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Topic ClosedThe Beatles vs. Pink Floyd

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Tom Ozric View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 08 2012 at 23:55
Originally posted by Dayvenkirq Dayvenkirq wrote:

^ So, in other words, The Beatles touched base with something, opened up some gateways, where the Floyd explored the stuff in depth. That said, both are (equally) important.
This is pretty much correct.  But I prefer Floyd............
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 09 2012 at 10:34
Originally posted by Tom Ozric Tom Ozric wrote:

The Beatles have never trod the paths that Floyd trekked.  Take, for instance, Set The Controls........live - I've never heard The Beatles play dark, Farfisa organ driven Middle-Eastern scales of immense profoundness as Floyd.  Perhaps Floyd have taken some basic ideas from The Beatles, but John and Paul and George and Ringo never ventured into the musical depths the Floyd did.  Don't take it the wrong way, as there are many Beatles tracks I love, but as a musically adventurous band, they only hit the mark occasionally.......I'm not opposing their odd chord usage as they did this aplenty......


Beatles actually compressed much longer tracks into pop -length versions for White album, so they would have never gone the long form route.  But the list of things that Beatles did that Floyd never touched is much longer than vice versa.   Beatles were helluva eclectic and embraced all sorts of styles and sounds seamlessly into their music.   Whereas, once Barrett was gone, Floyd steadily got into a rut musically after a short productive phase that ended roughly at DSOTM.  That is the telling difference between both bands...as Beatles got better, they liberated themselves more and more from commercial and touring considerations.   It was not internal differences but Phil Spector drowning their songs in orchestral overdubs that pushed Beatles to disband.   Whereas Floyd, like some other peers from the 70s, began to coast along once they got successful.   As Waters himself admitted, the success of DSOTM basically ended Floyd. Though his powerful lyrical vision kept the band going for a few more great albums, they were nevertheless content with musical stagnation.   Beatles have been derided earlier in this thread for supposedly being less commercial but they are really a lot less so than the big classic rock and prog rock bands of the 70s because they never sold out on their fans. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 09 2012 at 22:16
The Beatles were far more consistently great album-to-album. There is a lot of Floyd that is psychedelic filler and aimless noodling.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 01 2012 at 21:59
Originally posted by Tom Ozric Tom Ozric wrote:

Originally posted by NYSPORTSFAN NYSPORTSFAN wrote:

[QUOTE=Josef_K]
In terms of melody, arrangements, composition and going to sonic places where no rock band has gone before the Beatles easily takes it over Pink Floyd. Most of the Beatles songs even the early ones like "I Want To Hold Your Hand"  are ripe for discussing odd chord usage.
 
.
The Beatles have never trod the paths that Floyd trekked.  Take, for instance, Set The Controls........live - I've never heard The Beatles play dark, Farfisa organ driven Middle-Eastern scales of immense profoundness as Floyd.  Perhaps Floyd have taken some basic ideas from The Beatles, but John and Paul and George and Ringo never ventured into the musical depths the Floyd did.  Don't take it the wrong way, as there are many Beatles tracks I love, but as a musically adventurous band, they only hit the mark occasionally.......I'm not opposing their odd chord usage as they did this aplenty......
 
I can say it the other way around easily. Did Pink Floyd ever record a World Music style song like "Within You Without You"?  The Beatles "Blue Jay Way" features a heavily organ driven sound based on Indian scales with the rarely used Lydian Mode. In fact there is no guitars on the track which makes the track even more innovative IMO.
 
 I think the Beatles did a lot more for intergration of World Music in rock music than Pink Floyd. Don't get me wrong I love Pink Floyd but let's be factual.  
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 09 2013 at 18:05
Originally posted by NYSPORTSFAN NYSPORTSFAN wrote:

Originally posted by Tom Ozric Tom Ozric wrote:

Originally posted by NYSPORTSFAN NYSPORTSFAN wrote:

[QUOTE=Josef_K]
In terms of melody, arrangements, composition and going to sonic places where no rock band has gone before the Beatles easily takes it over Pink Floyd. Most of the Beatles songs even the early ones like "I Want To Hold Your Hand"  are ripe for discussing odd chord usage.
 
.
The Beatles have never trod the paths that Floyd trekked.  Take, for instance, Set The Controls........live - I've never heard The Beatles play dark, Farfisa organ driven Middle-Eastern scales of immense profoundness as Floyd.  Perhaps Floyd have taken some basic ideas from The Beatles, but John and Paul and George and Ringo never ventured into the musical depths the Floyd did.  Don't take it the wrong way, as there are many Beatles tracks I love, but as a musically adventurous band, they only hit the mark occasionally.......I'm not opposing their odd chord usage as they did this aplenty......
 
I can say it the other way around easily. Did Pink Floyd ever record a World Music style song like "Within You Without You"?  The Beatles "Blue Jay Way" features a heavily organ driven sound based on Indian scales with the rarely used Lydian Mode. In fact there is no guitars on the track which makes the track even more innovative IMO.
 
