"Let's bury the hatchet like the Beatles and the Stones..."

September 7, 2007 10:29 AM

If you weren't dead in the 60s or know more than me, help me understand this "Beatles-Stones rivalry."

Hopefully this isn't too much chatfilter: The best I can find on Google is a lot of passing references to it and a vague idea that it wasn't a rivalry between the bands like East Coast vs. West Coast hip hop, but a rivalry in the sense that people would argue that one band or the other was better and wouldn't listen to both. Also a little bit of wanking about how each band embodied a different social ethos something or other.

Importantly, from my born in 1985 hindsight it seems incredible to me that anyone would be on the side of the Stones, though I freely admit that I have no idea if the lasting greatness of the Beatles was as apparent when they were still active.

posted by TheOnlyCoolTim to Society & Culture (39 answers total)

My mother has always put this down to the rivalries between mods and rockers in the 1960s. I don't think you had the same names for these groups in the US, but you can learn more at Wikipedia. The fights between these two groups were legendary, and for at least a short time the Beatles were considered to be a mod group and the Stones a rocker group, although personally I can't see why the Stones would be considered such.
posted by wackybrit at 10:36 AM on September 7, 2007

The only real rivalry was with regards to record sales. They were all pretty good friends.
posted by poppo at 10:36 AM on September 7, 2007

I've just found a rather interesting article about it.
posted by wackybrit at 10:37 AM on September 7, 2007

Wackybrit, my impression was he was asking what rivalry there was between the actual Beatles and Stones, not their fans. Correct me if I'm wrong TOCT
posted by poppo at 10:38 AM on September 7, 2007

Response by poster: I understand they were actually friends, but I still see references to a "Beatles-Stones rivalry" from time to time and want to know where that'scoming from.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:38 AM on September 7, 2007

Response by poster: No, I'm interested in any aspect of it - fans, contemporary music criticism, whatever.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:40 AM on September 7, 2007

a rivalry in the sense that people would argue that one band or the other was better and wouldn't listen to both. Also a little bit of wanking about how each band embodied a different social ethos something or other.

You've basically got it. There was a Beach Boys vs Beatles "thing" too. People like to take sides and argue.
posted by desuetude at 10:52 AM on September 7, 2007

Best answer: In the broadest strokes possible, the Stones were more blues-influenced and were seen more as "bad boys" than the Beatles. (There is a whole history of British blues-influenced rock of the '60s/'70s that the Stones are a part of, including bands like the Yardbirds, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Faces, etc.) The Beatles arguably had a broader, more eclectic range of influences and sounds, from rock to pop to music hall to Indian.

The Beatles were recognized as extremely influential among the top musicians of the day; there is an interesting thread here regarding the back-and-forth influence between the Beatles and the Beach Boys, for example, around 1965-67. And it's hard to underestimate the stir Sgt. Pepper's caused upon its release -- check out this Time magazine article from 1967 to get an idea of the level of plaudits they received:

Ned Rorem, composer of some of the best of today's art songs, says [...] the Beatles' haunting composition, She's Leaving Home--one of twelve songs in the Sgt. Pepper album--"is equal to any song that Schubert ever wrote." Conductor Leonard Bernstein's appreciation is just as high; he cites Schumann. As Musicologist Henry Pleasants says: "The Beatles are where music is right now."

And yeah, the Beatles and Stones weren't actually rivals, musically or personally, any more than the Beatles were rivals with the Beach Boys, the Who, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks, etc. The British music press loves to hype up these musical "rivalries" all the time (see the great Blur vs. Oasis rivalry of the '90s), and while there may indeed have been fan rivalries, to my knowledge it wasn't anything beyond the usual stuff that exists among music fans (as others have already alluded to).

