U2 versus The Beatles

[grayhank]

Paul Vs. Adam Clayton...It's a little bit closer in this department...but not by much. Reason being that Adam has no life to his bass playing...it's more of plodding Bass line in every song. I know the Bass and Drums are supposed to keep time but not through every song. Throw a little bit of life into a song every once in a while. Go and listen to Tomorrow Never Knows or Penny Lane and listen to the Bass in those two songs...you'll be blown away.

While I certainly agree that you can't compare the two, I think you're being a little hard on Adam. Watch the DVD of the U2's The Paris Concert. Adam is exceptional with his Bass playing in that particular show. You can feel all the sweat and passion he puts into it. He certainly adds to the energy of the concert. Plus he doesn't just stand there and play bass like so many bass players do (if you've ever seen the very robotic John Deacon from Queen playing bass you'll know what I'm talking about).

As for McCartney - yes he played bass for the Beatles - but he also could play the guitar and the piano as well as countless other instruments. He didn't start out as the "bass player" he just kind of fell into the role because somebody had to do it. He was a guitarist first. He really shines on "The Ballad of John and Yoko" considering he played most of the instruments on that record (bass, piano, and drums). George and Ringo were not even present on the record at all because John was in such a hurry to put it out.

[Cosmicman]

This is a joke right? Even John Lennon or Paul McCartney by themselves could not be touched by U2.
Oh my god. This discussion has to be a joke right? Someone let me in on the prank. Please!

[SeattleEd]

I agree with the general consensus here.

Beatles did expand new horizons musically to an extend and opened the gates for much influence to overtaking many aspiring bands.

U2 is amazing in it's own right. But nothing really mind blowing.

The Beatles were at the right place at the right time. Not to mention they had George Martin to help guide them in the right direction. Also, Brian Epstein who was a marketing genius.

It's important to have the right producer in your fold and grant it Steve Lillywhite is brilliant but he is no George Martin.

[Adam West]

That's a good point and one I was going to add prior to reading your post.

U2 is a great band....probably the best in the last 20 years.

But it's hard to compete against the Beatles. They really were at the right place at the right time and had the talent to create a culture all to its own. U2's style of music has been pretty consistent over the years while the Beatles went from good melodic rock 'n' roll to phenomenal styles of music that the world has never heard before.

If I'm not mistaken, the Beatles are the only band where each individual member has had at least one hit song as an individual artist.

[mitchedwards]

I'll pick the Beatles

[Thadiun Okona II]

The senseless waste of pitting these two mighty forces of nature against each other, like matter vs. anti-matter, will be a tragedy, not only for the bands involved...but for our planet. All nations must band together, to ensure that such a conflagration never takes place. I like 'em Both, so that's my take...

[SeattleEd]

Type3,

That's Michael Stipe and if the comment is true, then I think he's lost track of ther releveance of how The Beatles have influenced a lot of the bands that REM inspired them. Including the Byrds. But who is to say. Grant it the Beatles weren't the only ground breakers of the 60's. There were other bands that did influence a lot of current bands. Stipe is very anti-corporation and very into the DIY independent mentality.
The Beatles will always be there and marked someday classical in the sense we view Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Not along the same genre but in the vain. Too early right now but interesting to see in a 100 years.

[apes3978]

The Beatles invented to medium that all others use, even to this day.

And let us not forget that The Beatles "invented" their original ideas by borrowing a lot from the real rock and rollers...

The self contained, four piece line up was borrowed from The Crickets. All the whoo's that Paul did were pure Little Richard rip-offs... All the covers in their early careers were from the likes of the great Chuck Berry, (again) Little Richard, Carl Perkins. etc. And, John Lennon himself had said to Jerry Lee Lewis "If it wasn't for 'Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On', I never would have entered the music business..."

The Beatles didn't invent anything, at least as far as their early music goes... It was borrowed... (It wasn't until their drug/meditation days, etc. that they really started to do their own thing...)

[grayhank]

I seriously doubt that Michael Stipe would ever make such a statement about the Beatles considering that REM recently did a cover of Lennon's "#9 Dream" on the Instant Karma - Save Darfur Benefit Album...Coincidentally it's the second track on the album right after U2's version of "Instant Karma".

So both U2 and REM recognize and acknowledge how great at least one of the Beatles were.

[Hector]

And let us not forget that The Beatles "invented" their original ideas by borrowing a lot from the real rock and rollers...

The self contained, four piece line up was borrowed from The Crickets. All the whoo's that Paul did were pure Little Richard rip-offs... All the covers in their early careers were from the likes of the great Chuck Berry, (again) Little Richard, Carl Perkins. etc. And, John Lennon himself had said to Jerry Lee Lewis "If it wasn't for 'Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On', I never would have entered the music business..."

The Beatles didn't invent anything, at least as far as their early music goes... It was borrowed... (It wasn't until their drug/meditation days, etc. that they really started to do their own thing...)

Thank you for being brave enough to point this out...I agree with you 100%.

Yes, The Beatles without a doubt are at the top of the rock music food chain.

But you know what?

I prefer U2...I just like their music better.

AND ISN'T THAT WHAT IT ALL BOILS DOWN TOO???

It's not what the experts like, it's what I like.

Amen.

Let the flames begin.

[kingdom warrior]

And let us not forget that The Beatles "invented" their original ideas by borrowing a lot from the real rock and rollers...

The self contained, four piece line up was borrowed from The Crickets. All the whoo's that Paul did were pure Little Richard rip-offs... All the covers in their early careers were from the likes of the great Chuck Berry, (again) Little Richard, Carl Perkins. etc. And, John Lennon himself had said to Jerry Lee Lewis "If it wasn't for 'Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On', I never would have entered the music business..."

