best early period and initial run of hits: Beatles vs Stones vs Who vs Kinks

Beatles

http://www.webtvwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/quantum-leap.jpg

idgi

The Who. But then, I only like this era of The Who whereas I like the other bands more once they got past their initial sound.

L-R: Dean Stockwell, ILM

FWIW, "A Legal Matter," "La-La-La Lies" and "The Kids Are Alright" were released by producer Shel Talmy without the Who's (or their management's) consent because he was pissed at the Who for breaking their contract.

Judging by those groups of songs, The Who.

For these early runs, Who > Stones > Beatles > Kinks

Beatles
Who
Stones
Kinks

I feel like things moved fast, which puts the Who at an advantage even if it's only a year or two. So The Who for this, but it's a little unfair. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere is way, way out front of the competition sonically.

Oddly, I find myself listening to the Kinks more than any of the others from these runs.

Probably worth adding that these days I listen to most Kinks and early Who reasonably regularly, Beatles just to make my son happy, and Stones rarely.

It's Kinks vs Who based on this list alone, but Beatles would take it easily if it were their 64-66 output, they're sort of weighed down here a bit by "Love Me Do" etc. "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" go a long way though.

The Who

Beatles > Stones > who the fuck cares?

(I really hate My Generation and it's effectively poisoned The Who for me).

feel inclined to go with the Who here, oddly

The Who's run is definitely the most consistent. The Kinks made two crappy singles before hitting their stride, some Stones records missed the mark, and "Do You Want To Know A Secret" is the least-charming of those Beatles singles. Also, Keith fucking Moon.

L-R: Dean Stockwell, ILM

― a SB-in' artist that been in the game for a minute (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, March 29, 2011 11:14 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark

isdgi

for me it's Who > Beatles > Kinks > Stones

partly it's that i don't know a lot of those Stones songs, in a way they were the latest bloomers because their first really iconic song, "Satisfaction," came right at the end of their first 2 years on the charts

does anybody else think that the chorus for "The Kids Are Allright" bites the verses for "All My Loving"

Holy crap, never noticed that before!

Had the Who released their maximally-bland R&B covers as singles like the others, their list would have the same weak spots.

Holy crap, never noticed that before!

Suggest Ban Permalink
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:05 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is sarcasm? (i'm sorry; i don't remember hearing anyone ever mentioning it?)

the who easy, kinks second, beatles third, stones last

(kind of pissed that Play With Fire just missed the cut for the Stones' list; that's the first song of theirs I like)

b-side, wasn't it?

Beatles > Stones > who the fuck cares?

― Matt DC, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 11:29 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

About your lack of taste? I sure dont.

The Who, because they're the only band on the list who peaked this early.

(kind of pissed that Play With Fire just missed the cut for the Stones' list; that's the first song of theirs I like)

― Oh Shit People Like Your Ballads Oh Nooooo (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:14 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

"Play With Fire" was before "Satisfaction" and in their first 2 years on the charts so it counts, I think just cut it because I wanted to list exactly 10 songs from each act

Bill Magill otm

Had the Who released their maximally-bland R&B covers as singles like the others, their list would have the same weak spots.

― bendy, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:07 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

some of my favorite early Who stuff is those James Brown covers!

oh well

thinking about going with the Beatles...The Who stuff is okay, but the only songs from that list I really love are "Kids are Alright" and "Substitute", whereas "Please Please Me" and the run from "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to "Twist and Shout" is unfuckwithable...

The Who, because they're the only band on the list who peaked this early.

― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Tuesday, March 29, 2011 12:17 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is kind of rong in a well-meaning way. Out of all these bands, I think the Who probably peaked last; I just think they had the best songwriting chops of all the bands in here that are not the Beatles...

I just really rate the Who as a punchy, primal rock'n'roll band and less so as concept-loving Serious Artistes (a handful of later singles aside).

I like "well-meaning" though. "Dude, you're talking shit but you obviously mean well."

As songwriters go, I'd say Pete barely > John/Paul, Ray (tie)

The Who, easy. Those early singles are a thing of weird beauty.

xp yeah but I was voting Beatles

I definitely think that 70s Who >>>>>>>>>>> 70s Stones, even with Exile and Sticky Fingers...

I think the Who too.

