The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

<Ollie> wrote: »

Hate to be a nerd mysef, but Rubber Soul was actually released five years (almost six) into their career.

The Beatles formed as a group in 1960 and released their sixth album Rubber Soul in December 1965.

Well two years after their debut album. But it's splitting hairs tbh. And two years in music in the 60's is more like 5/6 years now

beatles all the way!

I think the Beatles, on balance, were the better band, based upon their consistency. They served their apprenticeship in Hamburg and learned to play any number of styles of music, due to having requests howled up at them by drunk sailors and pill popping prostitutes. That stood them in good stead so that when it came to writing songs, they were well able to go beyond the '3 chords' that most bands would have over employed in their earlier years. They never lost their ability to fire out a good tune, whether you want to pigeonhole it as rock or pop or whatever. Each album stands up on its own as a damn fine piece of work on its own that most bands, even today, would give their eye-teeth to have produced. And i include Beatles for Sale in that - which would be my least favourite.

On the other hand, with the Stones, I love 'em, bless their cotton socks but they're not in the same place. People might prefer them, and that's grand; they had a swagger, a confidence and an image that the Beatles couldn't match but seriously - objectively - look at their albums. They had a purple patch that went from Beggars Banquet to Exile on Main St and that's it. Before that - in the Brian Jones years - they were producing diamond singles, but the albums could be terribly patchy. After Mick Taylor left, they started to become a parody of themselves, and, for my money, have only released ONE essential studio album since 1972, and that'd be Some Girls.

Their live shows are 'good' but it's a bloody showband now, isn't it? One song by them that I've never really liked that much - and it makes me a heretic, i know - is Midnight Rambler. However, when they played it in Slane in 2007, it was savage BECAUSE it was only the 5 lads playing it. No bloody horn section. No backing vocalists, you just had a tight little blues band. For the most part, the Stones live experience is a bit too 'safe' nowadays, and the setlists leave you thinking that they're aiming it solely at the folks who pay top dollar for the tickets and only have a Greatest Hits compilation.

Mind you, if you sent me off to the desert island and told me to pick 8 tracks, I know that Gimme Shelter and Let it Loose and Jigsaw Puzzle would be in there. I'm not sure I'd have 3 Beatles tracks. When the *had* their sh*t together, they were unstoppable, but Jagger and Richards have never felt the need to stretch themselves like Lennon and McCartey did.

I like the Beatles but I would definitely prefer the rolling stones.

OutlawPete wrote: »

Slighty off topic .. but I seen Nowhere Boy the other night in the cinema and it a cracking little film about John Lennon's early days.

Would highly recommend seeing it.

Oh I must give it a whirl. Don't love Lennon but he's very interesting nonetheless