Beatles vs. Stones

All good comments.  I like them both. The Beatles and The Stones are completely different from each other. Why should I have to choose?  And +1 for Sympathy For The Devil.

And that's what I love about this site.  A simple question was asked and @bdp24 decided a short novella was called for, but kind of forget to answer the question. 🤣  I shouted out who killed the Kennedys, well after all, it was you and me.    

the Beatles plus Steve Martin

@bdp24

Both Beatles and Stones, like pretty much every band that ever existed (as you noted, The Everly Brothers didn’t invent sublime two-part vocal harmony and had a wealth of recordings featuring such preceding them) started with covers, and generally mimicked their idols.

Their clearly-inferior-to-the-original-version covers
(although the Beatles’ August ‘63 live BBC performance of ‘Don’t Ever Change’ by Carole King/Gerry Goffin - the duo that wrote ‘Crying in the Rain’ by the Everly Brothers, the group for whom ‘Don’t Ever Change’ was originally written - is outrageously good, identical to the melodically-complex/difficult vocal harmony studio original by the Crickets…only live…)
are a mute point.

Even then, I would still put the earliest Beatles compositions, i.e. “P.S. I Love You,” “Ask Me Why,” “Love of the Loved,” “Please Please Me,” all from ‘62, to say nothing of the dozen-plus knockout originals in ‘63 - yep, that early -
(the likes of which include classics as non-album singles, the best originals on their two ‘63 LPs, and the handful of stone-cold gems written for other artists in ‘63, i.e. ‘Bad to Me,’ ‘I’m in Love,’ ‘I’ll Be On My Way,’ - Paul actually wrote ‘World Without Love’ when he was 16)
up against any pop group of the time in ‘63.

Obviously, mid-‘60s-to-early-‘70s Beatles/Stones is canonical.

Everly Brothers wrote a handful of great songs, but their catalog is non-original dominant (particularly by the Bryants).

The fact that one guy, Clapton, desired late-‘60s pop to be more “roots oriented” is nowhere near some “last word on music,” is by no means an expression of anything resembling “universal truth” on where popular music “should have” been heading.
Maybe there were a ton of music fans/artists in the ‘60s whose minds were blown by “Tomorrow Never Knows” and Revolver, by Pet Sounds, and the innumerable records then that created something entirely new, innovative, and as far from “dudes regurgitating rural Americana” as possible.

In the 1990’s I lived in Sherman Oaks California, as did Billy Swan (and Johnny Ramone and Dave Edmunds ;-) . Billy was a singer-songwriter whose sole big hit was "I Can Help". Billy and I became acquainted, and he recounted to me an experience which recalibrated my frame-of-reference.

Long before meeting Billy I had seen and heard many the 1960’s "greats" live: The Beach Boys in 1964, The Beatles in ’65, Cream and Jimi Hendrix in ’67 and ’68, The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead in ’67 (the same show), The Jeff Beck Group in ’68, Quicksilver Messenger Service in ’68, Them (with Van Morrison) in ’67, The Kinks in ’70 and ’71---they were SO great!, The Electric Flag (Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles) in ’68---awesome!, Procol Harum in 1971---majestic! (even without organist Mathew Fisher), and many, many others (living in the San Francisco Bay area was not without its benefits ;-) .

Yet when Billy told me about seeing Elvis, Bill (Black, upright bass), & Scotty (Moore, guitar---one of Jeff Beck’s idols and role models) performing live on a flatbed truck in 1956, I was overcome with jealousy. It brought 1950’s Rock ’n’ Roll alive to me. I SO wish I had been born ten years earlier!