Beatles or Abba

Billy_Mix · May 2022

RedJohn said:

If I was driving in my car on a long journey, then Abba, easy listening, however, overall, Beatles for me.

that was Madness, duh!

Wheresmeticket · May 2022

I've just got it: Beatles = Beale + TS.

It's happening.

seth plum · May 2022

This is during a performance, moments before playing 'Can't buy me love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxQB0fUMkGQ

This is a performance of ABBA doing 'Dancing Queen'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s&list=RDEMiMPRAwzvbVB9F1ixipdbgQ&start_radio=1&rv=Wcs-ytOYIHA

As they are both performance clips I am assuming they are related to music.

bobmunro · May 2022

Wheresmeticket? said:

I've just got it: Beatles = Beale + TS.

It's happening.

Sorry to burst your bubble:

Another Bad Boss Appointment.

It's happening.

Covered End · May 2022

seth plum said:

This is during a performance, moments before playing 'Can't buy me love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxQB0fUMkGQ

This is a performance of ABBA doing 'Dancing Queen'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s&list=RDEMiMPRAwzvbVB9F1ixipdbgQ&start_radio=1&rv=Wcs-ytOYIHA

As they are both performance clips I am assuming they are related to music.

Yes it's true, yes it's awful, but you're the only person who would come up with that when discussing the music of The Beatles. What a tragic life you have.

seth plum · May 2022

Covered End said:

seth plum said:

This is during a performance, moments before playing 'Can't buy me love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxQB0fUMkGQ

This is a performance of ABBA doing 'Dancing Queen'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s&list=RDEMiMPRAwzvbVB9F1ixipdbgQ&start_radio=1&rv=Wcs-ytOYIHA

As they are both performance clips I am assuming they are related to music.

Yes it's true, yes it's awful, but you're the only person who would come up with that when discussing the music of The Beatles. What a tragic life you have.

Many thanks for your judgement about the tragedy of my life (wasn't Tragedy an ABBA song?), it sits amongst the panoply of criticism I frequently get from you.
Is it tragic that one poster is obsessed with another individual poster to the extent of stalkerish behaviour?
My initial point is that so many greats in so many artistic fields, including music, have feet of clay, but that is something you are not interested in discussing. Not that you are obliged to discuss such things, but you swoop in to dig me out personally which is a habit you struggle to break.

ElfsborgAddick · May 2022

ABBA, no contest whatsoever.

KBslittlesis · May 2022

ABBA

Its a generation thing.

Beatles are for music snobs who still think they’re down with the kids but in fact go to bed at 8pm with a copy for Fly Fishing by JR Hartley.

PopIcon · May 2022

The Beatles were lucky to have three incredibly talented songwriters.
Some of those solo records are phenomenal.
Everybody should listen to All Things Must Pass, it's a real grower.

SoundAsa£ · May 2022

KBslittlesis said:

ABBA

Its a generation thing.

Beatles are for music snobs who still think they’re down with the kids but in fact go to bed at 8pm with a copy for Fly Fishing by JR Hartley.

Steady on KB, you weren’t even born when they were doing their thing.
You had to be there and of a particular generation to even begin to comprehend the impact they made…..it was truly phenomenal and changed the direction of popular music for the masses like no one had before or since.
I cannot see there being another band who would or could emulate their success and were so loved and appreciated at a particular moment in time.
I was so so lucky to live through it……I ordered and bought Love Me Do within a day of its release in October’62……I was 14.
So…..one and all you must surely see that I was there and felt it, saw it, smelt it and heard it. I was a genuine child of the 60’s a time like no other for an explosion of youth culture and The Fab Four where right there in the headlights leading the way out of the doldrums. 🥳🤩🥲

jimmymelrose · May 2022

Kindoncasella said:

jimmymelrose said:

All I can conclude is that there are many of you who really haven't listened to Revolver, The 'White Album', Sgt Peppers, Abbey Road, not to mention great songs on other albums.

I like ABBA but seriously?
You may as well ask: who was best this season, Man City or Charlton?

Music is subjective though so that football comparison doesn't work.

Ok, so let's try who's best: The Rolling Stones or The Wurzels ?
There's a limit to subjectiveness, surely?

I actually think that ABBA made some great pop records. I also think however that even discounting the tracks on the best Beatles albums that I mentioned, there would be a strong case for The Beatles. Take a look at this list of ABBA songs. They made some great songs but the number is very limited. Once you get to about 15-20 there aren't any greats left

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/the-25-best-abba-songs-ranked-707709/amp/

And for comparison:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-154008/

JamesSeed · May 2022

seth plum said:

Musically both bands are reckonable.
There is little wrong with music for fun if you’re in the mood, and little wrong with overt creativity if you’re in the mood. Both bands did both things, perhaps in different proportions.
I find it difficult to warm to John Lennon, musically skilled though he undoubtedly was.
I have seen film of John Lennon taking the piss out of disabled people whilst performing live, he sings ‘Imagine no possessions’ when he had so much wealth himself, and was ostentatious about it with white Rolls Royce’s and the like, and then he says ‘a working class hero is something to be’….hmmmn.
When Paul McCartney recorded and released ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ he showed more political courage and edge with that one event than John Lennon ever did.
John Lennon is of course iconic, but like most of the greats he very much had feet of clay.
Nearly every great artist has areas some can criticise, T.S. Eliot being a good example.
As for ABBA, the excellence of production combined with great pop ‘hooks’ (as opposed to great riffs) lifts them above the run of the mill.

