What direction would rock have gone without The Beatles?

We will never know. Better? Worse? About the same? Quite different? It's hard to say.

But we do know what did happen (and remains happening) as a result of the revolutions (pun unintended) spear-headed in mammoth part by the Fab Four.

As a result, thinking of a world without them is a sad endeavor and something I'm glad we don't have to ponder for real!

 

Yikes, even not being a Dead fan, I know they played the Acid Tests in '66

The debut may have garage rocky but '68's Anthem of the Sun and '69's Aoxomoxoa are definitely stone psych classics.

 

I think heavy metal and crunchy guitar riffs would not have happened. The Beatles opened the door to the world for many British acts in 1964->The Kinks followed their lead, long hair, world fame, etc..->The Kinks gave birth to the crunchy heavy guitar riff in 1964 with "You Really got Me"->Without the Beatles, there would have been no world-famous Kinks.

So it's a real possibility that bands like AC/DC, KISS, etc... would not have existed if not for the Beatles.

 

Doo Whop Shoo Bop!

 

Close, but:

Beatles>Link Wray>Kinks>crunchy guitar music

There, that’s better.

 

John & Yoko stopped the Vietnam War. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

I like my American music just fine without the Beatles.

BTW, what the heck is a Jam Butty?

 

Not only would music have completely died out, we would also all be living in dirt huts. Thank you, The Beatles for saving humanity yet again. And for warding off that pesky alien invasion.

 

try again

Link Wray > Shadows > Beatles

 

we'll never know, but popular artist would have been around longer.

 

I was being facetious.

 

The Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" came out in April 1963. This was a motherload of American garage rock. There would be much more, touched by the Beatles for sure, but probably more by Little Richard. The Sonics, the Wailers, etc. The idea for the song "Psychotic Reaction" by the Count Five was hatched in 1964, and the song was recorded in 1965. Was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" necessary for the existence of this record? I doubt it.

There was surf music, guitar oriented and instrumental--"Wipeout" is also 1963. This probably would have continued to get wilder and weirder as the drugs kicked in later in the decade, were it not for the pressure to make pop vocal hits coming from the UK.

There was also this song from 1963, which was bluesy, hard, fun rock and roll:



There was of course soul and Motown music which was growing in revolutionary ways without significant Beatles' influence.

All these strands, plus the branching out of the folk explosion, would have produced (really, did produce) some pretty wild combinations by the time 1967 came around, and the San Francisco scene, and others. (Shh, don't repeat this, but the Beatles did not invent LSD.)

The Beatles were influential. But they didn't create the 1960s counterculture. They were influenced at least as much as they influenced others.

 

oh, I'm thick today. Sorry @Muggles

What Ted said ^^^^
We can close the thread now.

 

Not saying that - I am saying that Jerry Garcia was not delivering psychedelic music.
And the Acid Tests were known more for who they influenced - not what was being
musically performed.

It's the concept and experience that influenced people who would go on
to be pivotal in the psychedelic movement. And it's also to state that the
Beatles (who were in California in 1965) were influenced by those events.
And they borrowed from the burgeoning scene. And that scene included
the people I mentioned.

Seems like you are arguing just to argue - and not get my point.

 

Nah, there was driving loud guitar rock pre-Beatles that influenced punks and metalheads Stateside and in the UK years after the fact... Link Wray's 50s material and 60s stuff on Swan for one... the entire Northwest scene that existed pre-Brit Invasion, be they the Wailers, Sonics, Kingsmen, Raiders... note Jimmy air guitaring to Link's immortal Rumble, an instrumental that was banned for merely suggesting menace... Kinks never achieved that notoriety!

 

Okay. Not to argue. But we are talking about a post-1964 event that may or may not have happened without events previous to it playing out exactly the same as they did.

 

Without the Beatles, whatever Elvis was doing would have been The Thing.

 

I'm not talking to that....The OP asked if things would be different without the Beatles..
To that end - I was addressing the psychedelic era in San Francisco and the UK - and
pointing out that it was developing prior to the Beatles writing any songs influenced by
the movement. So while John Lennon wrote a great song - the movement was already
in place and would have happened anyway.

 

I don't know, but it definitely would have been played out and done in fifty years, just as it is now. So in a way, The Beatles weren't that consequential in the long run.

The real question should be: What if there never was The Andrews Sisters?

 

No worries!

 

Without Elvis, Brian Epstein would have claimed the Beatles were gonna be bigger than
dino, desi, & billy

Johnny Cash, Sonny & Cher helped shape this child as well.

 

Buddy Holly

 

I love that Jimmy Page Rumble clip. He seems no less passionate about the music now as he must have been as a teenager hearing it for the first time. Rock on!

 

In your opinion.

 

I am now understanding that you are saying that he would do both.
My apologies
There are those that are saying they would not exist today ,without the sainted Beatles ,and that is balderdash.

 

I'm not going to say you're wrong, but... you're not correct.