Is anyone better than the Beatles?

[Beaverhausen]

Poll question: Is anyone better than the Beatles?

[jpgray]

1. Absolutely

As consistent? Probably not.

[Burma Jones]

2. Nope, but they have a few equals.......................n/t

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. No one did what they did, even Elvis

Granted, a lot of people "attempted" to copy Elvis.

But when the Beatles hit, those guys WENT AWAY. So did Elvis. He made crap movies until his 1968 comeback special. Guys like Jimmy Page and the rest of Led Zeppelin offered to do an album with him and he said no. He went to Vegas, over-medicated himself, ballooned up to grotesque proportions, and died.

There are groups making records RIGHT NOW that continue to dip into the "Beatles Well."

No one is, was, or will be "better" than The Beatles...and that INCLUDES Wings.

:evilgrin:

[Kahuna]

13. The Beatles retired every body who came before them. That's how..

new and wonderful they were. I wish we could have another music British invasion. It was magnificent. There will be nothing like it ever again.

[dolo amber]

4. Yes, loads of people are

Besides, in case people haven't looked at a calendar recently...they broke up like 30 years ago...MOVE ON, already!! :P

[Beaverhausen]

5. Ok- name all these people who are better

I dare ya!!! }(

[dolo amber]

6. It would be of no use

I ain't tryin' to convert nobody, just stating an opinion. Besides, my musical taste is not that which someone who still thinks the Beatles are the shizzy would really understand. ;)

[JVS]

7. Liberace was a better musician

And a better dresser!

[kcwayne]

10. Mozart, Bach, Beethoven

Their body of work vastly outnumbers the Beatles

Their music is studied, played, and listened to by more people throughout the world than the Beatles.

Their music has lived for 300 years without a significant drop off in people that are involved with it. The number of people that pay attention to the Beatles declines yearly, as boomers die off.

"Better" is a relative term for which the criteria changes constantly in the musical world. So these comparisons in the end don't mean a great deal. However, I am betting that in 300 years, there will be very few people that even have a clue of who the Beatles were. They will be attractive to the same sort of people that listen to Gilbert and Sullivan today, who were the Beatles of their era.

[Kahuna]

14. "..listened to by more people throughout the world...."

I doubt it. I think you should offer some proof if you think it's true.

[JVS]

15. They're public domain. That means that they are more affordable

[Kahuna]

17. "More affordable?" What the heck does that have to do with anything???

I wasn't aware that people chose the music they listen to based upon its affordability!!! :crazy: Not to mention, a lot of us get our music for free.....on the radio. Ever hear of it? And I dare say, that there are far more popular music radio stations than there are classical music stations. That's for a reason. The VAST majority of people prefer popular music to classical.

[JVS]

19. Seeing that the vast majority of the world is dirt poor, plenty

Not everyone has a computer that costs several hundred dollars. A lot of people listen to radios, and lots of radio stations out there play classical because it's cheap

[Kahuna]

21. I said a "radio" damnit! Not, a "computer."

Sheesh. Give it up.

[kcwayne]

20. Here are some hard numbers and some rationale

Classical music sales (CD's) are 3% of the total volume. Oldies are 1.3%. I don't know the breakdown of how much of the category is attributable to Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, or Beatles are in their respective categories. I assume that the Beatles are a smaller portion of the Oldies category than the masters are to the classical because of a long standing debate about concert content. That debate is that for classical music to grow, new works need to be presented. But when orchestras don't include, BBM on their performance lists, attendance drops off. A huge number classical recordings include a rendition of a BBM piece. The same is not true for the Beatles.

CD Sales

Also:

Consider how many children throughout the world participate in orchestra at school. They play the classics for the most part.

Consider how many community and professional orchestras there are in the world, each of whom do 10-20 concerts a year. Again, they play 1000 pieces of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach compared to the covers of a Beatle tune.

On a given night in most American cities, if you want to listen to live music, you can find a location where you can hear a BBM piece played. That is not true about the Beatles.

So the only other area the Beatles could exceed in volume would be in radio play and in owners of their recordings playing them in their cars and homes. I don't know what the numbers are here. It is possible the Beatles could hold a lead here, but I doubt it.

