Michael Jackson vs. The Beatles

[thatkidkenji]

I understand some of you may like one or the other's music more but my question is...
Who is more influential to pop culture?
I'm going with Michael Jackson.
Not only did he have a significant impact on the fashion and literature of his time, but he also revolutionized the world of music
AND dance simultaneously, whereas The Beatles only changed music.

[Nickisabi]

The Beatles. Being the fathers of the boy band. Aside from the Beach Boys.

[thatkidkenji]

At 10/16/13 09:40 PM, SpankyG wrote: The Beatles. Being the fathers of the boy band. Aside from the Beach Boys.

Boy Bands tend to mimic Michael Jackson way more than The Beatles in music style and dance.

[Sekhem]

Thriller is the best selling album in the world. That's really all that needs to be said.

That being said, Prince > MJ.

[thatkidkenji]

At 10/16/13 09:44 PM, Sekhem wrote: Thriller is the best selling album in the world. That's really all that needs to be said.

That being said, Prince > MJ.

In terms of quality?

[Sekhem]

At 10/16/13 09:45 PM, thatkidkenji wrote:

At 10/16/13 09:44 PM, Sekhem wrote: Thriller is the best selling album in the world. That's really all that needs to be said.

That being said, Prince > MJ.

In terms of quality?

In terms of quality, impact, musical sales, personal opinion, and general critical consensus: Thriller is better than anything The Beatles have ever released.

Michael Jackson's Unparalleled Influence (The Atlantic) - I highly recommend this article.

[PlasticSoul]

At 10/16/13 09:38 PM, thatkidkenji wrote: Not only did he have a significant impact on the fashion and literature of his time, but he also revolutionized the world of music
AND dance simultaneously, whereas The Beatles only changed music.

but then you have to consider that the beatles also did have significant impacts on fashion and literature?
their haircuts and way of dress were pioneering and trend-setting; not only did john lennon write in his own right (haha), but they also were the subject of countless books and biographies, and still are

[thatkidkenji]

At 10/16/13 09:53 PM, PlasticSoul wrote:

but then you have to consider that the beatles also did have significant impacts on fashion and literature?
their haircuts and way of dress were pioneering and trend-setting; not only did john lennon write in his own right (haha), but they also were the subject of countless books and biographies, and still are

I suppose that's true, but MJ still has one over them in the dance and music video department.

[BumFodder]

the beatles arent even that good

[Jackho]

At 10/16/13 09:48 PM, Sekhem wrote: In terms of quality, impact, musical sales, personal opinion, and general critical consensus: Thriller is better than anything The Beatles have ever released.

If you google "best album of all time", Sgt Pepper's is the first suggestion, with four other Beatles albums also making the list. I love Thriller, but I'd personally rank (probably) over half of the Beatles' discography above any song by MJ. Thriller may be the best selling single album but overall the Beatles have sold far more records than Michael Jackson.

In my opinion nothing by MJ can hold a candle to A Day in the Life, In My Life or For No One, to name a few of my favorites.

So yeah, I'm firmly on the Beatles' side here, though they have both had an immeasurable impact on the music industry.

[Jackho]

At 10/16/13 10:52 PM, thatkidkenji wrote: I suppose that's true, but MJ still has one over them in the dance and music video department.

Dance is no question, but as far as I know the Beatles' promotional music videos were the earliest examples of that. They came up with the concept and set the trend that spawned MTV. The Thriller video might never have existed if not for the Beatles' influence.

[Slacker013]

Michael Jackson owned the rights to The Beatles so I couldn't see how he might have been influenced by them, $47.5 million for the entire publishing company! That has to be something, right?

My preferences have always been Beatles

[thatkidkenji]

At 10/16/13 11:55 PM, Slacker013 wrote: Michael Jackson owned the rights to The Beatles so I couldn't see how he might have been influenced by them, $47.5 million for the entire publishing company! That has to be something, right?

My preferences have always been Beatles

Surely you can be more influential than the people who influenced you.

[Dr-Worm]

Come on, it's not even close. You can spot MJ's influence on a handful of pop artists who explicitly set out to emulate him, but you can find the Beatles' prints pretty much everywhere you look in modern music, from scrappy indie bands to polished pop stars. Hell, even outside of music the Beatles' impact on popular culture as a whole is pretty much unrivaled. They didn't invent modern youth culture, but they certainly brought it to the front and center of the cultural conversation in a way that simply didn't exist before.

Basically the Beatles still cast a huge shadow over the entirety of modern pop culture. I don't think you can really say the same about Michael Jackson, whose influence has kind of diminished over the past decade and a half or so (though there was a briefly renewed spike in interest after his death, of course). Even his contributions to dance and music videos don't seem terribly significant now that pop music has largely moved away from that kind of showmanship and MTV is no longer a tastemaker.

[Nor]

I'd say equal but different in their own ways

[VJF]

The Beatles because they weren't child molesters. That and it was once said that they were bigger than jesus.

[thatkidkenji]

At 10/17/13 12:30 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: Come on, it's not even close. You can spot MJ's influence on a handful of pop artists

Even his contributions to dance and music videos don't seem terribly significant now

MJ didn't only influence pop music though, he also had an impact on hip-hop, r&b, soul, rock.
Everyone dances like MJ. You can't dance and not dance like him. With "The Robot" he introduced a revolutionary formula to the art.
If there are still musicians telling stories within music videos, his impact there is still fresh.

