Are the Beatles the best band?

The best band compared to what?

Which genre? Which era?

Dear Reyn,
I'm asking if the Beatles are the best band in your opinion.
There is no specific era or genre.
I'm just trying to see how many Beatles' fans are out there (in able2know.com)

i am a big fan, but they are not my favourite band, that honour would go to Guided by Voices

interestingly enough, they probably rank in my top 5 bands of all time, but i'd be hard pressed to put a Beatles album in my top 5 albums

here the 5 albums i'd take to a desert island

Discs
The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs

Laurie Anderson - United States Live

David Bowie - The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars

Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea



these albums are also not my top favourites, but they offer a good cross section and length of listening (10 discs total)

Well, I happen to like the Beatles, especially some songs. I was a fan in the 60s, and can remember when they were on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Are they the best? Not necessarily. I think The Rolling Stones should be shoulder to shoulder with them. They certainly have longevity going for them.

Absolutely no, what one could ask, was they the most popular band?

Thanks djjd62!
I'll have to look into those bands- and their albums!

Thanks Reyn!
I agree with you completley about how the Rolling Stones should be shoulder-to-Shoulder with them. They are pretty good, after all. Yet, I still favor The Beatles. My personality, I guess.

HexHammer,
The Beatles were once the most popular band. They were a hit from the 60s to around the 80s, yet some people still love them today!

Yes, I know. It was a rethorical question I asked for you.

To me, the Beatles are the best group. The public's taste has a way of changing with time, but they have stayed around the top quite a few years.

Yes.

If I could only have one, it would be Zeppelin or the Stones.

So hard to say but I actually prefer Steely Dan for their complexities. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy the Beatles -- I do! But there was quite a while there where I was all Beatled out and absolutely did not wish to listen them for a few years there.

Yes.

Joe(there's an echo in here)Nation

Yes. The Beatles are the best composers in the history of popular music and very superior musicians as well. Some of my personal favorites are:

1. No Reply
2. It Won't Be Long
3. I'll Get You
4. Don't Bother Me
5. From Me to You
6. I Should Have Known Better
7. All My Loving
8. The Ballad of John and Yoko
9. This Boy
10. And I Love Her

This is reflected in the way they were received by the public as well. During the week of April 4, 1964, The Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five positions. This is a feat no one had approached before and that no one has approached since.

Furthermore, they changed the rock genre. Were it not for the Beatles, rock and its derivative sub-genres as they sounds now and are organized now wouldn't exist. When they came along, rock was just being invented and had only a few basic sounds:

1. Very prototypical rock'n roll like "Johnny B. Goode," "Sweet Little Sixteen," or "Runaway."
2. The Doo Wop Sound like "16 Candles," "One Summer Night," or "This Magic Moment"
3. The baberbshop quartet type of sound, like "Dawn" or "Big Girls Don't Cry."

Furthermore, it was almost unheard of for musicians to write theor own material. Musicians were performers but almost never composers. The Beatles, on the other hand, were self-contained, writing about 90% of their own material, or at least they were by about 1963.

The Beatles had a different sound - based on those classic sounds listed above, but different - essentially the modern rock sound. After they became internationally famous in 1964, acts with the original rock sound ceased to exist almost overnight. Everything stopped for a moment, and afterwards groups immitating the Beatles style began to appear. Modern rock groups are descended from those immitators.

The Beatles had unparalelled powers of composition, and no modern composers can touch them. Someday, someone with equal talent will emerge, but probably not for a long time. They were the Einsteins and Newtons of music.

i'm going to a deserted island with djjd. i would pick the same music essentially. plus citizen cope.

previously on Lost

i'm in slovakia. no lost here. and hulu and such also don't work from europe. :-( major FAIL.

no hulu in canada either, and we're right next door