i would definley say michael jackson. most of the people here grew up with the beatles music so thats why they say the beatles. i mean think to yourself? do you hear any of the kids today listening to the beatles or elvis presley? do you hear any of presleys songs being played in clubs? wherever in the world you go michael jacksons music will be played, his music is a global phenomenon. his music is still fresh and will live on from generations. everyone knows his music especially in countries like japan or china where western music is not even in their music scene... he is popular and eversince his death he has become even more popular but i dont think it was necessary to become more famous. michael jackson was an extraordinary performer and musician. not to mention a lot of the artists today are inspired by michael Jackson. elvis presley and the beatles... their music was new and no one had ever heard the music style they had so thats why they become very popular. not many people listen to the beatles or elvis presley today its only the people who grew up with their music. but when it comes to mj people of all races, old and young listen to his music and no matter where in the world you go michael jackson is always going to be popular. he broke racial barriers. hes been in the music industry ever since he was 5... michael jackson was one and the beatles were a group. but its amazing how one person could do all of that instead of having a band of people. mj was very smart and intelligent. also mj did not name himself the king of pop... it was his friend elizabeth taylor who dubbed him the kop in 1989... also album sales dont mean anything. mj has probably sold a billion by now. his bad world tour was definetly the best concert of all time. he did hundreds of shows in his life tmie which lasted for more than 3 hours.
Who's bigger? MJ or The Beatles?
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
There's something mildly amusing in a suggestive sense about the title of this thread..
Nowhere Man
Commodore
The Beatles, no question. I like some of Jackson's songs and I think he was most certainly talented as hell, but his legend is so tainted that the Beatles just simply come out on top. I guess I am biased considered im wearing a John Lennon t-shirt and a Beatles hoodie.
Braaaaaaaiiiiins.... Really, year and a half old thread? That said, how many bands have iTunes made a big deal about getting? Running an awful lot of Beatles commercials lately. And they're not saying much to sell them, just playing their songs and basically saying "fuck yeah, we got 'em"
Nowhere Man
Commodore
As far as The Beatles bieng on itunes, I don't care. I already have all of their music on my ipod by other means
The Beatles: 1960’s, Michael Jackson: 1980’s, two very different time periods. In effect, it is a generational gap. To those of you who were born after the mid-sixties, it is no wonder you would consider MJ more popular. Those of you who say MJ is more popular than the Beatles obviously didn’t experience Beatlemania.
The night they appeared on Ed Sullivan seventy-three million people (forty-five percent of the US population) in twenty-three million households tuned in. The NYPD reported zero crime in the city. In Ohio, my brother and I were glued to the television set. By the time the show ended, we were caught in the mania. When A Hard Day’s Night was released, my friends and I went early Saturday morning and came home late that night after watching the movie thirteen and a half times. In 1964, I won two tickets from WIXY to the Beatles concert at Public Hall in Cleveland. I experienced Beatlemania first hand. The girls were behind, in front and on both sides, many of them fainted, some rushed the stage, some collapsed on me, several got sick, one crawled up my back, sat on my shoulders and pulled my hair as she screamed hysterically. On the drive back home, I was partially deaf.
According to the RIAA, they wrote two hundred twenty-nine songs, had twenty number one singles and released nineteen number one albums in a six and a half year period. They are considered the best-selling act in the US with 178 million certified records sold. Michael comes in at number three after Elvis with 175 million certified sales.
The Beatles pioneered the concept album, no longer just a collection of releasable singles. They invented the rock video, the rock cartoon (Yellow Submarine), the stadium rock concert (Shea) and the charity concert (Bangladesh). The first live, global television link ever was of the Beatles performance of All You Need is Love. It reached an estimated three hundred plus million. The songs Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields and Tomorrow Never Knows ushered in the psychedelic age. The Beatles either invented or popularized artificial double tracking, back masking, tuned feedback, spliced audio loops, distortion, equalization, stereo effects, overdubbing, compression, phase shifting and microphoning. All of these techniques are now standard and used by countless recording artists. Music critic Richie Unterberger states the Beatles as both “the greatest and most influential act of the rock era” and a group that “introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century.”
A Hard Day’s Night is basically one giant music video and provided much inspiration for MTV. The album was the first time a band ever wrote and performed all of its own music, an unheard of event at the time. The Beatles kicked down all of the fossilized, profit driven recording industry doors allowing everyone behind to follow, including Michael. In Rolling Stones’ top twenty albums, the Beatles have five: Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Abby Road and the White Album. Thriller is listed as number twenty.
Rolling Stone also says “Sgt. Pepper formally ushered in an unforgettable season of hope, upheaval and achievement:in the late 1960’s and, in particular; 1967’s Summer of Love. In its iridescent instrumentation, lyric fantasias and eye-popping packaging, Sgt. Pepper defined the opulent revolutionary optimism of psychedelia and instantly spread the gospel of love, acid, Eastern spirituality and electric guitars around the globe.”
Author Megan Ho stated it more clearly in her article: The Album Heard ‘Round the World: A Look into Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
“Through the making and release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band the Beatles transcended the boundary of mere entertainers into the realm of revolutionary artists. The production of this one album changed the nature of rock & roll, the recording process and the public’s perception of music.”
Please do not misinterpret me, I am an MJ fan and own a copy of Thriller. In my opinion, Michael Jackson is the greatest solo act in music history, his album Thriller (1982) is the greatest selling album of all time…but not the most influential. Michael, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elton John and all the other great acts successfully entertained the world. The Beatles did things differently, they changed the world.