If this had been a "first three albums poll" I think the Who would have walked it.

what were the first 3 Who albums? Sings My Generation, Happy Jack, Sell Out?

Beatles, no doubt. I feel people underrate their early material. Those singles were all magic.

xp I would prolley vote Beatles in that poll too, though the Who are a great band, probably better overall than the Beatles...

lol I was just thinking that early Beatles are underrated and then Geir came in :P

Xposts yeah, or as we would have it:

My Generation, A Quick One, and The Who Sell-out.

oh I forgot about A Quick One...I probably would vote for the Who in the 'first 3 albums' poll. But I just want to say that A Hard Day's Night rules, and that the vocal harmonies on "If I Fell" are fucking next-level...

The Who, by a head from the Kinks. But let's be honest, the ground had been cleared for them by the Beatles and the Stones showing the world that original material was the way to go. Of the actual songs on the list, it's toss-up between Substitute and See My Friends.

As an aside, I bought the Who BBC Sessions for a fiver in Fopp the other day: some stellar versions on there. Nice to hear songs so familiar sounding different.

this is sarcasm? (i'm sorry; i don't remember hearing anyone ever mentioning it?)

It's definitely not sarcasm; having listened to both songs for 30+ years, I'm a little embarrassed that I never picked up on that before.

"See My Friends" is kind of the big enigma here. I loved the Gravenhurst cover of that song but I don't think I've ever heard the original...just from that cover, it's hard to imagine it at some British Invasion single...

The Who and The Kinks I feel were a bit too raw in their early material, both would become much better later on. The Kinks were at their best from 1965 until 1969 while The Who were at their best from 1967 to 1973.

The Beatles and the Stones would of course also become better later, but voting for Stones is out of question for me here anyway, whereas The Beatles were magic already on their third single.

The first time I heard the song, it was a cover version by a 'Beatles' not-tribute act (i.e. dressed and musically like them but not as far as doing their songs) called "The Pleasers", so the similarity was manifest for me.

xposts the song being "The Kids are Alright" obv.

in fact more or less everything written by John Lennon between 1968 and 1972 is, apart from the ballads on the "Imagine" album

get out

(right about Get Back, wrong as hell about Come Together)

(Get Back was Paul, correct?)

by the end it's p much whoever's singing wrote it right?

yeah I just forgot

actually i'm not super versed on beatles minutia, besides the basic history of it, but did they ever really *actually* collaborate on songs or was it always just individually written stuff billed as "lennon/mccartney"?

yeah they def did, esp the early stuff

yes they "actually" collaborated, especially early on. but there are numerous later period examples where they would finish each other's songs by adding middle eights, bridges, other elements.

bridge section of Day in the Life is Paul, for example. John wrote the middle 8 for We Can Work It Out, etc.

ah ok what point does the co-written stuff drop off and it become more individual?

bridge section of Day in the Life is Paul, for example. John wrote the middle 8 for We Can Work It Out, etc.

― in my world of ugly tribadists (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, April 13, 2011 4:18 PM (3 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i guess i knew that, but am i wrong to say that it was pretty separate songwriting in general by the later period?

post Sgt Pepper's I think yeah that's true for the most part.

I don't think there was a single drop off point, more like a general trend.

Even towards the end they would sometimes collaborate on the arrangements, which was also partly why they still continued sharing the songwriting credits even when they were mostly at each other's throats all the time.

It seems like they were so used to working that way that even when they hated each other they sort of couldn't help it. Like someone leaving an unfinished crossword puzzle

that's a fairly radical interpretation; anything supporting it? (love that song btw, lethargy or no)

nah, just my own wild speculation

It's completely astounding to me, after reading You Never Give Me Your Money, how they managed to be in the same room together without killing each other, to say nothing of collaborating. Dudes knew how to compartmentalize shit, apparently.

It seems like they were so used to working that way that even when they hated each other they sort of couldn't help it. Like someone leaving an unfinished crossword puzzle

Their solo material also rather obviously showed they were missing each other. Maybe particularly McCartney was missing Lennon, because Lennon - at least initially - started writing in a completely different way and changed his musical style so radically, McCartney's ideas probably wouldn't have fit in anyway.

well there's that great story about Lennon & McCartney working on Hey Jude, when McCartney runs through the song with Lennon and says 'the movement you need is on your shoulder' is just a placeholder til he finds the right words, and Lennon says no leave it, it works. Lennon brought the right brain stuff more often than not, and McCartney could drive straight down the line with his lyrics (to a fault), but also on a musical level, McCartney's knowledge was incredibly broad, and he had a feel for what notes worked in what way or what instrument worked and what didn't...that kind of an intangible doesn't show up so much in the history now, I think that's part of what hurt McCartney in comparisons to Lennon, that people didn't ever see that side but they saw Lennon's lyrical influence more clearly.

whoa long. Sorry.