[Dr-Worm]

At 10/17/13 01:20 AM, thatkidkenji wrote: MJ didn't only influence pop music though, he also had an impact on hip-hop, r&b, soul, rock.

You're probably right that MJ's influence on current hip-hop and R&B is larger than that of the Beatles, but on popular music (as in, not just "pop") as a whole?

Everyone dances like MJ. You can't dance and not dance like him. With "The Robot" he introduced a revolutionary formula to the art.

But how large a role does dance play in current pop culture, compared to other art forms?

If there are still musicians telling stories within music videos, his impact there is still fresh.

MJ mastered the form. The Beatles kind of invented it.

But in either case, I don't think the impact is still fresh because music videos themselves aren't fresh. Do music videos really drive pop culture at all anymore? I'd argue that they mostly don't, outside of the occasional novelty song like "Gangnam Style" whose place in pop culture has little relation to that of something like "Thriller," or really any music video at the height of the form.

[thatkidkenji]

At 10/17/13 02:06 AM, Dr-Worm wrote: At 10/17/13 01:20 AM,

You're probably right that MJ's influence on current hip-hop and R&B is larger than that of the Beatles, but on popular music (as in, not just "pop") as a whole?"

Who's The King of Pop?

"But how large a role does dance play in current pop culture, compared to other art forms?"

How would we measure that? What matters is that it's an important part of pop culture: there is almost always dancing on broadway shows & award ceremonies; there's been several hit dance competition programs within the last decade alone; the "singer/dancer" is an archetype of popular music epitomized by MJ; every other year we get these insipid dance movies that, while not being absolute blockbusters, seem to have a sizable core audience.

"MJ mastered the form. The Beatles kind of invented it."

He completely changed the way they were made, though. Who's more influential, the first person to make a thriller film, or Alfred Hitchock, the person who gave that genre conventions and techniques that are still emulated today?

"But in either case, I don't think the impact is still fresh because music videos themselves aren't fresh. Do music videos really drive pop culture at all anymore? I'd argue that they mostly don't, outside of the occasional novelty song like "Gangnam Style" whose place in pop culture has little relation to that of something like "Thriller," or really any music video at the height of the form."

Music videos themselves have never driven pop culture, even when MJ revolutionized them. What he did, was make them crucial aspects of the musician, the biggest product in pop culture after the writer. Their influence, at the very least, is in the area of music.

[Cyberdevil]

Definitely Michael Jackson, though the world of music would've probably been pretty different without either of them. It feels like Beatles really revolutionized music more at the time, but Michael Jackson had a bigger impact.

[kanef]

neutral milk hotel, death grips and animal collective

[poxpower]

At 10/16/13 09:38 PM, thatkidkenji wrote: Who is more influential to pop culture?

How do you even measure this?

[Auz]

I think it is pretty hard to say at this point in time what impact Michael Jackson really had on pop culture and whether he truly revolutionized music. He only died recently and his glory days were not that long ago so naturally he's still fresh in everyone's memory. However, it could be that in 10, 20, 30 years he's widely forgotten. Like DrWorm already said, his popularity had already been waning for years before his death in 2009.

So I think Michael Jackson has yet to prove that his music, his influence and his iconic status can withstand the test of time. The Beatles on the other hand released their last album 43 years ago and everybody is still copying them, talking about them, etc.

[ManDeep]

Since the Beatles actually wrote, orchestrated and played their own music, i'd pick them.

[Aprime]

Name one bad Michael Jackson song!

[Splats]

At 10/16/13 09:41 PM, thatkidkenji wrote:

At 10/16/13 09:40 PM, SpankyG wrote: The Beatles. Being the fathers of the boy band. Aside from the Beach Boys.

Boy Bands tend to mimic Michael Jackson way more than The Beatles in music style and dance.

Yes but there wouldn't be boy bands at all without The Beatles. They started the whole screaming girls thing, didn't they?

[Slacker013]

At 10/17/13 12:05 PM, Aprime wrote: Name one bad Michael Jackson song!

I remember this "e-day" song but it was so bad that I can't remember the name...

[Shade]

John Lennon beat his wife, abused his firstborn son and was generally an asshole.

I'm gonna go with MJ.

[Idiot-Finder]

At 10/17/13 01:32 PM, Shade wrote: John Lennon beat his wife, abused his firstborn son and was generally an asshole.

I'm gonna go with MJ.

And so that makes MJ more influential than the Beatles, okay.

[Idiot-Finder]

At 10/17/13 09:35 AM, Auz wrote:

So I think Michael Jackson has yet to prove that his music, his influence and his iconic status can withstand the test of time. The Beatles on the other hand released their last album 43 years ago and everybody is still copying them, talking about them, etc.

Also, one can't say that the Beatles didn't help pave the way for MJ to do what he did. MJ does deserve credits for his part including helping to break the remaining color barriers in the music industry, the thing is that it's still kind of tough to say whether MJ did more for music than the Beatles, remember the band did it before MTV existed, makes you wonder how much more impact they could have made had it been the case.

Time will tell for MJ though people would pick him because of his famous sales of his most famous solo album. Keep in mind, the Eagles greatest hits album sold as much as well, does that makes them better than those two?