Well you can drop Elvis out and add in The Who and the Kinks instead and lets start a discusssion.Mr Kenny Helwig, he of the days of our youth blog, started the ball rolling on this through a facebook post and I've picked it up.
So here's what Kenny posted.
Okay, here is the question
The Who
The Beatles
The Kinks
...The Rolling Stones
Who is your fave????????????
Me? The Beatles, followed closely by The Rolling Stones
and my response.
In order of preference.
The Rolling Stones
The Kinks
The Who
The Beatles.
...
The Stones grabbed me as a kid and never let go. There was something wild and subversive about them that in hindsight probably geared me up to delve into punk.
Of course as I got older and immersed myself further into music and its history I could see their influences and even took on board that much of their bad boy image was a media invention, but none the less they had the biggest impact on me.
The Kinks are sublime. Rays lyrics are beyond reproach and are what drew me in. Take there biggest tune Lola as an example. An international hit whose subject matter is shagging a tranny.
Get in there. Subvert, subvert, subvert. Fantastic.
The Who are simply the template for a rock and roll band brought to life. They balanced between sanity and insanity and delivered classics while doing so.
That I haven't placed them higher is just down to personal taste.
Listen to Live at Leeds and be blown away. I love them because I feel that they walked the walk rather than just talked the talk.
The Beatles. Love them to, but in my mind - probably because I live in the UK and grew up listening to them - I can't help but see them as a mainstream band.
They were a hit making machine and regardless of their counter culture credentials that came later I just can't see them in any other way than being chartbusters.
Similar to the Stones their media image stuck with me.
Maybe that's not fair, but it's just the way it is.
They were too white bread for me in so many ways.
I can sit back and look at the depth of their career and appreciate that in a short length of time they set the benchmark for excellence.
How can anyone really argue against that
I do in fact like them, appreciate them and will sing along when I have a Beatles day, but purely down to personal choice the other guys come in before them.
I can't choose between the Kinks and the Stones for first place. Probably the Kinks as I think the Stones have kept at it too long and released a load of mediocre crap in their later years. The Kinks (apart from their very early days) don't seem to do mediocre. Then I'd have The Who, who I've really just explored fully in recent years. And I also have the Beatles firmly in last place. I find the mass adulation a turn off and, even setting that aside, just don't find their stuff that appealing.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I probably rate The Doors higher than them all LOL.
Have you ever seen the Stones?
ReplyDeleteTheir studio work has been dire since about Emotional Rescue in my opinion. Tattoo You had a couple of good songs on it, but that was the death throes of them as recording artists.
Live it's very different though. I've seen them four times in total and they have blown me away every time.
I took my brother to see them when he was a teenager.
It was his first gig and what an introduction to the live experience that was.
Keith had shredded his hand off the strings and just kept playing. The blood was getting flicked off at every downstroke and it didn't even slow him down.
I also took Euan when he was four.
I can clearly recall hearing his little woooh woooohs from where he was perched on my shoulders when they steamed into Sympathy for the devil. A great memory.
The Kinks and the Who have been long term heroes of mine. Both get played on a monthly basis.
I've never seen The Who, but I did see the Kinks when they played Glastonbury. It wasn't the experience I expected. About three quarters of the gig was real hairs on the back of the neck stuff, but there was a few dodgy bits when they tried to play some more modern tracks. They simply didn't work.
I met Ray once near the Barras and he asked where the nearest chip shop was.
I gave him directions and he toddled off.
Five minutes after he had toddled off it clicked who he was.
Bit of a crap rock celeb story.
The Beatles. Well I covered them. I can appreciate what they do, but there is too much baggage of them being pop darlings for my liking.
Yeah, I seen them at Hampden in 1990 when they were touring Steel Wheels (a modern effort with a few decent tracks) and yeah, I loved every song, every second. They really were rock n roll greats. Haven't seen any of the others.
ReplyDeleteHaha nice! Funny how we all have bands that we like and it is interesting seeing how we view them. Live I will take The Who or Stones (early days of course), but for songwriting ability it is The Beatles for me. Though Mr. Davies wrote some massively fantastic songs in his prime.
ReplyDeleteKen
I've never been a music snob Kenny, but I always find it funny how as people get older the ones that did subscribe to that snobbery sort of lose it.
ReplyDeleteI remember getting slagged for having Kinks albums nestled next to the Ramones.
Now the very same people dishing it out are probably more apt to listen to The Kinks rather than dig their copy of Rocket to Russia out of a box that hasn't been opened for twenty years.
it has to be the (Small)Faces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletefollowed by the others in any order
I'm constantly mystified as to why The Small Faces never seem to turn up as one of the multiple choices. But your blog, your rules... so make mine The Rolling Stones followed by The Who, please and thank you. Never really rated The Kinks, m'self, and have never had any time at all for The Beatles. I'd gladly swap The Kinks and Beatles for The Pretty Things. Hell, come to think of it, I'd swap The Beatles for the Bay City Rollers or Haysi Fantayzee...
ReplyDeleteThe Small Faces do indeed deserve a mention, as do The Pretty Things and more.
ReplyDeleteThrow in as much as you want Mark. The only rule is that there are no rules.
The new Ray Davies album is alright so far. Halfway through it just now. It's not blowing the roof off, but not bad all in.
ReplyDeleteCould have done without Bon Jovi on it though.
My order probably
ReplyDeleteThe Who
The Kinks
Rolling Stones
Beatles
If you had The Small Faces in there they'd slip in about the Stones and Manfred Mann would be somewhere as well bizarrely
Maybe we should open this up and just make it a top 5 or even 10 sixties bands because it doesn't sit well with me that The Small Faces or The Pretty Things aren't in there.
ReplyDelete