The night they appeared on Ed Sullivan seventy-three million people (forty-five percent of the US population) in twenty-three million households tuned in. The NYPD reported zero crime in the city. In Ohio, my brother and I were glued to the television set. By the time the show ended, we were caught in the mania. When A Hard Day’s Night was released, my friends and I went early Saturday morning and came home late that night after watching the movie thirteen and a half times. In 1964, I won two tickets from WIXY to the Beatles concert at Public Hall in Cleveland. I experienced Beatlemania first hand. The girls were behind, in front and on both sides, many of them fainted, some rushed the stage, some collapsed on me, several got sick, one crawled up my back, sat on my shoulders and pulled my hair as she screamed hysterically. On the drive back home, I was partially deaf.
According to the RIAA, they wrote two hundred twenty-nine songs, had twenty number one singles and released nineteen number one albums in a six and a half year period. They are considered the best-selling act in the US with 178 million certified records sold. Michael comes in at number three after Elvis with 175 million certified sales.
The Beatles pioneered the concept album, no longer just a collection of releasable singles. They invented the rock video, the rock cartoon (Yellow Submarine), the stadium rock concert (Shea) and the charity concert (Bangladesh). The first live, global television link ever was of the Beatles performance of All You Need is Love. It reached an estimated three hundred plus million. The songs Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields and Tomorrow Never Knows ushered in the psychedelic age. The Beatles either invented or popularized artificial double tracking, back masking, tuned feedback, spliced audio loops, distortion, equalization, stereo effects, overdubbing, compression, phase shifting and microphoning. All of these techniques are now standard and used by countless recording artists. Music critic Richie Unterberger states the Beatles as both “the greatest and most influential act of the rock era” and a group that “introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century.”
A Hard Day’s Night is basically one giant music video and provided much inspiration for MTV. The album was the first time a band ever wrote and performed all of its own music, an unheard of event at the time. The Beatles kicked down all of the fossilized, profit driven recording industry doors allowing everyone behind to follow, including Michael. In Rolling Stones’ top twenty albums, the Beatles have five: Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Abby Road and the White Album. Thriller is listed as number twenty.
Rolling Stone also says “Sgt. Pepper formally ushered in an unforgettable season of hope, upheaval and achievement:in the late 1960’s and, in particular; 1967’s Summer of Love. In its iridescent instrumentation, lyric fantasias and eye-popping packaging, Sgt. Pepper defined the opulent revolutionary optimism of psychedelia and instantly spread the gospel of love, acid, Eastern spirituality and electric guitars around the globe.”
Author Megan Ho stated it more clearly in her article: The Album Heard ‘Round the World: A Look into Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
“Through the making and release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band the Beatles transcended the boundary of mere entertainers into the realm of revolutionary artists. The production of this one album changed the nature of rock & roll, the recording process and the public’s perception of music.”
Please do not misinterpret me, I am an MJ fan and own a copy of Thriller. In my opinion, Michael Jackson is the greatest solo act in music history, his album Thriller (1982) is the greatest selling album of all time…but not the most influential. Michael, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elton John and all the other great acts successfully entertained the world. The Beatles did things differently, they changed the world.
I grew up with Michael Jackson and I prefer the Beatles though I love both.
The Beatles are bigger if it's a contest. Thriller sold more copies because the Beatles most commercial days were in the singles era. The Beatles had what, nine of the top ten singles at the same time at one point? The Beatles changed the way music is recorded and marketed and influenced every one of the big pop bands that followed. Michael Jackson was personally responsible for the rise of the music video and MTV. But Thriller sold the way it did because the Beatles made the record company focus on albums instead of singles.
Introduce younger kids to both Beatles and Michael Jackson, they are far more likely to embrace Beatles than Michael Jackson. I've met people who only like classical but also like the Beatles. I've met people who only like rap but also like the Beatles. They're not my personal favorite band of all time, but they are certainly 'bigger'.
In terms of how I personally rank Beatles and MJ albums:
The Beatles - Revolver, #6 AT
Michael Jackson - Thriller, #13 AT
The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album), #45 AT
The Beatles - Abbey Road, #59 AT
Michael Jackson - Off The Wall, #154 AT
The Beatles - Rubber Soul, #170 AT
The Beatles are bigger if it's a contest. Thriller sold more copies because the Beatles most commercial days were in the singles era. The Beatles had what, nine of the top ten singles at the same time at one point? The Beatles changed the way music is recorded and marketed and influenced every one of the big pop bands that followed. Michael Jackson was personally responsible for the rise of the music video and MTV. But Thriller sold the way it did because the Beatles made the record company focus on albums instead of singles.
Introduce younger kids to both Beatles and Michael Jackson, they are far more likely to embrace Beatles than Michael Jackson. I've met people who only like classical but also like the Beatles. I've met people who only like rap but also like the Beatles. They're not my personal favorite band of all time, but they are certainly 'bigger'.
In terms of how I personally rank Beatles and MJ albums:
The Beatles - Revolver, #6 AT
Michael Jackson - Thriller, #13 AT
The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album), #45 AT
The Beatles - Abbey Road, #59 AT
Michael Jackson - Off The Wall, #154 AT
The Beatles - Rubber Soul, #170 AT
As pointed out above, no rock act has been more influential and has a greater legacy than the Beatles, no matter who you "prefer". MJ may have the biggest selling album of all time but when did he ever occupy the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100? It had never happened before and has not happened since.
In terms of the music, no one was better than the Beatles, but when it came to performance, MJ was the most charismatic, most electrifying, stage performer I have ever seen. IMO, the only ones who came close were Elvis and James Brown.
Well said, I agree completely