Still his second album was called Buddy Holly right? So to say he was a leaderless self-contained group or something like the Beatles or the Who is not correct.

You're frustrating I never was comparing Elvis and The Beatles as country artists. You said the Beatles did one country song not me. On a musical theory point that is insane and I already have given you the songs OK. Have you actually read Carl Perkins initial impression on the Beatles country influence on their early songs. On top of that go and listen to The Beatles at Live at the BBC or Beatles For Sale.

As for Country Rock I never argued who invented the sub-genre to start with but I only used Gram Parson to refute your claim the Beatles did only one country song or influenced it's crazy Sampson. If you want to know there are plenty of modern country artists who are influenced by the Beatles harmonies and sound. Still the bottom line they did more than one country song and their 64-65 sound is full of that influence. As John Lennon called Beatles For Sale our country&western album. As it is Country music is only one small part of the Beatles songwriting pallette but don't say they did just one song.

As for Gram Parson influences here you go.

Influenced By
Merle Haggard,Buck Owens, The Rolling Stones, The Louvin Brothers, Buffalo Springfield, The Everly Brothers, Hank Williams,Johnny Cash Hamilton Camp, Woody Guthrie, Fred Neil, Tom Paxton, The Beatles, Solomon Burke, James Carr Bob Dylan Buddy Holly Phosphorescent

This statement right here I think is the source of the problem we're having. The definition of DIVERSE is what's at issue. People who think first in terms of songwriting will think of the Beatles, rightly so. But in terms of recorded output Presley has far more widespread releases. Personally I think this was at times a DETRIMENT aesthetically, because it spread him too wide and while it helped get him a wider variety of fans, it also seemed to have cost him some of the respect of his core fans, who would've probably much preferred had he stuck to the primary rock road he'd began on. But just look at how much far-flung stuff he recorded and hit with:

Money Honey - R&B
Don't Be Cruel - rockabilly
Love Me Tender - Civil War folk ballad
Old Shep - pure country ballad
Peace In The Valley - gospel
Jailhouse Rock - pure rock 'n' roll
Don't - power ballad
One Night - down & dirty blues
It's Now Or Never - Italian opera
Are You Lonesome Tonight - turn of the century pop

That's the tip of the iceberg and all of those were cut in either 56-58, or upon his return from the Army in 1960 and all were hits. Those are all from major genres (not just major genre influenced).

What the Beatles did in terms of versatility was incredible. They experimented with everything and as songwriters they were able to add stylistic nuances from other areas into their overall sound and still make it work. But that's no more impressive than being able to jump from gospel to country to opera to pop to blues to rock and still maintain his following. You can't get much further apart than some of these songs and to have them be hits within a few months of each other unquestionably showed rock's versatility at a time it needed it most. The Beatles expanded on it as well and get tons of credit for just that, but I think this is just a case of people seeing "diverse" in a totally different light. No harm in that, but let's not have any major blow-ups over simply those different interpretations of the term itself.

I won't argue on the subjective aspect either, obviously that's true, what people prefer in terms of versions is their own business, but aside from POSSIBLY "Twist & Shout", no Beatle cover surpassed the recognition factor of the original recordings. You Really Got A Hold On Me is always going to be a Miracles song. Money, even by the comparatively little known Barrett Strong, is still universally known from the original version. Please Mr. Postman is acclaimed for being done by the Marvelettes. I suppose I could've made the point better by saying, considering the Beatles overall popularity, one would think that their cover versions of songs by artists they are unquestionably greater than in terms of objective career achievements, would've become the definitive versions of those songs, and yet they never did. Rock 'n' Roll Music is a Chuck Berry song that the Beatles did, not a Beatles song that Chuck Berry simply did first.

It's strange how this works with the Beatles compared to Presley and that's the difference I was trying to point out, nothing more, not which was "better". The Beatles are songwriters who dominated with their own originals, but somehow weren't strong enough to supercede the originals when they covered songs, whereas Presley was a performer who shaped the songs written by others into his own defining statements, yet wasn't able, or willing, to make his own statements with songs from his own pen. Just two totally different approaches that is worth noting.

