corkontheocean

For me, no contest - The Beach Boys. My favourite band of all time and Pet Sounds is my favourite album EVER. Nothing else beats it in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Beatles too. But they don't come close to Brian and co for me.

neardeathexperience

The progression from those early surfing songs through The Wild Honey era and finally Sunflower, Holland and Surf's Up was just as much of a leap for the Beach Boys as it was for the Beatles and their progression..........It is self evident.

G.A. De Forest

You might be thinking of the Four Seasons -- who still made more modern music to the Beatles. 'Love Me Do' was like a poor imitation of Sonny Boy Williamson and 'Please please Me' of the Everly bros, which started off as a soppy Roy Orbison ballad until George Martin improved it out of sight -- as he did to their music over the next eight years. Why did they call themselves the Three Everlys? Over their first two years of world fame the Beatles tried and retried Music Hall (When I'm '64 and many more in the mid-late Sixties), show tunes (Till There Was You, All my Lovin'), soul (You've Really Got a Hold On Me, Chains...), country & western (Act Naturally, Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby...), Europap (Michelle, Girl) and other genres without getting one right. The Beach Boys and Rolling Stones syncopated their beats from soul and jazz, unlike the Beatles who played a flat, very simple beat -- and this comes from Bill Wyman if you can't hear it for yourself.

neardeathexperience

To be honest I think that any producer could have sat behind the control board and fiddled with the dials with the absolute stunning selection of catchy two and a half minute pop songs the Beatles presented! What was wrong with the Beatles taking a stab at some show tunes? It was probably collectively what they had listened to while in their adolescence. To a fourteen year old teen do you actually think that he cared that the Beatles interpretation of a music hall song was not spot on? Probably not because Good Day Sunshine, When I'm 64 and even Your Mother Should Have Known better all had the Beatles stamp of approval all over them! As far as the other songs mentioned such as Chains and You Really Got A Hold On Me are some of the best sung Beatle songs ever recorded. As stated in the documentray Standing In The Shadows Of Motown once we heard those guys meaning the Beatles we knew it was all over!

neardeathexperience

To be honest I think that any producer could have sat behind the control board and fiddled with the dials with the absolute stunning selection of catchy two and a half minute pop songs the Beatles presented! What was wrong with the Beatles taking a stab at some show tunes? It was probably collectively what they had listened to while in their adolescence. To a fourteen year old teen do you actually think that he cared that the Beatles interpretation of a music hall song was not spot on? Probably not because Good Day Sunshine, When I'm 64 and even Your Mother Should Have Known better all had the Beatles stamp of approval all over them! As far as the other songs mentioned such as Chains and You Really Got A Hold On Me are some of the best sung Beatle songs ever recorded. As stated in the documentray Standing In The Shadows Of Motown once we heard those guys meaning the Beatles we knew it was all over!

G.A. De Forest

You'll have to read my book, which explains in great detail, including quotes from the key people there at the time including the Beatles and George Martin, how the Beatles came to power via Epstein, Martin, Sir Lord Humptypoo chairman of EMI, and Capitol in the US who had their arms twisted by EMI to release Beatle material in America after several singles were rejected -- everything up to I Want to Hold Your Hand. Then when they were released by other labels they were rejected by the public -- until Capitol spent ten times the amount of promo money they'd ever spent on any other project, including the Beach Boys -- who were an instant hit and promoted themselves. The Beatles had written about 100 songs before they started recorded for Parlophone, "many of which were later recorded by them" as though they were new. How come Martin, Dick Rowe of Decca, the BBC, at first saw nothing in them worth recording? It was only after they were famous that all these songs became brilliant masterpieces. John Lennon was genuinely thick academically, with a very limited vocab, and got by on so-called clever wordplay. I could go on and on but it's all there in the book. There are priceless quotes from people like George Martin doing their best to say great things about the Beatles but it comes out: "I specialised in [writing] beginnings, ends and bridges -- the rest of the song was theirs."!!!!
But you can't be serious about the reaction of Motowners to the group itself -- they were talking about once they saw and heard the reaction to Beatlemania (flopping their hair around) they knew it was over because black artists couldn't improve on that "innovation." This has been said by Ben E. King in a rockumentary. The "Where do we go from here?" was said by Eric Clapton on hearing "I Get Around" because he knew no English band could equal the innovation.
Admittedly they did get innovative and interesting early on with 'Hold Me Tight', 'Don't Bother Me' and a few others, peaked around 'Ticket to Ride' and 'Help!' in my opinion. But the rubbish most of them put out as solos later proves to me they were greater than the sum of their parts.

Cinnamonics

That is all very well. However, I said nothing about progression or leaps. All I'm saying is that The Beatles were so consistent that they are mainly an album-band to me (despite an endless amount of great singles), while The Beach Boys is more of a singles-band. To me. I still dig them, though.

G.A. De Forest: What you write seems to be (for the most part) at odds with everything else I've ever read about The Beatles over the years, which leads me to seriously question your opinions. What is it you're trying to say? That The Beatles were practically a label-made group who would never gain popularity if not for extreme advertising and overzealous managers and chairmen?

neardeathexperience

I would not argue with your statement that the Beatles collectively were better then apart. I think that can be said for the Stones along with numerous other bands. Yes Capitol spent a crap load of promotional money on the Beatles it was their job in order to sell records back in the 60s. It must have worked because the Beatles became the most merchandised and recognized band of all time. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion so here is mine. The Beatles looked around at numerous styles of music weather it be western, soul, show tunes etc and decided to make some music that emulated those styles in their own way. They sold millions of those records so someone must have enjoyed them. To say everything after Help was not very good in my opinion is blind to the reality of what the Beatles recorded. I'm not going to take the time to list all the quality songs that are there, but to be honest most bands would have given their entire career in my opinion to have written some of them.

Cinnamonics

Well said. And I agree that they were never the same when they started their solo careers. I think Lennon's "Plastic Ono Band" is fantastic, but the rest is rather uninteresting.

Surell

Now I have to take objection here. Honestly, up until Abbey Road for sure (and Sgt. Peppers on paper, but also the White album because I just really like it probably), the Beatles were never very consistent in their albums. They were consistent in progression, absolutely; they were consistent on putting out at least one to a few great songs per album; but as far as the album actually sounding like good, cohesive whole, I'd have to disagree, up until a certain point. The Beach Boys weren't much better honestly, if any better at all, until Smile for sure and Pet Sounds maybe - the latter certainly has great peaks and momentum and perhaps even a plotted movement of songs, but the constant fade-ins and -outs just destroy what could be a very clear, cohesive album.

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