Depends on my mood.
Canât we just have both? 
2 Likes
A long time ago I remember some music commentator on TV being asked to contrast the Beatles and the Stones. Their reply has always stuck with me: âThe Beatles want to hold your hand, the Stones want to get into your pantsâ. 
1 Like
Strange poll! Theyâre different. Thereâs more beatles music I like than Stones, but some Stones thing are really great. If I were to vote in the poll after playing Wild Horses, it would be Stones. If after playing the side 2 (I still think of it that way though it is a long time since I played it on vinyl), it would be BeatlesâŚ
The Beatles easily for me. âSome Girlsâ is the only Stones album that holds my interest entirely from beginning to end the way any Beatles album does.
1 Like
That chord at the very start of âA hard days nightâ is a highlight.
for me musically the Beatles have it for me for me hard to choose between âthe bestâ i would prob go Harrison, Lennon, McCartney in order of prefference
in saying The Beatles the The Stones have some seminal albums
Yes, I think the Beatles did more coherent albums. For me, the most coherent Stones album is not a âproperâ album, but a compilation: Through the past, darkly. Maybe because that was the first album of theirs I heard, when my brother bought it just after it had been released, and so one of the small collection I had to play on my first hifi system a few months later.
1 Like
I voted for the Stones as my answer to the original question - rather than judging that they are the best or the greatness. I also engaged much more with the Stones as a teenager and was annoyed by the way adults seemed engaged with and enthused by the Beatles. So putting on early Stones is probably in part nostalgic. However, I too came to appreciate the Beatles as time went on. I do think that as the sixties ended and we moved into the complexities and conflicts of the very late sixties and the early seventies, that the Stones were better able to write songs from an adult perspective. The run of albums - Beggarsâ Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street - exemplify this (and are certainly coherent LPs). No doubt a provocative view!
2 Likes
Difficult, I liked them both. As @Gandalf said, Beatles releases were events. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have most of The Beatles recordings but a lot less Stones.
Stones every time along with Who, Kinks and Small Faces.
Beatles were very overrated. How can you compare âShe loves you yeah!yeah!â to âLetâs spend the night togetherâ. Stones for grown ups, Beatles for shrieking teens and ageing hippies.
2 Likes
Beatles, but heavens the Stones have so much great stuff and hit a completely different spot. I think the Beatles catalog is more consistently good throughout and they were innovators of the first degree. The Stones have the longevity, and with that many albums, it is only natural that there would be some duds (for me, Emotional Rescue springs to mind) and less consistency overall.
OTOH, that period from Beggarâs Banquet (1968) through Some Girls (1978) is some of the best, most consistently great musical output in rock history. Every album (8 of them) in that run is top shelf.
Comparing the Beatles and the Stones is like comparing great and spectacular, or outstanding and awesome, or whatever superlatives you want to choose.
But as much as I love and respect the Stones, the Beatles edge them out for me.
âThe Stones, I love the Stones, I canât believe theyâre still doing it after all these years, the StonesâŚFred and BarneyâŚâ - Steven Wright
4 Likes
I saw a recent documentary on the Rolling Stones as to their recent tour in South America and the negotiations and preperations that went towards having a concert in Cuba. What astonished me was their support they had in Argentina, it seems each time they tour there the fans go crazy as if it was their first tour and the novelty did not wear off. I think one Argentinian was saying that the Rolling Stones is a religion for them, it reminded me of Bill Shankly and his Liverpool Team when he said that football is more important than life and death!
I saw that same documentary on the plane back from Europe last March - very enjoyable.
In the early days, prior to Rubber Soul, I preferred the Stones. But from that point on, the Beatles truly became the Fab Four for me.
This thread reminds me of a Saturday night in summer of 1969, listening to my transistor radio tuned to AM 1500, WINX radio in suburban Washington, DC. It was a pop-music top 40 station, and the DJ was running a Beatles versus Monkees(!) poll. As the Beatles by then had started to look a bit shaggy and LSD-influenced, the cleaner-cut Monkees won in a landslide! 
The Beatles have written so many memorable songs.
The Stones were good in their early years but lost it later and should be in the nursing home now.
1 Like
Sorry, but if youâd been at Old Trafford, Manchester, last year, you might have to revise your views, as theyâve never sounded more âon itâ, live ⌠or maybe thatâs just a huge slice of nostalgia on my part. 
2 Likes
No I can understand that but Keith looks like the living dead doesnât he after a life of drugs and rock roll.
Weâve followed a Scottish band called Runrig since the late 70âs and they did a fantastic farewell gig in front of 50000 over 2 nights last August.
If you havenât already, I think you should perhaps listen to âBlue & Lonesomeâ. If thatâs nursing home music then Iâm ready to be hauled in! It is a truly cracking album and their maturity and experience an asset to their interpretation of the songs they cover. It really is a corker.
Still prefer The Beatles overall tho!
6 Likes
Maybe, but youâve just got to love his banter in front of a live audience, along the lines of âItâs great to be here tonight, in fact, itâs great to be anywhere tonightâ
As I said, itâs largely nostalgia on my part, as I grew up with these guys, but I feel that Keef has now moved firmly into the realms of being a Great British Institution.