Well again on a music theory point of view you couldn't be more wrong the Beatles on a musical and songwriting point of view were exploring music styles Elvis never dealed with. On the White Album lets see the styles they explored.

Country- Don't Pass Me By"
Folk- various songs
Blues- "Yer Blues" "Why Don't We Do it On the Road"
Reggae- "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
Pop- various
1920's jazz- "Honey Pie"
Baroque- "Martha My Dear", "Piggies
Avant- "Wild Honey Pie", "Revolution#9'
Musique Concrete- "Revolution#9"
Protest- "Blackbird", The two "Revolution" tracks
Rock and Roll- various
Surf-Rock- "Back in the U.S.S.R"
Early Heavy Metal- "Helter Skelter"
Psychedelia- "Cry Baby Cry"
Indian- "Dear Prudence"
Progressive Rock- "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
Hollywood- "Goodnight"

Interesting when the garage rockers and people like the Rolling Stones when they covered "Money That's What I Want" were they doing it because of the Beatles version or Barrett Strong version? The Beatles version of that song and "Twist and Shout" were more closer the guitar rock sound than the original versions themselves.

To say the Beatles didn't influence other musicians to cover these songs is not correct. You know the Kinks actually covered "Long Tall Sally" because they heard them doing live and this was before the Beatles actually released the song or recorded it. It's my opinion I think Beatles version of "Word of Love" is actually beatiful compared to Buddy Holly version. I think John Lennon turned a number of cover songs into the rockers they should have been. If you listen to the Beatles Live at the BBC the Beatles turned a more than respectable verion of "That's All Right". So this thing about the Beatles being a not good cover band IMO is not correct. I have heard many people say the Beatles were a great cover band not the other way aroun honestly.

What's Hollywood?

As for Protest, I don't really think that can be categorized as a genre of music. It's a lyrical theme. For social commentary sort of lyrics that constitute protest songs, Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto" sure qualifies.

Read more carefully. I didn't say the Beatles didn't do good jobs on covering songs, only that they never, with the possible exception of Twist & Shout (and that is highly debatable), recorded the DEFINITIVE version of any song they didn't write. Period. They never supplanted the original record. Not once and considering their popularity and the exposure those versions got over much lesser heard originals like "Boys", "Matchbox" or "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", that is astonishing.

But read it right - it just says that they were songwriters first and foremost. It was not a knock against them anymore than it's a knock against Presley that he didn't write his own material. That's irrelevant to their status as artists, I brought it up simply to show how they are different and why people like you, who seem to show a clear preference for one of those types of artists, will tend to underrate the particular achievements of the other type of artist. That's all.

Oh, and the Stones worshipped black rock more than any white artist but Elvis, they were copying the originals in intent.

The fact is, Elvis Presley did do the major fields noted here - country we've covered in depth, folk, blues, pop, protest, rock 'n' roll, Hollywood (I assume that to mean a particular type of pop). He also did them more often and with an authenticity for the genre from which it came. The other areas musicfan mentions are, for the most part, subgenres of rock, such as metal or progressive or pyschedlia (Cry, Baby, Cry is not the best choice though for the song), or pre-rock pop styles. Not that the Beatles shouldn't get credit for doing them and doing them well, they should and do, but rather the comparison here is in how to define diversity.