The Beatles didn't invent anything, at least as far as their early music goes... It was borrowed... (It wasn't until their drug/meditation days, etc. that they really started to do their own thing...)

True....but like good students who learned from thier Masters once they learned thier craft....they blew all those old Rock n rollers away who by the mid 60's were has beens....the Beatles from Rubber Soul,Revolver,Sgt Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour,The White album,Abbey Road and finally Let it Be is were they stamped themselves as Legends and went from being a boy band that girls screamed at.... to the voice of a generation that everyone listened to......and still listen to.....

[apes3978]

I seriously doubt that Michael Stipe would ever make such a statement about the Beatles considering that REM recently did a cover of Lennon's "#9 Dream" on the Instant Karma - Save Darfur Benefit Album.

Michael Stipe DID say that, and he also said thet he gets more out of a group like The Monkees than The Beatles...

As far as REM being on that album, that still doesn't mean that Stipe wouldn't have said anything like that. They're probably on there because they believe in the cause that the proceeds are going to, and maybe, just maybe Stipe and company like Lennon's solo work?

[apes3978]

True....but like good students who learned from thier Masters once they learned thier craft....they blew all those old Rock n rollers away who by the mid 60's were has beens....the Beatles from Rubber Soul,Revolver,Sgt Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour,The White album,Abbey Road and finally Let it Be is were they stamped themselves as Legends and went from being a boy band that girls screamed at.... to the voice of a generation that everyone listened to......and still listen to.....

You know, the real rockers were as you call them were "has beens" because of the fickle people that stopped playing their music on the radio, and because of the fickle people that just listened to whatever was trendy at the time... Kinda hard to have hits when no one's playing your music, no matter how good it is... AND, the real rock and rollers still had great success in the UK, which bred your mighty Beatles... The only reason The Beatles hit it so big was because they stole rock and roll and repackaged it with an English accent, and as The British Invasion was starting, the whimpy music that replaced rock and roll was replaced by the pitiful Mersey Beat.

The Beatles were okay for what they are, but they are not the greatest band ever to walk the planet... People call them all great and everything because they have some romantic notion that the Beatles are the greatest thing because of their music in the 60s... I find that most of those people are neo-Hippies that just want to spout the "Peace and Love" crap around and play at being Hippies.. That certainly isn't the case with all or even most Beatles fans, but it does apply... Voice of a generation? Voice of the Hippies/psuedo-Hippies is more like it.. And most people seemed to despise that gibberish of Flower Power...

And, BTW, The Beatles were the voice of who's generation: The Manson Family!

[ctc]

>The Beatles were the voice of who's generation: The Manson Family!

That was actually "The Beach Boys."

Sounds like the Beatles touch off the same nerve for someone that U2 does for me!

>The only reason The Beatles hit it so big was because they stole rock and roll and repackaged it with an English accent,

You're very close here. The Beatles really WERE just another boy band when they started, and their being Brits was just a sales gimmick. Where the importance came was "Rubber Soul." Usually cited as the beginnigs of their psychidelia; it was the first album where they did any serious experimenting. Which sounds weird to us TODAY; but back in '65 a lot of the songs were pretty radical. (I'm sure that even then an uptempo ditty about killing your girlfriend was somewhat jarring.) Even musically, they were engaging in much more complicated orchestration than was the norm. Since the late 50's radio was dominated by shallow, disposable rock and roll. The Beatles changed that by getting all trippy; AND being popular enough that the stations HAD to play them. By "Revolver" they were doing all sorts of weird things with their music; including the utilization of Eastern philosophy and instruments, and songs that were a lot longer than the 3 minutes alotted prior.

...which doesn't mean they'd CREATED these things. I'm pretty sure that folks played the citar WAY before George Harrison did... but they made these things accessible, and ACCEPTIBLE to a mianstream audience. THAT I think is the REAL contribution they made. Wether you like it or not, it's not the quality of their music that made them so important, it was that they changed the common definition of what music was. And it doesn't mean this was intentional on their part: I have no doubt that coincidence, timing and luck had a lot to do with it; but ultimately, for whatever reason, it was the Beatles that started the ball rolling on the "modern" concept of music.

Don C.

[SeattleEd]

Don,

I agree with your statement and being an avid fan of the Beatles, I agree that yes, their early music was very much comparible to modern day popular muisc ala "Boy Bands".
What appears to catapulted them into the limelight was having a brilliant manager, Brian Epstein, who kneew how to market them and also having a brilliant producer/engineer, George Martin.
All the experimental sounds they dabbled with were intilally their idea but it was Martin who helped refine their sound and help push the envelope in the stuido. If you read Sessions and the Beatles Recording Equipment, you'll see that George had a lot do with evolving and molding the sound.
A lot of what they did was very new and new gear had to be created/invented for them because it was non exsistent. They helped forge a new road in sound and recording.

In regards to the Manson family, the Beatles weren't the voice for them. Chuck interpreted the White Album as being a calling card to prepare for Armageddon.
Of course this is one theory as to why he did what he did.
Overall, Chuck M was burned by the music industry establishment and all the quasi friends he made in the industry just shut him out. He did manage to convince Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys to have the Boys record some of Chuck's music. Two tracks were recorded and released. Chuck was just a trying to make it in the music business and "come on" like the Beatles and revolutionize music. Bottom line he was just a second rate folk hack with a decent voice but no direction.

The Beatles are great in their own right and deserve credit where credit it due. Just the U2, they are amazing in their own right and deserve credit where it's due. But bottom line, no one will ever encapsulate the popularity of The Beatles but they were at the right place at the right time. You have to take into account, the sociology factor, technology factor and population factor as why they made it so big. Plus it helps to have marketing geniuses and anyone trying to replicate that today will only be seen emulating what has been done before. Nothing new.