Re: Who's bigger? MJ or The Beetles?
Here's a few thoughts on each of these top artists:
1) Elvis Presley - Ultimately, his strength is in his singing ability. He blows these others out of the water in terms of pure vocal skill, his ability to emote and his ability to interpret a piece of music. He was the one who started the rock'n'roll revolution and broke down barriers that were between different genres of music. He effortlessly mixed genres unconsciously and inspired following generations. However, he was from an era where vocal ability did not necessitate you write the music. He was simply from a different era and that is something that the following eras can't quite comprehend. However, his interpretive skills are practically unmatched. He could take a song and completely transform it effortlessly into something else entirely. He was a master of manipulating the emotions in his voice and the audience's reaction. He was also a very humble, flawed and generous human being who was overtaken by a larger-than-life image that he has not escaped and could not live up to.
2) The Beatles - While hardly Elvis-level singers, they were very successful and talented songwriters. They also were there when the Baby Boomers became teenagers, unlike Elvis, who was born during the Depression and whose teenage girls were those born in the Depression and circa WWII. The Beatles fans were the next generation and found their voice in them. The Beatles were also much more political, reflecting this period. Music was not nearly as focused on the singing ability, pure, raw sex appeal and emotional qualities of the music that Elvis brought, but trying to find some kind of deeper meaning. The earliest and most popular era of the Beatles, however, was very much a fun boy band factor (and their early music was LARGELY covers--look up Twist And Shout and tons of other songs). This was in the era of musicians who had been inspired by Elvis (even if their young fans were largely dismissive of what came before) and melded it with their own generation's priorities. The Beatles were influential in their studio output, but struggled as live performers and dealing with massive crowds (whereas Elvis had similar crowds, but was much more adept at controlling them). I personally have issues with a number of John Lennon's biographical elements. For one, Lennon made fun of disabled people and hating seeing them at concerts, he was extremely egotistical (whereas Elvis was known for being self-deprecating of himself and his abilities--he underestimated himself whereas Lennon thought very highly of himself) and his Marxist leanings/Yoko-influenced nuttiness (Bagism?) makes him tied too heavily with one era, rather than timeless. One of the most revealing things about the counterculture era and the Beatles is when George Harrison was backstage at Elvis' Madison Square Garden '72 concert. Elvis was dressed to the nines and looked superhuman while George had a hippie beard and torn jeans. George actually denounced the hippie movement due to this meeting with his idol. One thing that can be said, is that while Elvis and Michael only had themselves, the Beatles had each other when dealing with fame of immense proportions no other people on the face of the Earth have dealt with.
Michael Jackson - Not particularly someone I would call first and foremost a singer, by any means (he's no Elvis Presley, The Righteous Brothers, The Platters, Cher or Freddie Mercury in terms of vocal prowess in rock'n'roll singing), but he was is a consummate visual artist. While Elvis was the master showman, he was hardly choreographed, had practically no stage effects other than himself and was quite raw and untrained. Jackson was a visionary in choreography, sleek performance styles and had a significant amount of charisma to boot. But with others before him, the image has come to cloud the human being under the grotesque façade he created over himself and he was never able to grow up. While Elvis more or less stopped maturing when he made his first million (age 21), Michael never got past the stage of a severely traumatized and incomplete child. Michael is one of the worst examples of child stars and stage parents creating a disaster in the formation of a complete adult human being.
Michael is somewhere in the 750 million range, I believe.