As for the mods vs. rockers rivalries of the time, that, too, was largely a media-driven moral panic. There were certainly some tussles between mods and rockers at various seaside holiday resorts for a summer season or two, but there weren't actually roving gangs of scooter-bound thugs terrorizing the countryside, a la some snappier version of "The Wild Ones."
posted by scody at 11:03 AM on September 7, 2007

As far as the fans go, it was more of a thing that the Beatles were "the good boys" and the Stones were "the bad boys". Two very different approaches to music, the Beatles incorporated a lot of different pop and music hall influences, while the Stones drew heavily on American R&B and blues. Not that the Beatles couldn't rock, but never with the authority that the Stones could. Lyrically the Lennon and McCartney were more about clever word-play, romantic themes, inward reflection, and social issues. Jagger was significantly darker and his take on social issues was more apocalyptic. Some were drawn to the Beatles, some were drawn to the Stones.

I've got a good friend who is a HUGE Beatles fan even though he was in high school in the late 70s. He has absolutely no grasp of the Stones, cannot understand the appeal. Me. I play the Stones about 50 times before I'll play one of my Beatles CDs. I think as rock music goes, it is the classic divide.
posted by Ber at 11:08 AM on September 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's maybe because at the beginning the Beatles were the very epitome of the "boys next door". Clean cut, well dressed, good looking with longish-but-sensible hair (for that era). Even parents loved them and accepted them.

The Stones were the opposite of this image. Longer hair, scruffy, blues-y music and a liberal university (LSE) type connection. They attracted the kids that wanted to side with the "bad boys". Parents, generally speaking, hated them. They were the beatniks of that era and people either loved them or hated them.

Mick and co. were of course from pretty good middle-class backgrounds and the Beatles were very working class from Liverpool which may also have had something to do with it.
posted by worker_bee at 11:11 AM on September 7, 2007

I recall seeing, way, way back in the day, an episode of the Monkees, of all things, with special guest star Herbie Hancock. After the normal silliness of the episode, they stopped to do something akin to a public service announcement about musical theory, with guest star Herbie Hancock explaining that the most popular songs from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones generally used different time signatures and musical structures, which explains why they sound so different.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:18 AM on September 7, 2007

My dad says that during that time, in the UK at least, it wasn't too cool to like the Beatles, especially if you were a guy. Maybe by the time they got into Acid they were cool but before that they were seen as way too clean-cut and had too much appeal to teenage girls to be that cool. The Stones on the other hand were grungier, meaner and generally much more aggressive, indeed it wouldn't be that off to call them the punks of the era.
posted by ob at 11:23 AM on September 7, 2007

I believe that in marketing we refer to these sorts of comparisons as "substitutes" versus "competitors".
posted by GuyZero at 11:26 AM on September 7, 2007

@worker_bee: I remember parents' reactions to the Beatles differently. In spite of the matching suits, their long hair (by then-contemporary U.S. standards) didn't sit well with most parents, particularly when teenage boys started growing out their crew-cuts. Beatle-hair seems pretty tame now, but back then it was considered outrageously long. I loved both the Beatles and the Stones and always thought it was a hoot (as you say, worker_bee) that the "nice boy" Beatles were more working class than the "bad boy" Stones.
posted by Joleta at 12:24 PM on September 7, 2007

Pop vs. Rock.
posted by sourwookie at 12:26 PM on September 7, 2007

I recall seeing, way, way back in the day, an episode of the Monkees, of all things, with special guest star Herbie Hancock. After the normal silliness of the episode, they stopped to do something akin to a public service announcement about musical theory, with guest star Herbie Hancock explaining that the most popular songs from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones generally used different time signatures and musical structures, which explains why they sound so different.

It wasn't Herbie Hancock, it was Charlie Smalls. From the episode where the Monkees enter a band contest only to discover the groups have to be co-ed, leaving Davy to dress as a girl and the hilarity that ensued.
posted by Lucinda at 12:26 PM on September 7, 2007

Best answer: The Beatles were bright, young, clean-cut, well-dressed lads playing "up" type songs about love, relationships, etc. "Love me do" "I want to hold your hand," "Please please me," etc.

The Stones were scruffy and had songs about alienation, like "Paint it black" and "Can't get no" and so on. This reputation for being bad boys was heightened by the 67 drug bust of Jagger and Richards. Jagger also seethed wtih all that ambiguous sexuality.

