Stones v. Beatles breakup?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by doc021, Sep 2, 2016.

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  1. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Music started with the British Invasion. :rolleyes:

    It kills me when Beatles fans think Pepper was the first concept album. :laugh:
     
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  2. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    In 1988 as a teenager I got heavily into classic rock for the first time. I went and researched all of the classics, bought most of the Beatles albums and then the Stones.

    My impression of The Beatles was it was too lightweight, not exciting enough for me.

    The Stones, while more inconsistent (debatable) because IMO there is a lot of dreck on Revolver and Pepper and...etc...) were more exciting and their peaks were far superior to any of the Beatles. Jumpin' Jack Flash or Back in the USSR? Honky Tonk Woman or Come Together? I'll take the former every single time and twice on Sunday.

    Wait, today is Sunday?

    Live albums...Ya Ya's blew me away and compare that to...Hmm, the rooftop concert I guess...It's not even close! TKO Stones!

    Fast forward to the present day.

    I don't own a single Beatles album. Not a one, no hits, no nothing.

    Does this mean the Stones were better? It's all subjective people but yes, they were better at a LOT of things.

    And no Beatles guitarist was as good as Keith Richards or Mick Taylor. I saw that upthread.

    Very good. :laugh:
     
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  3. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

    Location:
    Undisclosed
    Well, you could argue that the first three are solo artists who were also charting on R &B charts as well and I mentioned surf music but they all wrote some of their own material. However, your quote made my position stronger that the Beatles were not the only people writing songs at the time. I was actually referring to post 536 that mentioned some of the blues/rock influenced bands would eventually write their own material whether the Beatles existed or not.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2017
  4. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Definitely. I don't think there's any debate about that.

    I actually do like the Beatles a lot, but the rhetoric and mythology that persists about their place in musical history is really ridiculous. There are folks that have them as basically inventing everything, as being revolutionary outliers rather than just another band. It's absurd.
     
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  5. dudley07726

    dudley07726 Forum Resident

    Location:
    FLA
    There was no other band as influential or as popular. They were revolutionary in many cases. Sorry, it’s just the facts.
     
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  6. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Sorry, I didn’t explain myself better. I’m not trying to do anything so ridiculous - I think “Surfin Bird” is as much “art” as “Close to the Edge”. I’m talking about a different approach to making a “rock and roll” album and a different concept for the finished product that really became widespread in popular music with Sgt. Pepper. In lesser hands, you would call it pretentious, but in skilled hands it’s artistic vision.

    If you have a couple of minutes, this article, titled “Sgt. Pepper Sets the Stage: The Album as a Work of Art” explains things better than I can.

    Sgt. Pepper Sets the Stage: The Album as a Work of Art
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2017
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  7. BDC

    BDC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tacoma
    Sure but Marriott could really do it when he wanted, and weather or not it's your thing, it is a skill most can't do. Many of my favorite moments in rock are it's great screams, but there has to be what I consider an appealing tonality unlike 80s screamers such as Dee Snyder/Kevin Dubrow etc.
     
  8. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    If I had to choose, I would take my UK single of Brown Sugar/Bitch/Let it Rock over any Beatles album. But, looked at from a historical perspective, referring to the Beatles as “just another band” is, in my view, as absurd as regarding them as “revolutionary outsiders”.
     
  9. Gill-man

    Gill-man Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    My God, how sad...
     
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  10. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Actually life is pretty good and somehow I've been fairly successful at it despite not listening to the Beatles.

    Pepper puts me to sleep by the fifth track.

    Happy New Year! :cheers:
     
  11. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    What's sad are people who think there's something wrong with somebody who dares not to like The Beatles, or to not own any of their albums...
     
  12. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    Just your typical Stones fan trying to downplay their importance. They were revolutionary and the blue print for modern art rock/pop
     
  13. John Fell

    John Fell Forum Survivor

    Location:
    Undisclosed
    You could also argue the Stones were the template for blues/rock and garage bands.
     
  14. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    I wouldn't say the Stones were revolutionary either. The problem isn't the candidate, it's the mythology.
     
  15. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I’m not sure that the Beatles were ever better than the Stones live. Even in 1964, when the Stones were doing “Not Fade Away” and Chuck Berry covers, they were very tight musically.

    The Hyde Park show is pretty ragged. But a scant four months later, as the footage from MSG (and Ya-Ya’s) demonstrate, they were the greatest rock and roll band in the world. Amazing what a little practice will do.

     
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  16. dave9199

    dave9199 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC
    The Stones in 1969 remind me of The Beatles in early 69; slow and druggy. I never felt they were that tight at the time. That tour helped them get tighter afterwards but if you've got Keith Richards in your band you will be sloppy to a certain extent. I feel Lennon would also have been, not sloppy, but not tight if The Beatles played live at that time also since he wasn't into it.
     
  17. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    The Stones were always a better live band than the Beatles as far as I can tell. Of course, some of this had to do with the circumstances of Beatlemania which impeded their development on stage, but the Stones had more of a feral rock edge to them where the Beatles seemed fairly polite and eager to please. As someone who loves listening to live recordings, this is possibly the Beatles' biggest shortcoming as a band in my eyes, though they remain one of my favorites. I'm sure that some fans will object and argue that the Beatles were really amazing live, but they will always be more of a studio band to me.