 I think the Beatles did a lot more for intergration of World Music in rock music than Pink Floyd. Don't get me wrong I love Pink Floyd but let's be factual.  

I wonder if Ozric has ever heard of Carnival of Light and other crazy psychedelic stuff The Beatles did in from 1966 to 1968. The Beatles had already done in 1966 and 1967 what Floyd did 1968 and 1969, like psychedelic experimentations that merge with avant-garde nonsense and spacerock-like craziness. It's just a pity that most part of these LSD-driven Beatles experiments was not recorded (or the tapes vanished).


Edited by claugroi - January 09 2013 at 18:06
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 09 2013 at 19:54
I vote for PF, but I like both bands a lot.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 09 2013 at 23:05
none I like them both


Edited by ProgMetaller2112 - January 09 2013 at 23:16
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 11 2013 at 05:04

I love Pink Floyd

I love the Beatles

Sometimes PF is what does the job, other times, the Beatles gets you where it matters...

Two, totally WAYYYY  too far apart, musically, lyrically, no real connection at all//



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 11 2013 at 05:35
Difficult to compare the Beatles and Pink Floyd cause they are quite different, but if i would have to choose. It would be Pink Floyd without any doubt. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 11 2013 at 06:32
Originally posted by NYSPORTSFAN NYSPORTSFAN wrote:

  
Interesting if you polled who was the most influential at their instrument Paul McCartney as a bassist is easily more influential than any member of Pink Floyd. Nick Mason is more of feel drummer than a technical wizard.
 
In terms of melody, arrangements, composition and going to sonic places where no rock band has gone before the Beatles easily takes it over Pink Floyd. Most of the Beatles songs even the early ones like "I Want To Hold Your Hand"  are ripe for discussing odd chord usage.
 
.
 
Yeah I agree that Paul is more influential in general (or well, might be, not sure how many guitarists are influenced by Gilmour, and I don't feel like spending my lifetime counting them). Anyway, I did say that being influential is not of that great interest to me. It says something about what others think of the Beatles, but nothing of my opinion. I am hardly influenced by the Beatles at all, since I don't like them that much.
 
Continuing with the same perspective (mine), it's not a competition in "going to sonic places" really, it's the question that is this place an interesting one or not that determines what I think of the band. About odd chord usage etc, what I mean when I say compositional skills is that Pink Floyd wrote a song around the bass line d-D (Careful with that Axe, Eugene) and it still sounds more interesting to me than anything The Beatles even came close to. In fact, it sounds more interesting than most songs out there. Also, this is (like everything else but even more I guess) just my personal view but lots of bands tend to come across as dadaistic (is that really how you spell it? :S) when writing songs that are far-out and spacey or whatever, which I don't like. "I am the Walrus" is a perfect example. Pink Floyd always felt like they had a message. Now, sitting here discussing these messages and quoting the writers endlessly will never lead anywhere, we might as well just quote Roger Waters stating that the Beatles are the best band in the world (I think he's said that...).
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 11 2013 at 07:26
I think the key factor here is the Abbey Road studio and that is the basis of any common ground between them. Both were at one time or other effectively the Abbey Road house band - they guided the development of the studio and the studio influenced the sound of the music they created there - the Abbey Road technicians and engineers worked with both bands, and while it is evident that Floyd (along with every other band in the 60s) listened to the Beatles, it is also well documented that the Beatles were aware of Floyd in the studio and at the UFO club and took note of what they were doing. I would also include Hendrix into that mix as all three of them were aware of (and admired) each other during the key years of 1967-69 - all three used the studio as an instrument or tool for creating music at that time, long before anyone else. Early Yes and Deep Purple are examples of bands influenced by The Beatles, but they didn't have the same common ground and mutual awareness that Floyd and The Beatles shared and I think that shows in how all those bands developed post-Beatles.
 
It is also worth noting that both bands created music for how it sounded regardless of whether it was right or clever or broke rules or pushed boundaries. Underpinning every Beatles and Floyd song is a neat and very simple tune that only becomes complex when you pull it apart - the odd chord here and there and the unexpected key changes were a result of playing something that sounded right by serendipity not by design. Did either band contain great musicians? No, I don't believe they did, certainly not virtuosos that's for sure, but they all could play and more importantly, they knew what sounded good. The difference is more in the gestation period of each song - The Beatles composed and recorded relatively quickly, having eschewed playing live in 1966 the songs never developed after that, whereas Floyd would allow a song to develop, ever changing when playing live until it produced something they were happy with, then they'd record it (or they'd record the track then develop it on stage - such as with Set The Controls or Careful With That Axe).
 
Which do I prefer? Floyd, no question (I only own one Beatles album and 1 EP, but I am currently wearing a Beatles hoodie as I type this).
What?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 11 2013 at 10:21
No matter the argument, The Beatles win.
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