Beach Boys vs The Beatles

The Beach Boys made some really high end virtuoso intricate compositions, and I like a lot of their songs, but their high falsetto harmonies always seemed to be a niche sound to me, not mainstream rock, even in the 60s and early 70s when hard rock hadn't really been developed yet. Also, their California beach scene subject matter always seemed like a niche as well.

Real rock bands were able to have a broader range of rock music style, and also sing about a broad range of topics. The Beatles had this broader thing going for them, but they were a little bit of a niche as well. They had that twangy "Beatles" sound that was still slightly off the mainstream.

I think bands like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues, etc. had the sound that really evolved into the rock music of the 70s and beyond. Actually, Paul McCartney adapted to this mainstream sound a lot more after the Beatles broke up, but the other three seemed to continue making weird music in comparison.
 
The Beach Boys made some really high end virtuoso intricate compositions, and I like a lot of their songs, but their high falsetto harmonies always seemed to be a niche sound to me, not mainstream rock, even in the 60s and early 70s when hard rock hadn't really been developed yet. Also, their California beach scene subject matter always seemed like a niche as well.

Real rock bands were able to have a broader range of rock music style, and also sing about a broad range of topics. The Beatles had this broader thing going for them, but they were a little bit of a niche as well. They had that twangy "Beatles" sound that was still slightly off the mainstream.

I think bands like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues, etc. had the sound that really evolved into the rock music of the 70s and beyond. Actually, Paul McCartney adapted to this mainstream sound a lot more after the Beatles broke up, but the other three seemed to continue making weird music in comparison.

I'm sorry Thomas but the Beach boys had a lot more melody going for them than those English bugs.

Pink Floyd? That's different story al together. They actually were good.
 
I'm sorry Thomas but the Beach boys had a lot more melody going for them than those English bugs.

Pink Floyd? That's different story al together. They actually were good.
That's an absurd and demonstrably incorrect statement. So let's play. Give me your first Beatle busting Beach Boy melody (and there's a lot more to a great song than a great melody by the way). What you got?
 
I’m a fan of Beach Boys and Beatles. Overall I like the Beatles better especially HELP album and future stuff. But I like Zeppelin, Sabbath even more. Their whole song catalog (Ozzy years) has very few misses. There’s a lot of Beatles songs that are just complete garbage IMO, but then they have some songs that are probably the greatest songs I’ve ever heard. For Besch Boys, Good Vibrations is probably the most genius vocal harmonies ever made in popular music.
 
Doesn't this sort of debate belong on a forum for boomers ?!

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I always felt that the Beatles were just 'doing their thing' while the much of the Beach Boys' motivation was out of jealousy that American girls were flocking towards the 'British Invasion'.
 
The problem with this sort of argument is that very few have the sort of musical palette and discernment that Rick Beato, for instance, has and so have no platform to judge intelligently from. We're not taking about musical taste, that's subjective, we're talking about musical sophistication and innovation in popular music.

America has produced some very talented musicians, no doubt about that, and they trounce the British with their list of gifted jazz musicians (my favourite genre) but in regards to popular music the Beatles are the GOAT. It's not even close. No doubt that Brian Wilson was gifted and the Beach Boys produced some innovative music, but Good Vibrations shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as say The Long and Winding Road.

The best metric for how good a song is, is the number of times it's covered by other musicians and by that metric alone the Beatles win hands down. The last time I looked the Beatles had 3 in the top 10 standards. As I said, it's not even close.

 
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