"Their Satanic Majesties Request" was released about the same time as "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which tells you a lot about the different brands.

Just like regular branding, the group you were a fan of was supposed to say something about who you were. It's kind of like the John versus Paul nonsense.
posted by jasper411 at 12:36 PM on September 7, 2007

the beatles were rough liverpool lads before they went bigtime, after which they were artfully produced and packaged in a slightly more wholesome brand, and then they discovered lsd. the stones changed a little now and then, but nothing totally discontinuous, and the musicians were always in control of the statements, not the producer.
posted by bruce at 12:47 PM on September 7, 2007

Davy Jones and Charlie Smalls talk about soul. But the Rolling Stones aren't mentioned.
posted by oneirodynia at 1:01 PM on September 7, 2007

I think it comes down to pop vs. rock (seconding sourwookie).

There is a moment in "A Hard Day's Night" when, at a press conference, a reporter asks the Beatles if they are mods or rockers and Ringo answers, "Mockers." And my sense has always been that the Beatles were above, and not part of, that rivalry. The film version of "Quadrophenia" covers what Scody describes a bit. The Who were mods.
posted by pasici at 1:12 PM on September 7, 2007

Best answer: "No, I never do see him. We saw a bit of each other when Allen [Klein, Beatles' late-period manager] was first coming in - I think Mick got jealous. I was always very respectful of Mick and the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by because, you know, I can knock the Beatles, but don't let Mick Jagger knock them. I would like to just list what we did and what the Stones did two months after on every fuckin' album. Every fuckin' thing we did, Mick does exactly the same - he imitates us. And I would like one of you fuckin' underground people to point it out. You know, Satanic Majesties is Pepper; ``We Love You,' it's the most fuckin' bullshit, that's ``All You Need Is Love.' I resent the implication that the Stones are like revolutionaries and that the Beatles weren't. If the Stones were or are, the Beatles really were, too. But they are not in the same class, musicwise or powerwise, never were. I never said anything, I always admired them, because I like their funky music, and I like their style. I like rock & roll and the direction they took after they got over trying to imitate us. He's obviously so upset by how big the Beatles are compared with him, he never got over it. Now he's in his old age, and he is beginning to knock us, you know, and he keeps knocking. I resent it, because even his second fuckin' record, we wrote it for him. Mick said, ``Peace made money.' We didn't make any money from peace."

-John Lennon in Rolling Stone Magazine
posted by oneirodynia at 1:13 PM on September 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

Joleta said: I remember parents' reactions to the Beatles differently. In spite of the matching suits, their long hair (by then-contemporary U.S. standards) didn't sit well with most parents, particularly when teenage boys started growing out their crew-cuts.

I was remembering the Beatles (and Stones) era as a kid growing up at that time in the London suburbs and having a sister that was a part of the whole Beatle-Mania thing (!).

My parents were definitely more tolerant of the lovable moptops than they were of those nasty Rolling Stones!
posted by worker_bee at 1:13 PM on September 7, 2007

Best answer: In the early days, the Stones did strictly cover songs. While schmoozing with John Lennon and Paul McCartney at a London club one night, Mick mentioned that the Stones needed a new single. John said "Give us a minute," and he and Paul adjourned to a table in the corner and a while later came up with "I Wanna Be Your Man." The Stones had a hit with it in 1963, but more importantly, it inspired Mick and Keith; they said "If those two can write a song just like that, so can we." Lennon later described "I Wanna Be Your Man" as a throwaway, crap song ("We weren't going to give away the good stuff now, were we?") but they were definitely the impetus for Jagger and Richards to begin writing their own songs.

Behind the scenes during the 60s, most of the bands hung out together, from the Beatles to the Stones to the Moody Blues, to the Monkees (when they were in England), to the Hollies, etc. There were a few "happening" type places (like the Bag O'Nails) where the pop music glitterati regularly hung out together as pals, with no apparent musical rivalry.
posted by Oriole Adams at 1:29 PM on September 7, 2007

Davy Jones and Charlie Smalls talk about soul. But the Rolling Stones aren't mentioned.