I don't even know what point I was making. lol

There is some great insight into the Lennon/McCartney writing process in this article http://informalflick.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/watching-beatles-compose/

Wow that's cool...god they could be so symbiotic in those days, huh...I really need to read that book, I'm very behind on my beatleiographies

Martha My Dear by Paul, on the White album, is an absolutely astonishing piece of music. The way he barely touches on & moves between so many diff't styles of music is incredible. Lennon gets a lot of credit for doing the stream-of-consciousness and cut-up stuff (I am the Walrus, Happiness is a Warm Gun) but Paul outdoes him on that song.

It's kind of interesting to just look at the first ten UK top 10 hits that each band had. I think the Who clearly lose that race, and it basically reaches the end of their run while the other three bands still had more in them.

Beatles: Please Please Me, From Me To You, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Can't Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night, I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride, Help, We Can Work It Out (+Day Tripper, double A side)

Stones: Not Fade Away, It's All Over Now, Little Red Rooster, The Last Time, Satisfaction, Get Off Of My Cloud, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Paint It Black, Have You Seen Your Mother..., Let's Spend the Night Together

Who: I Can't Explain, My Generation, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, Substitute, I'm a Boy, Happy Jack, Pictures of Lily, I Can See For Miles, Pinball Wizard, Won't Get Fooled Again

Kinks: You Really Got Me, All Day and All of the Night, Tired of Waiting for You, Set Me Free, See My Friends, Till the End of the Day, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street, Waterloo Sunset

What style of music is "Martha My Dear," anyway? I suppose it's Music Hall, which I know nothing about, but it would be interesting to know how much of it - the piano style, the strings, the brass band - comes directly from that.

I think I like "Honey Pie" just as much. I know it's supposed to be more of an American old-time style, but the stylistically evocative stuff in it is just as mysterious to me.

I'm not smart enough to elucidate everything I hear in there, but I hear chamber music rear its head, and maybe Gershwin in there too...?

"Martha My Dear" has been one of my five favourite Beatles songs the past few years. Glad it's got some fans out there.

Totally mindblowing somg from somebody who couldn't read sheet music

I want to talk more about Lennon's stoned destruction of ego phase. I think it starts in 64 with the first three songs of Beatles For Sale.

Totally mindblowing somg from somebody who couldn't read sheet music

He did learn it at some stage (obviously could before "The Liverpool Oratorio"), but I guess he didn't yet by 1968.

I figured you would know better than me Geir

I thought McCartney never learned to read music and still worked with a partner who notated his ideas.

As recently as 2007, McCartney claimed to still be unable to read sheet music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca_GCvApODg

I want to talk more about Lennon's stoned destruction of ego phase.

You pretty much have it; it starts in '64 with him smoking for the first time, it's in Beatles For Sale's "I'm A Loser" and then in "Help!" and they do acid a year later. By the time 1967 rolls around John Lennon is tripping permanently on insane doses of high grade 60s English Pop Star LSD. A part of him has more or less checked out of the Beatles by then, and Paul steps in to take the reigns with Sgt. Pepper & MMT.

Get "Two Virgins" and "Life With the Lions" and the first couple of Plastic Ono Band records. Ono's influence was more or less a catalyst for Lennon's ego death/anti-authoritarian tendencies. If anything about the Beatles is underrated, it is her influence on him, and through him, on the Beatles. Some noise has been made in the past few years about Paul McCartney's avant garde credentials but where is his record of guitar feedback and banshee bleating?

you think stuff like Lennon's negative-creep anthem "Run For Your Life" is worth talking about in here...?

I heard it was Dylan who first got them high; when would that have happened?

Some noise has been made in the past few years about Paul McCartney's avant garde credentials but where is his record of guitar feedback and banshee bleating?

