>That subject does interest me. You get so many people who blindly assert, "Yes, well the Beatles, of course, changed the world and were the most imoportant influence on pop ... yadda - yadda - yadda".
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>I always think/reply/argue: Well how can you know that? You can't go back in time and see what would have happened if they had not existed. I don't see that any other band particularly emulated them. Pshaw, a few bands started introducing the odd bit of sitar in their tracks (think Traffic's "Hole in my shoe"), but I've never listened to a track and thought "yeah, you can really hear the Beatles influence there!" . I'd love someone to take me on an auditory tour tracing this so-called influence to convince me. Modern pop, of course, is a million miles from "Hard Day's Night" and the whole thing had been an evolution.
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>Now, as to whether they were the greatest: I had (or should I say, the Family had) the odd Beatles single when it came out, when I was a kid, as indeed we had Stones' singles. Later, when I started collecting music, I bought other stuff. The only Beatles I ever bought was "The White Album" and, after I learned every track inside-out, curiously that is the ONLY LP I ever sold on to someone else (the orig. embossed cover too!); to this day I can't figure out why - perhaps I got bored with it; I've never parted with any other music I've bought.
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>Sure, they did some nice stuff and they were a phenomenon for their time but my fave? - nah! When they split, Lenon's stuff bored me or grated on me (some was beautiful, of course); Macker's stuff, after "Ram" became a bit old fuddy-duddy: "Mull ...", "Ebony ..." ... As for the other two - nuff said.
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>What sayest thou?

I think you can see the influence of the Beatles in many other musicians styles after they came out with their stuff. Nobody was putting symphonic music in their stuff (pop) until they did. Once they came out with that, the stones and others followed suit. The sitar, as you pointed out, is another example of them takin the lead. I've never liked the sound of it, but they did introduce it to the west, sorta. I am always amazed at the diversity of the songs they came out with and the different styles they showed. Paul has demonstrated that he was the biggest driving influence of that band by what he has done as a Beatle and since, IMHO.

Of course, it's just an opinion, about something that doesn't really matter. It's not like we're talking politics or something critical, is it?<g>