Stick to footie ;-)

JamesSeed · May 2022

Covered End said:

seth plum said:

This is during a performance, moments before playing 'Can't buy me love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxQB0fUMkGQ

This is a performance of ABBA doing 'Dancing Queen'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s&list=RDEMiMPRAwzvbVB9F1ixipdbgQ&start_radio=1&rv=Wcs-ytOYIHA

As they are both performance clips I am assuming they are related to music.

Yes it's true, yes it's awful, but you're the only person who would come up with that when discussing the music of The Beatles. What a tragic life you have.

Everyone used to do that in the mid sixties. Seemed that way, at least.

JamesSeed · May 2022

There is no counter culture any more. Even with the most right wing government in our lifetimes, where are the protest singers? Not enough protest songs.

Henry Irving · May 2022

JamesSeed said:

There is no counter culture any more. Even with the most right wing government in our lifetimes, where are the protest singers? Not enough protest songs.

Orange Juice @JamesSeed

Henry Irving · May 2022

Excellent documentary on the BeeGees on Sky Arts last night.

Much better song writers and singers than ABBA although I didn't like the falsetto voices of the mix-70s.

ABBA's lyrics are terrible BTW.

se9addick · May 2022

JamesSeed said:

There is no counter culture any more. Even with the most right wing government in our lifetimes, where are the protest singers? Not enough protest songs.

“Fuck the government & fuck Boris”

blackpool72 · May 2022

se9addick said:

JamesSeed said:

There is no counter culture any more. Even with the most right wing government in our lifetimes, where are the protest singers? Not enough protest songs.

“Fuck the government & fuck Boris”

Not heard of that band.

Henry Irving · May 2022

Showmetheway2gohome said:

People just said what they thought in them days. (Just for a laugh.) Nowadays you think 5 times before deciding not to say anything.
Because there’s always someone to condemn you to being sexist racist or discriminative. .

Great isn't it.

So much better now people rightly get pulled up on saying something sexist, racist or discriminative and so people think more about how their words and actions might hurt others.

Shows that we are progressing as a society.

Henry Irving · May 2022

And nothing got covered up in the good old days?

Jimmy Saville?

Phalidamide?

Unmarried mothers put in lunatic asylums?

Much, much better now

Henry Irving · May 2022

Showmetheway2gohome said:

Oh it’s thalidomide not phalidamode and I’m dyslexic another thing we didn’t have back in them days.

Me too. Thanks for pointing out that I spelt it wrong.

I was talking about the way it was covered up for years that it was the drug that caused the deformities, not that we (me included) used "flid" as an insult in the playground. I don't do that anymore because I'm not 7 anymore and I've learnt a bit more about it since then and why it was wrong.

Unmarried mothers were locked away for decades, All covered up or ignored because people could speak out. The women weren't considered worthy of any compassion, like the victims in Rotherham, so nothing was done for them.

Jimmy Saville was known about but people wouldn't/couldn't speak out. Victims weren't believed.

So yeah, it is really really better than kids with disabilities aren't taunted or if they are (because it does hurt and damage people) it gets called out.

And it's really, really good that racists get called out and that rape victims are listened to.

Jints · May 2022

blackpool72 said:

se9addick said:

JamesSeed said:

There is no counter culture any more. Even with the most right wing government in our lifetimes, where are the protest singers? Not enough protest songs.

“Fuck the government & fuck Boris”

Not heard of that band.

Vossi Bop by Stormzy.

JohnBoyUK · May 2022

The only good thing about Abba is that is provided the name for Alan Partridge's TV Series...

Jints · May 2022

Showmetheway2gohome said:

Yes but rapes and murders are all increasing.

Homicide rates are at about the same level as they were in the mid-1960s and have fallen very dramatically from a late 1990s/early 2000s peak (that's excluding Northern Ireland, if you include it then rates have fallen since the 1960s). It's gone down for the each of the last 5 years

Stig · May 2022

Showmetheway2gohome said:

Yes but rapes and murders are all increasing.

Except, they are not. I'd recommend double checking the ONS stats.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand, I think the difference between the Fab Four and the AB Four is the way they developed over time. Both started out producing sickly sweet pop music. Whereas The Beatles quickly moved on to more adventurous and experimental forms of music, ABBA's development was to keep the pop, but augment it with melancholy introspective ballads. They may have done the sorrowful soul searching better and more bravely than anyone else, but they didn't really push music in any new directions. It's very hard to argue that The Beatles didn't do that.

JamesSeed · May 2022

blackpool72 said:

se9addick said:

JamesSeed said:

There is no counter culture any more. Even with the most right wing government in our lifetimes, where are the protest singers? Not enough protest songs.

“Fuck the government & fuck Boris”

Not heard of that band.

Catchy name though.

Jints · May 2022

Showmetheway2gohome said:

Yes you believe that jints

Not going down that rabbit hole!

JamesSeed · May 2022

KBslittlesis said:

ABBA

Its a generation thing.

Beatles are for music snobs who still think they’re down with the kids but in fact go to bed at 8pm with a copy for Fly Fishing by JR Hartley.

Thanks for denigrating a generation, with lazy pigeonholing. Some of us go to bed after midnight you know, with a nice mug of coco.

The OP’s question is moot anyway.

ABBA are clearly in the Top 10 pop groups of all time, along with the likes of the Osmonds, the Spice Girls, Take That, Backstreet Boys, Wham and Steps.

Beatles aren’t even in the same genre.

Dancing Queen *is* one of the best floor fillers of all time as I said earlier, but I really don’t like any of their other songs, like ‘Fernando’. They all seem to be aimed more at the Eurovision market.