It's "Carnival Of Light," still unreleased. And while Paul never made a record like Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band or played with John Tchicai, he was listening to AMM and Albert Ayler while Lennon was saying "avant-garde is French for bullshit." In fact, I'm pretty sure McCartney introduced Lennon to Yoko in 1966. But McCartney couldn't walk it like he talked it; he didn't like "Revolution 9" because he didn't think it was good enough for what it was (himself being versed in Stockhausen), but he never attempted a response to it (although it may be because he felt 9 was itself a tepid response to Carnival).

Paul also got into experimental home movies but somehow none of that stuff has ever surfaced either. Lennon/Ono on the other hand, have lots of wonderful strange films they made together. Sorry im on this kick but i just saw a projection of "Apotheosis" last week and it was amazing!

according to ST Erlewine, from Allmusic (w/ added bolds)

"It was inevitable that the constant grind of touring, writing, promoting, and recording would grate on the Beatles, but the weariness of Beatles for Sale comes as something of a shock. Only five months before, the group released the joyous A Hard Day's Night. Now, they sound beaten, worn, and, in Lennon's case, bitter and self-loathing. His opening trilogy ("No Reply," "I'm a Loser," "Baby's in Black") is the darkest sequence on any Beatles record, setting the tone for the album. Moments of joy pop up now and again, mainly in the forms of covers and the dynamic "Eight Days a Week," but the very presence of six covers after the triumphant all-original A Hard Day's Night feels like an admission of defeat or at least a regression. (It doesn't help that Lennon's cover of his beloved obscurity "Mr. Moonlight" winds up as arguably the worst thing the group ever recorded.) Beneath those surface suspicions, however, there are some important changes on Beatles for Sale, most notably Lennon's discovery of Bob Dylan and folk-rock. The opening three songs, along with "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," are implicitly confessional and all quite bleak, which is a new development. This spirit winds up overshadowing McCartney's cheery "I'll Follow the Sun" or the thundering covers of "Rock & Roll Music," "Honey Don't," and "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!," and the weariness creeps up in unexpected places -- "Every Little Thing," "What You're Doing," even George's cover of Carl Perkins' "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" -- leaving the impression that Beatlemania may have been fun but now the group is exhausted. That exhaustion results in the group's most uneven album, but its best moments find them moving from Merseybeat to the sophisticated pop/rock they developed in mid-career."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILdBDOPoEDQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmxg0JnQX8U&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rkz5zdfg_A&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O6gX0FCwpU&feature=related

I want to talk more about Lennon's stoned destruction of ego phase.

I think it's interesting how Lennon's style of singing morphed over the coarse of this phase. In just a few years, his rasp was replaced by a hollow-eyed, ghostly voice devoid of melisma. The voice I hear on "A Day in the Life" is one that sounds like it spent waaaaaaaaay too much time in a dark room staring at colored lights.

I'd have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure Dylan and the Beatles hooked up on the summer of 1964 in New York.

when did Dylan get big? BIABH & H61R were both 65 was it not? He was big before then?

11 Bob Dylan The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan Album May 1964
15 Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin' Album Jul 1964
8 Bob Dylan Another Side Of Bob Dylan Album Nov 1964

right on

according to Wiki, they met and got high with Dylan in Aug 1964, probably right about the time they started the For Sale sessions...

also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles_for_Sale#.22I.27m_a_Loser.22

Dylan was shocked that they'd never tried it before, and misheard "I can't hide" in "I Want To Hold Your Hand" as "I get high."

^yeah I remember that story

(& also I love your dn)

I remember hearing that when they all got high, they made Ringo smoke first like a guinea pig.

And McCartney discovered the meaning of life, which he made Mal Evans write down. The next morning Mal said, "Hey, do you want to see what you wrote?" "THERE ARE SEVEN LEVELS."

(and thx DAM xp)

Did anyone else see the other Beatles things on that blog?

http://informalflick.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/beatles-1966-69-influences/

A solid look at their influences during their experimental phase.

this video is streaming on Netflix and is pretty excellent. focuses on the songwriting from 66 to 69

http://cdn-3.nflximg.com/en_US/boxshots/gsd/70108953.jpg

i knew that even if i left this poll open for like 2 weeks it'd still be active well after the results :)

But that run of Who songs? it's an attack. I can't get past that.

This was the reason I had to hold my nose and not vote for The Beatles, and vote for The Who instead.