So again, look at the MAJOR genres of music. I brought up gospel and musicfan brought up pyschedelic rock. They're not exactly on the same playing field. Gospel is an entire genre of music unto itself that has been around the entire century, whereas pyschedelic rock lasted about two and a half years before becoming passe. It was cool while it lasted, had influence on things that came later, but is hardly comparable in terms of exhibiting diversity, simply because (FOLLOW THIS CLOSELY) pyschedelic rock is part of ROCK. Gospel is an entirely different field separate from rock. So doing something that is a niche style within rock, the Beatles own primary style, which Presley certainly did all throughout his career as well, versus being a rock artist who prominently records pure gospel and has hits with it, makes the Gospel Music HOF, is kind of a bigger deal. They're two totally seperate fields of music. The PURE country songs that the Beatles cut basically amounts to Act Naturally, a Buck Owens hit. Yeah, there was country influences in a lot of their stuff, Ringo in particular liked country music, and country styles can be found in various Beatles songs, no question. But Presley had 11 #1 C&W hits, meaning they appealed to COUNTRY audiences en masse. He recorded entire country albums. He made the C&W HOF, meaning they've determined his impact within that field alone, irrespective of rock, to be worthy of enshrinement. That's a huge difference and the failure to understand this is what is leading to this impasse. He did BLUES songs, not blues pastiches, but actual 100% blues compositions. The King Creole soundtrack was heavy with Dixieland. Bringing up the Abbey Road medley in a previous post... what about An American Trilogy? It goes on.

One of the most famous quotes attributed to Presley was the first public utterance that anyone thought to remember, when he entered the Sun Studios the first time and was asked what kind of music he sang by Marion Keisker, the secretary, and he replied, "I sing all kinds". She followed up by asking him who he sounded like and he answered, "I don't sound like nobody". Those are probably the most prescient words in rock history. He sang every kind of music and sounded like himself.

But this whole discourse is ridiculous. I brought up this brief aside to show the different types of artists the Beatles and Presley were and it becomes a grudge match. The original points were twofold - I stated the Beatles Musical Influence was unquestionably greater, and stated why Presley's cultural influence was unquestionably greater. That's it. This conversation has nothing to do with either and is what happens when people argue music rather than discuss it. Musicfan takes exception to something I stated and then tries to "prove" me wrong, and essentially - as evidenced with lines like "In my opinion I think the Beatles version of Words Of Love is actually beautiful compared to Buddy Holly" - tries to defend his tastes, which isn't at all necessary to do. I never disparaged his tastes and by reacting as though I did this whole thing slides into a back and forth battle.

That's why I always try and tell people, argue against the artists you like best and argue for the artists you don't personally listen to and in time you'll wind up making better cases and it'll probably be a lot more interesting. Tastes in arguments leads to hate for those arguing an opposing viewpoint as well as hate for the artist on the other side of that argument and neither of those is very constructive.

Thanks for your answers Sampson.

I will agree that Elvis cultural impact was greater (and not only in the USA and England, but in Mexico also, my father is still one of the greatest Elvis fans you could find anywhere).

However, I propose to modify the criteria. Given that Performance Influence is included, I think that “Studio Recording” or something like that should be added to the criteria. Also, influence in songwriting should be added.

It's an artist list, not a songwriter's list. Anytime you add something that is NOT a requirement for an artist to do (such as writing their own songs) you are subjectively choosing what types of artists will do better, thereby invalidating the objectivity of the list itself. The Beatles RECORDS are being judged for their influence, and since they wrote such great songs that appeared on those records, which had great influence, they're getting credit for it in that way. But they can't get additional credit that only songwriters would qualify for, otherwise you're changing the list from "artist" to "artist/writers".

But you are doing that with “Performance Influence”. (I guess that is live performance). A great artist is not required to be a great live artist (The Beatles, Steely Dan, etc).

Also, an artist is not required to have a huge cultural impact to be great.

By not including songwriting on your list as a criteria, you are subjectively deciding what artists will do better, therefore, on your list Elvis > The Beatles.

And what about R&B or Motown (Got to Get You into my Life) and Hard Rock (Everybody got Something to hide).

There are songs like Elenor Rigby and A Day in the Life that doesn’t even have a specific genre.

Not at all. An "artist" is the designation on a record label (IE. Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds). But for that same record it would also read in small print (written by Bob Dylan). They are separate designations, just as producer or arranger are seperate. We are judging only the artist's career AS an artist.