Thank you! Turns out I only half-remembered it.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:30 PM on September 7, 2007

Aye to "pop vs rock'.

The Stones were definitely seen as more rock and roll. Despite the fact that the Beatles themselves were actually more working class than the stones, by the time both groups made it to north america, the Stones' image was much scruffier than the Beatles, who wore matching haircuts and uniforms (with ties, yet).

And the music was different. Play their first albums back to back. The Stones had a tougher, more blues-influenced sound.

And later on, after the Stones kind of lost their way for a while (circa "Satanic Majesties"), they came roaring back with four of the best rock records of all time right around the time that the Beatles were imploding. By the time they started being introduced as the greatest rock and roll band in the world, it was hard to argue.

And I certainly remember being struck by the message difference between, say, "All You Need Is Love" (which even as a teenager struck me as being a crock of shit) and "You Can't Always Get What You Want".
posted by timeistight at 1:59 PM on September 7, 2007

John Lennon on the Rolling Stones.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:13 PM on September 7, 2007

I have been reading "I'm with the Band," which is an autobiography of the worlds greatest groupie. Basically: the Beatles were considered more bubblegum at first and the Stones more "real rock."

She listened to both, but she says in her book that she had two different groups of friends: Her Stones friends and her Beatles friends.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 2:45 PM on September 7, 2007

it seems incredible to me that anyone would be on the side of the Stones

Believe it! I was born in 1974, and I'll take the Stones any day. Having said that, The Beatles had great songs too, and unlike the Stones they broke up before they could put out a dozen shite records.

You can actually tell a lot about someone's (rock) musical sensibilities by which of the two he/she prefers. I used to ask people which they preferred when scouting for bandmates.

If you really want to feel incredulous, you might check out the recent thread about the White Stripes. Just about every band mentioned has its roots in Stones-rock, or people who influenced the Stones themselves.
posted by Rykey at 3:25 PM on September 7, 2007

Looks like I'm the only one old enough to remember the "feud" between the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five. The DC5 were promoted as more clean-cut than the Fab Four. Newsstands in 1964 were filled with one-off magazines of photos of both groups.
posted by Carol Anne at 4:17 PM on September 7, 2007

I was 13 when Sticky Fingers came out and...WOW. Beatles were ethereal hippy trippy stuff and the Stones were sexy and heavily influenced by American Music. They reintroduced us American Teenagers to blues and country. Also the Stones followers were into much heavier drugs which was very appealing at the time (to me at least).

Still think Sticky Fingers is one of the best records ever ( and definitely the best Album cover).
posted by readery at 4:42 PM on September 7, 2007

Importantly, from my born in 1985 hindsight it seems incredible to me that anyone would be on the side of the Stones

Growing up in the early '70s, I found that I had just the opposite experience. We listened to the Stones. They were dirtier, louder, harder, and to hear my mom tell it, were better to listen to when stoned.
posted by quin at 5:41 PM on September 7, 2007

The Stones make me want to fuck. The Beatles make me want to play piano.
posted by sourwookie at 11:51 PM on September 7, 2007

Your mother should know.
posted by sourwookie at 11:55 PM on September 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Just about every band mentioned has its roots in Stones-rock, or people who influenced the Stones themselves.

And Mick and Rich have made it clear - after they got over their mid 60's/70's egos - that THEY were influenced by the Beatles in so much as they might write. The Beatles of 62-63 England. Remember the Beatles came back from Germany in leather and shocking long hair for the day and a ripping stage act that was electrocuting Liverpool in 62 while polite middle class London Stones played blues covers. Brian Epstein saw the long term potential and the need to make them more palatable to the establishment music business.

The Stones rock and deserve their place on the historic stage but the Beatles were not just the lucky first out the gate; the Beatles had the talent and vision. Spin it anyway you want, the Beatles never looked at what the Stones did and said, hey lets do that (the Beatles DID say that about the Brian Wilson and Dylan and Smoky Robinson and The Who), but within months of every Beatle release look at a Stones release and their dress and look and their instrumentations and say it was authentic originality.

