cousin, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens were dead, et al.

There was NO rock and roll - the music had died, and then the 3 French Corsicans were hired to off President Kennedy in Nov '63.

The Beatles touched ground in Feb '64 - and the world hasn't been the same since.

They influenced Bob Dylan to go electric; he influenced them by turning them on to grass and expanding their lyrical parameters.

The sounds they attained in the recording studio (by using equipment that was obsolete even by 1960's standards - a 4-track recorder) are still nothing short of astounding, and people still try to recreate the amazing sounds they did with Producer George Martin TODAY with digital equipment...sometimes they get real close.

They literally changed the world, changed the way music was recorded, changed the was it was presented, changed the actual SOUND of it. They ****ing changed it all.

THAT'S why they're held in such high regard. Because they EARNED it. They did it ALL and they did it all FIRST.

So you may not like the Beatles or you may not 'get' it, but the artists you listen to love them, and were extremely influenced by them. So, no matter what you listen to, you owe a debt of gratitude to the Beatles.

[suds79]

Originally Posted by Driving Wheel

THAT'S why they're held in such high regard. Because they EARNED it. They did it ALL and they did it all FIRST.

So you may not like the Beatles or you may not 'get' it, but the artists you listen to love them, and were extremely influenced by them. So, no matter what you listen to, you owe a debt of gratitude to the Beatles.

Yeah no doubt they were the first and changed history. No argument there. I just hate their sound.

I know it's a me thing. I've come to accept that.

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by suds79

Yeah no doubt they were the first and changed history. No argument there. I just hate their sound.

I know it's a me thing. I've come to accept that.

Understandable.

But to me, 'the Beatles' went through 5 extremely different phases, and as a result can almost sound like 5 different bands :

1. early days - fast swinging 'beat' rock and roll w/huge soul/Motown influence on ballads...lots of 'boy-meets-girl' lyrics. (1962-64)

2. middle period - marked by more lyrical and instrumental experimentation; transitional period, but progressive (1965)

3. Psychedelia - complete sonic and aesthetic overhaul; music was in black and white before; the Beatles made it in technicolor with Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. Orchestral, hall, jazzy flairs, eastern influence - a complete and total synthesis of every existing type of music on earth.

4. The soloists - (1968) - for the White Album, they worked on each song almost as a 'solo performer' with a backing band. Stripped of psychedelic trappings, earnest and raw, again reaching heights no one before had attained. Hey Jude and Revolution date from this period, as do Lady Madonna and Old Brown Shoe. The first (and superior) Across the Universe dates from this period.

5. The End - where they finally coalessed into a complete whole one last time to make the grand definitive statement in Abbey Road. They had never sounded better, before or since, either together or apart.

So, to me...'their sound' is a bit of a misnomer; they were very broad.