[Kahuna]

23. Hard numbers. Beatles #1s sales rank on Amazon...

Number 20! Not bad for a group that hasn't record in over 30 years. Beat that Bach!!! Not!!!! :D

Their other CD have good sales rank numbers too. :P

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004ZAV3/qid=1106784962/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-4680689-0797440?v=glance&s=music

[kcwayne]

24. Amazon is one outlet, not the entire Big Kahuna, Kahuna

And your link shows that one Beatles album ranks 20th in music. But there is no comparison available for BBM, you would have to add up all of the CD's sold that have a BBM piece on it to have a fair comparison. And you could add in all of the CD's that do Beatle's tunes covers as well to make it an apples to apples comparision.

But even if the sales of Beatles CD's are higher on Amazon, which I would imagine they are, this is one outlet, and all that shows is that the demographic that shops on Amazon for CD's prefers to buy Beatles CDs.

Again, Classical CD sales are 3% of the total industry sales, and oldies category, which applies to groups that have not recorded in 30 years, is only 1%.

[Kahuna]

26. I know that. But surely you must know that citing the 3% versus 1%

obviously does not apply to the Beatles since they are apparently still selling very well. What if the Beatles are 25% of that 1%? :shrug: You see, your numbers are very meaningless. When you have a number of what percentage of that 1% the Beatles comprise, we'll discuss.

Still, you must admit that for the Beatles to be number 20 with a MAJOR seller that reaches all demographics is very impressive. That sales rank numbers is across genres. Got it now?

[Magrittes Pipe]

8. Oh yeah.

Not Britney, though. :P

Short list, in roughly chronological order:
The Rolling Stones
Otis Redding
Love
Sly and the Family Stone
Stevie Wonder
David Bowie
Mott the Hoople
Television
Wire
The Fall
Great Plains
Gibson Bros.
Pixies
Public Enemy
De la Soul
Bassholes

...had to stop in the mid-'90s; an artist's gotta prove themselves, after all.

[Beaverhausen]

9. LOL!!! You are funny

those people are better than the Beatles!!!

thanks for the laugh. I needed that! :hi:

[Kahuna]

11. Hell No! Michael Jackson, The Stones and Stevie Wonder are close...

But nobody beats the Beatles.

edited to add the Rolling Stones who are clearly the closest rivals to the Beatles

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. Michael Jackson?

MICHAEL JACKSON???

What are you smoking, and where can I get some?

[Kahuna]

16. Yeah. You know that guy who has sold millions and millions of records..

and who also has a great body of work. You may not like it. But that hardly makes you an authority on the subject. A lot of folks would say that you must be smoking something if you don't think MJ is a superbly talented musician.

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. Sold a lot of records, okay.

Sales figures are not a valid argument in favour of quality, though. If they ARE, then I guess John Grisham must be a better writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[Dukkha]

22. not even Jesus!

John said so himself, so it's true.

Never has been, nor ever will be a band as important as The Beatles.

[bobthedrummer]

25. Jimi Hendrix, the clasical composers and Bob Dylan.

Don't forget that it was Bob Dylan that influenced the lads from Liverpool and made them a better band.

[Kahuna]

27. A lot of acts influenced the Beatles. The Isley Bros, obviously..

Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Beach Boys, Lloyd Price.... The point is that the Beatles made something unique from what they borrowed across the different genres.

[Taverner]

28. At what? In the studio? No. Live? Yes

I can think of many bands better than them live, like Phish, Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, etc.

But in the studio, none could match them.

I mean, the Beatles themselves stopped doing live shows because they knew where their talent was.

[Beaverhausen]

29. I thought they stopped performing live because the crowds ...

were so crazed and noisy they couldn't even hear themselves.

just thought I'd kick this up again...

[XNASA]

30. XTC are every bit as good as the Beatles.

They could play better can write songs as well as Lennon and Macca. XTC just never gave into the hype or self-destructed.

XTC is not as famous as the Beatles, but Partridge and Moulding are every bit as good as Lennon and McCartney.