How many out there think that the Beatles would do a disco flavored song had they stayed together?
posted by Kensational at 7:27 AM on September 8, 2007

it seems incredible to me that anyone would be on the side of the Stones

Like Rykey, I'll take the Stones any day, and I was born in 1951. The Beatles were great, no question, but there's not a single one of their albums I can listen to with pleasure all the way through—there's always at least one song I want to skip. During their best period (right through Exile on Main Street) they were untouchable.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't seem incredible to me that anyone would be on the side of the Beatles, whom I love. Just providing some perspective.
posted by languagehat at 9:04 AM on September 8, 2007

How many out there think that the Beatles would do a disco flavored song had they stayed together?

Easily. Some incredibly prestigious artists were pulled into a disco phase. The Electric Light Orchestra - who were cited as sounding somewhat like the Beatles would have if they hadn't split up (by a Beatle, no less!) - went into it head on.
posted by wackybrit at 4:25 PM on September 8, 2007

Best answer: Remember the Beatles came back from Germany in leather and shocking long hair for the day and a ripping stage act that was electrocuting Liverpool in 62 while polite middle class London Stones played blues covers...Spin it anyway you want, the Beatles never looked at what the Stones did and said, hey lets do that

That pretty much captures it, right there. I love both bands, and probably the Stones more, but the feuding started early on and came mostly from the Stones jealously poking at the Beatles' squeaky clean makeover while positioning themselves as the darker alternative. The Beatles outgrew their teenybopper charade pretty quickly, though, and the Stones found themselves playing catchup for years after.
posted by mediareport at 9:15 PM on September 8, 2007

Chiming back in to expand a little bit on the mods vs. rockers distinction and the music each subculture listened to, as well as to contextualize Ringo's legendary "neither, we're mockers" like from A Hard Day's Night that pasici mentioned.

Rockers (c. 1964) would have actually been just as uninterested in the Stones as they were the Beatles; they listened pretty much exclusively to American rock'n'roll of the '50s (Gene Vincent, Elvis, etc.). The lineage of rockers extends to what's now called rockabilly (the Stray Cats, for example, were latter-day rockers -- and, interestingly, first made it big in England in the early '80s before they made it big in their native U.S.).

Mods generally listened to a broader range of music: American R&B and soul (from Motown to more obscure stuff), Jamaican ska, and R&B-based British bands, like the Small Faces (the hands-down moddest of the mods; they eventually became the Faces c. 1970), the Yardbirds (which featured a young Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck), and the Who. The Beatles absolutely weren't considered a mod band, per se, though that's not to say there weren't mods who didn't listen to them (and latter-day mod bands and musicians -- e.g., the Jam/Paul Weller, but also others -- were always upfront about having been highly influenced by the Beatles). The Stones also weren't considered a mod band, per se, but I have the sense that mods c. 1964 would have actually been more likely to gravitate to them than to the Beatles.
posted by scody at 10:47 AM on September 9, 2007

How many out there think that the Beatles would do a disco flavored song had they stayed together?

Easily. Some incredibly prestigious artists were pulled into a disco phase.

I thought my statement would be understood as a rhetorical question since in the 70's the solo Beatles compiled about 16 #1 charting hits in the US (not counting John's co-writing Bowie's #1 "Fame") and none of them disco flavored.

Disco was not an inferior quality music, many great artists incorporated the mid 70 Philly beat-disco sound and they are great songs. (I love ELO, the founder said his driving vision was to take "Strawberry Fields" or "I am the Walrus" to the next level!) The point went to the authenticity of the artist to create their OWN sound versus becoming a virtual mirror of whatever is happening. And from The Beatles to Hendrix to T-Rex to Disco, the Stones sounded like whoever was around at the time, through their particular filter and they sounded great. But without all the others I wonder what the Stones would have been. PS the Stones had about 3 #1 hits in the 70's.
posted by Kensational at 10:14 PM on September 9, 2007