    Two different bands that ultimately followed two different paths. There's definitely something to be said for quitting while you're ahead and I do think that it helps to cement the Beatles' reputation (and you could say the same for Led Zeppelin in this regard too). We get more great music from the Stones over time, though also more dreck, so it's a trade off.
     
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  18. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    [Qw UOTE="dave9199, post: 17836053, member: 44594"]The Stones in 1969 remind me of The Beatles in early 69; slow and druggy. I never felt they were that tight at the time. That tour helped them get tighter afterwards but if you've got Keith Richards in your band you will be sloppy to a certain extent. I feel Lennon would also have been, not sloppy, but not tight if The Beatles played live at that time also since he wasn't into it.[/QUOTE]

    The Stones in 69 slow and druggy? Based on Hyde Park and Altamont, I suppose, as those two shows are the only performances that most know. Ya-Ya’s was 1969, and many think it’s better than Ladies and Gentlemen or A Brussels Affair. One reason many cite is actually the pace of the songs. The pace was closer to the studio versions, and therefore slower, but most nights, the band was tight and the music would swing with a vengeance.

    The Stones in 69 were so good that the bootleg live album, “Live’er than You’ll Ever Be” from their show in Oakland, actually sold well enough to go Gold. Although most point to the Basement Tapes, I think that Live’r is what really started the bootleg industry. Oh yeah, it’s a great performance (probably on YouTube somewhere).
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2018
  19. BryanA-HTX

    BryanA-HTX Crazy Doctor

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    Maybe not technically, but the White Album is much longer than Exile.
     
  20. Jlbrach

    Jlbrach Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    the beatles called it quits at the precisely correct time.....they will always be the beatles in their prime.....the same holds for people like jimi hendrix or jim morrison or janis joplin etc....as sad as it is they will be forever young with only the 20 something year old version for anyone to hear or see....the stones are will always be one of the all time greats but like michael jordan playing till 40 or willie mays stumbling around in the field at the end people will have seen them at less than their best...so be it,they still love to play and people love to hear it and there is tons of money to be made...lets add led zeppelin to the list of bands that didnt get a chance to grow old and stale ...they also smartly called it quits at their peak after bonhams death.....the who on the other hand should have called it quits after moons death
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2018
  21. Jlbrach

    Jlbrach Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    the stones have made dozens of records since their peak and most of them are uneven at best and in some cases embarrassing at worst....
     
  22. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Don’t know if by peak you mean Exile, or Some Girls and Tattoo You (their two most successful studio albums) but they’ve only released eight studio albums since Tattoo You, and I can’t recall one that was embarrassing. At worst, they don’t break much, if any, new ground. They generally received good reviews.
     
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  23. Jlbrach

    Jlbrach Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    IMHO pretty much everything post Tatoo was underwhelming if truth be told if they werent stones albums they would have been ignored....for me some girls is their last serious effort..lets put it this way,when I go to listen to some rolling stones the recent stuff is not what i search out
     
  24. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    "called it quits" - I don't really mean to sound like I am calling you out here, because I generally agree with much of what you said, and in fact an implication one might come away from that phrase is not clear you intended.

    What I am driving at is I don't think the implied intentionality of the timing of calling it quits was based for The Beatles on some notion that went something like "Now is the time to go out on top." I don't pretend to have thought about this more than anyone else here, obviously, but I have thought about it a good deal. The reasons they broke up were complex, involving a number of factors. Some were personal, like Lennon wanting to spend more time with Yoko Ono, who in turn had been rubbing the others the wrong way. There were the band management issues, pitting Allan Klein against the Eastmans, in turn reflecting the sort of vacuum that followed Epstein's death. Harrison was spending a good deal of time and focus on Indian mysticism, and this was leading to his own personal problems with Pattie. There were differences about who to use as a producer, with George Martin no longer the automatic choice. Apple Corps, temporary departures by this or that member, Lennon's heroin use, the focus of individual members on their solo projects, the list goes on and on.

    I do not see anywhere in there some consideration anything like "We should quit now so that people in the future will look at our creativity, our creative arc, and applaud us for going out on top."

    They may well have felt it unlikely if they continued that they would have gotten better, or done anything as brilliant as what they did already. But even if true that would have been precisely because of the problems that would have made that difficult or unlikely that I mentioned above.

    PS - Your other examples are even more of an issue since they largely were based on the deaths of those mentioned or of key band members. Going out on top in such a context is really more about we can't continue as we were. (I also think it debatable whether Hendrix and Joplin in particular "went out" in terms of timing when they were doing their best work. Electric Ladyland imo was Hendrix's high water mark, and Joplin may well have gotten big sales with her later work like Mercedes Benz and the Pearl album, but in retrospect her better stuff was before then. The Ledsters peak was also well before Bonham died, with Physical Graffitti. )
     
  25. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I think that their recent work doesn’t measure up to what they did pre-Some Girls (I would uses Tattoo You as the point of departure). But, none of their albums are really bad in the sense of being tough to get through. It all sounds like the Stones to me. Whether those albums would have been ignored if they had been released by someone else is one of those impossible to answer-type questions. At the end of the day, every studio release for five decades has been a top 5 album on both sides of the Atlantic. That’s significant - especially considering that from the late 70’s through the late 90’s, you had to sell a lot of albums to be near the top of the charts- and something that no other 60’s artist in any genre was able to accomplish. That’s why I really feel that their legacy was helped by their longevity.
     
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