re: Why do you think The Beatles are the most influential band of our time?

Screw the Beatles (vomiting). Twist n shout was their one hit. If I had to choose a British band it'd obviously be the Rolling Stones. The UK has a lot of talented musicians and groups though.

The "most influential bands of all time" question has been posed a million times. The answers are all very similar. Hugely successful bands of the 60's - 70's. The Beatles, Stones, Cream/Clapton, The Who, Zeppelin, Floyd.
But you know what's interesting? When the above bands were asked who was their largest musical influence the answers were identical....American black blues artists.
Now, I was head banging teenager in the late 70's through the 80's so I didn't listen to much old black blues but now I'm an old audiophile with almost 6,000 CD's and when I listen to Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, & Little Richard I can hear the Stones, Beatles, Jimmy Page, Clapton etc.. So are the Beatles really the most influential??

Because the night they performed on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 absolutley launched the music careers of millions.

Within weeks of that performance music stores were completely sold out of guitars and drums. Small town high schools suddenly had more band members than football team members. In some instances, schools that had never had a band suddenly were forced to create one.

You can throw out the songwriting and music if you want and the Beatles would still be the single most influential act in rock history based on the sheer number of people they inspired and the money they generated

I was watching Deconstructing The Beatles on PBS (can probably find the three episodes for free), and the host made a point of how, by the time The Beatles broke in America, they were seriously experienced and excellent on their instruments after playing thousands of shows in the UK and Germany.

That had to help them--along with the incredible songwriting and vocals--as they cranked out new, evolving material afterward.

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When the above bands were asked who was their largest musical influence the answers were identical....American black blues artists.

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The blues was a dead genre. Those guys couldn't get gigs or recording contracts. Even black Americans were over it. Then for some reason there was a resurgence of it in England and Clapton, the Stones, Zeppelin and others started remaking old blues songs.

So they were certainly influential to some of them.

I wouldn't say that the Beatles or Pink Floyd fit into this category.

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by the time The Beatles broke in America, they were seriously experienced and excellent on their instruments after playing thousands of shows in the UK and Germany.

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If you read the massive Lewisohn biography, he makes the argument that, when they returned from those Hamburg stints in the very early 60s, despite still being very obscure, they were quite likely the single most experienced rock band in the world, at least in terms of hours put in performing on stage.

This would have necessarily turned them into fine instrumentalists, even on top of whatever native abilities they had. I think you can easily discern this just by listening to the 1st album in its entirety. It was recorded in 12 hours, and basically "live". The quality of the playing is very high given these constraints.

It was just a very lucky confluence of some of the most talented and brilliant musical geniuses of our time together at the same time. Oddly, the addition of Ringo was what made it all work.

Outstanding songwriting and they were great players. Lennon and McCartney
Harmony came very close to their idols, The Everly Brothers.

They continued to evolve and released groundbreaking albums. Revolver, Rubber Soul and Sgt Pepper were a great run. Then there was the magnificent Abbey Road. They were the best band ever in popular
rock music. The Stones and Pink Floyd are great, but their body of work isn’t quite the equal of The Beatles …