The best group of all time

[Exeter Blue I am here]

I couldn't name one as I have a lot of different types of music.

There are bands that changed music

Beatles, for me no band has had the versatility or the ability to write a melody

Queen a truly unique band with probably the most imagination, the widest strangest influences and the best singer in main stream rock.

Bee gees massively under rated huge influence on all music and amazing tunes, harmonies only matched by the beach boys who again had massive influence and amazing longevity.

I love floyd, Zeppelin, the Who, the stones, the Clash, the Smiths even guys like deep Putple who made a difference to music and changed things.

I also have to mention abba, my first album, my first crush and like it or not a great pop act who again changed things up.

If I had to have only one band it would be the Beatles because most of the others to me were a band. The Beatles were almost 3 bands, no one ever gave a greater variety to music and the melodies, lyrics and sheer difference as well as their unparalleled influence would make them the greatest for me. Even though I don't think they every quite reached in one song the heights of some of the others mentioned above.m
Oh well I just did name one

That's the key for me too. Right from the Hamburg and Cavern Club days their sheer diversity was astonishing. They did rockabilly (Lend me your comb), country (Sure to fall), Motown (Please Mr Postman), Motown pastiches (Eight days a week, Got to get you into my life), pop (take your pick from any one of a hundred tunes), heavy rock (Revolution, Helter Skelter), show tunes (Til there was you, The Honeymoon song), Indian music (Within you, without you), string quartets (Eleanor Rigby, She's leaving home), 1920's pastiches (Honey pie, When I'm 64), heck you could even argue they prototyped Rave (Tomorrow never knows). And their collective ear for hooks and melodies was astounding

 

[foetus]

Fucking hell. Do you actually listen to music?

Turn on youtube. Choose the first Led Zep song you find. Then spend the next hour picking more tunes in the list on the right.

Then come back.

I like Immigrant Song and Kashmir but Zeppelin aren't for me.

 

[masterwig]

The answer is the Beatles.

Unless you're trying to look cool.

 

[PinkFinal]

The Stranglers never get mentioned among the greats but for me they are right up there.

 

[johnny on the spot]

Parliament-Funkadelic
Kraftwerk
Talking Heads

 

[Gelsons Dad]

A rip off of the Small Faces 'You need Lovin'
Who also had a far better singer.

They nicked it too.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

They nicked it too.

And he nicked it off Willie Dixon.

 

[whp.blue]

Not talking about individual choice but the group with the most classic songs we all agree on, people say
Led Zeppelin but apart from stairway to heaven they did fuck all, can anyone beat

The Beatles
Talking heads
Oasis
Elo

You mean because they chose not to do singles They were the best selling group for a decade or so and influenced many many more musicians they sold out every gig every where in the world but hey what people know.
They were not my favorite band but I acknowledge that there have been Three contenders and they are Led Zep the Beatles and Elvis Prestley
there would have been four but Hendricks died too early and therefore lacked longevity. imho of course

 

[OB1]

The Beatles by an epic margin, followed by the Stones, followed by Led Zep, followed by The Jam and The Clash, followed by everyone else..... (and all Brits)

I think the Beatles are the single most important group of all time and I imagine no group's songs have been covered more by other artists so you have to have a strong argument to give the title on a purely objective basis to anyone else. However, even though this thread was not asking for personal favourites, it is hard not to bring an element of personal preference in. Consequently, I vote Led Zeppelin; especially if you have the cheek to include The Jam FFs ahead of The Who or Kiss.

The Beatles were fundamentally a pop (rock) group, the Stones a rock n roll band and Zep are simply the hugest most mighty rock band. Zep don't just have a collection of wonderful and quite varied songs, they also had the muscianship and performance. For me, Plant and Bonham are the greatest rock singer and drummer, respectively. Jimmy Page is right up their as both a guitarist, composer and producer and John Paul Jones is a majorly talented multi-instumentalist.

The other thing abiut Zep is that in the world's largest music market, they still dominate the airwaves: you can't listen to any classic rock station for long without hearing them and in more than one city, you'll find a daily GetThe Led Out segment. If you want to use the word "epic", Zep are the band.

 

[OB1]

THE JAM

Close the thread :-)

Come to think of it i dont think ive ever heard anyone who was around at the time the jam were going,say they didnt like them or hear anyone say they were rubbish,did they appeal to everyone ?

No: I couldn't stand them. I've softened a little with age and have some in my collection now but have never rated them or Weller highly.