Friday, January 2, 2009

The Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles



I think Mick's a joke with all that fag dancing; I always did. I enjoy it; I'll probably go and see his films and all like everybody else, but really, I think it's a joke. - John Lennon


It is one of the great cliches of broadcast media to call the Beatles the "greatest rock band of all time" as if it's not a point of contention.

So I was in a restaurant one night, a nice one in New York and there was a family at the next table. No one was paying attention to anyone else but then I heard - I couldn`t help it - the kid ask his father something. He wanted to know which band was better, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? Well, I don`t know, says the father. Why don`t you ask him?, meaning me. It made me feel like something out of history. - Mick Jagger, 1982


-The Beatles weren't even a rock band, they were a pop band with a few good rock songs.

The Elvis period was super-rebellious. Because that kind of music was much more shocking than the music of the Beatles - the early Beatles... The sexuality of the early Elvis years was much more shocking to a straight audience than the Beatles` I Want to Hold Your Hand... The wild men - Elvis, Jerry Lee - they were much more scary. So when we`re talking about any `60s break, you have to take that into account. They`d already made this sexual charge. - Mick Jagger, 2007


-The Beatles didn't play live after August 29, 1966 (the impromptu set on the roof of Apple Records for Let It Be doesn't count as a "concert") The Rolling Stones' Bigger Bang tour in 2005 grossed $168 million dollars. Paul McCartney's 2005 tour racked up $83.2 million. McCartney’s “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard” album, like the Stones, generated some of the most enthusiastic reviews he’s received in years but didn’t quite sell enough copies to be certified gold: 450,000 copies. That resulted in revenue of $5.85 million. Still, the 63-year-old ex-Beatle found gold at the concert box office, racking up $77.3 million in ticket sales. Macca's average ticket price: $135.46, topping the Stones but still not the highest average.

-As much as critics point to the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request as a pale imitation of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, it was the Beatles who sought to appropriate the Stones' controversial image with the "butcher cover" of Yesterday and Today
-The Beatles did not record Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street in a period of four years.

- Direct Descendants
Beatles: Badfinger, Wings, Julian Lennon, Oasis
Stones: Aerosmith, Hanoi Rocks, Black Crowes

- Embarrassing Moment:
Beatles - John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins album cover.
Stones - Mick riding a giant inflatable phallus on the 1975 tour while singing Starfucker




I will expand on this theme more in a bit...just wanted to get the ball rolling.