Is The Beatles the most influential band?

Is The Beatles the most influential band?


  • Total voters
    22
Hendrix influenced guitarists like Stevie Ray and Joe Satriani, who I went to HS with btw. I knew him when he only played air guitar, lol.
 
Yes.


Miles Davis
The Beatles
Jimmy Hendrix
Michael Jackson

imo.
 
Who else is out there that influenced music the way The Beatles did for rock in particular.


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Yes I think so, from what I can gather they were the first real "band" that inspired others to do the same. So really they have influenced from Coldplay to Cannibal Corpse and everywhere in between by my reckoning.
 
At least since the 60's, sure of the entire 20th and 21st centuries and even before, probably not as there's likely a band that existed that's not coming to mind that if they had not existed would have changed a significant amount of history. Rock still existed without the Beatles and bands were already changing from the rock and roll and rockabilly sound of the 50's and start of the 60's. I mean a dirty sounding garage band like The Sonics started in like 1960 or so, the early forms of Creedence around that time as well, Beach Boys, etc. You have to also think of the rock and roll and rockabilly bands of the 50's (40's with The Maddox Brothers and Rose, likely the first rock act ever via rockabilly) without which The Beatles and Beach Boys and 'Stones, and a lot of others would not have existed. I mean the Beatles were greatly influenced by Buddy Holly and his The Crickets and Buddy Holly took influence from rock acts a few years prior. Now did Buddy Holly and The Crickets alone influence as many acts as The Beatles, no, but they influenced the influencers, so it's really difficult to measure these things.
 
The Beatles had 141 songs chart on the US or UK Billboard. That's the majority of their published catalogue. Yet this song wasn't one of them, and it's still better than the best song on most albums that my generation put out.
 
I'd say the most influential artists of all time are.

Michael Jackson, Beatles, Elvis Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis
 
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Hendrix influenced every guitarist that came after him.
I have sometimes tried to imagine how the black music scene might have been different had Hendrix not died so young. It seemed to me that blacks abandoned rock (as being white music?) for a long time after that. It didn't help that a great deal of Hendrix's music got hidden away for a long time due to copyright dispute.
 
No. They are the most famous influential band.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe is the most influential.

Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters, Aretha Franklin... all cite her as an influence. Now think about who cites all those artists and bands as an influence.

And she was influenced by Arizona Dranes and Lonnie Johnson, recording artist pioneers.

This woman is the Godmother of Rock n Roll.


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