John Lennon vs Freddie Mercury

As The All Music Guide says in their excellent Beatles biography "That it's difficult to summarize their career without restating cliches that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans, to start with the obvious,they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century."

"Moreover they were among the few artists of any discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did." THey also say as singers John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive in rock.

Also on an excellent site,The Evolution of Rock Bass Playing McCartney Style by Dennnis Alstrand,Stanley Clarke,Sting,Will Lee,Billy Sheehan,George Martin and John Lennon are quoted saying what a great,melodic and influential bass player Paul has always been'

And Wilco's John Stirratt was asked in Bass Player which bass players have had the most impact on his playing and the first thing he said was, Paul McCartney is one of the greatest bass players of all time,if you listen to what he was tracking live in the studio it's unbelievable." "With his tone and musicality he was a huge influence,he covered all of his harmonic responsibilities really well but his baselines were absolutely melodic and inventive."

And in an online 1977 Eric Clapton interview,Eric Clapton In His Own Words he says that there was always this guitar game between John and George,and he said partly because John was a pretty good guitar player himself.He played live with John as a member of John's 1969 Plastic Ono Band.

And there is a great online article by musician and song writer Peter Cross,The Beatles Are The Most Creative Band Of All Time and he says that many musicians besides him recognize Paul as one of the best bass guitar players ever.He too says that John and Paul are the greatest song composers and that to say that John and Paul are among 2 of the greatest singers in rock and roll is to state the obvious,and that John,Paul and George were all excellent guitarists and that George is underrated by people not educated about music but that ERic Clapton knew better,he also says that both John and Paul played great leads as well as innovative rhythm tracks.

John Lennon co-wrote,sang and played guitar on one of David Bowie's first hits Fame in 1975 and David invited John to play guitar on his version of John's beautiful Beatles song Across The Universe.Brain May,Ozzy Osbourne,and Liam Gallagher and many more call The Beatles The Greatest Band Ever.

Also on MusicRadar Tom Petty,Joe Perry and Richie Sambora in What The Beatles Mean To Me all say how cool and great they thought The Beatles were when they first saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 when they were just teen boys,Richie was only 5.Tom Petty said he thought they were really really great.

Robin Zander of Cheap Trick said he's probably one of the biggest Beatles fans on the planet.Brad Whitford of Aerosmith said that a lot of that Beatles influence comes from Steven Tyler's collaborartion with Mark Hudson both whom are absolute Beatles freaks and he said I guess the goal is to try and emulate probably some of the best music of the last 50 years which has to be The Beatles.

And John Lennon (and Paul MCCartney was a great rock and love song singer too with a great range and great sounding voice too!) had a very beautiful strong unique voice he was one of the best rock singers ever! Just listen to so many examples,too many to mention here,but start with his gorgeous strong singing on his Beatles song This Boy especially the middle part,and his great rock vocals on Money,Rock and Roll Music and incredibly on Twist and Shout with a bad sore throat from a cold recorded in just 1 take etc etc! The Beatles as well as queen are in The Vocal Hall of Fame and John and Paul are in The Song Writing Hall Of Fame.

George Harrison at only age 14 would stay up playing his guitar until he got all of the chords exactly right and his fingers were bleeding! And One of The Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick says that in early 1966 when The Beatles were recording John's song I'm Only Sleeping, George Harrison played backwards guitar the most difficult way possible even though he could have taken an easy way,and it took him 6 hours just to do the guitar overdubs! He then made it doubly difficult by adding even more distorted gitars and Geoff says this was all George's idea and that he did all of the playing!

The 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide calls Paul a remarkable bass player and rightfully calls John & Paul the 2 greatest song writers in rock history! Both Phil Collins and Max Weinberg both Beatles fans and both praise Ringo's drumming and Phil Collins says that Ringo's great drumming on A Day In The Life can't be repeated even by him! Also on Rankopedia The Beatles are # 1 Greatest Rock Band,# 1 Greatest Most Innovative Rock Band,John &Paul are # 1 Greatest Rock Song Writers, John &Paul are on The Greatest Rock Male Vocalist list, and Paul McCartney is # 2 after John Enwistle as Greatest Rock Bass Players, John Paul Jones is # 6, and Bill Wynman is # 20! And on Digitaldreamdoor where many musicians post,The Beatles are # 1 Greatest Rock Artists,John &Paul are # 1 Greatest Rock Song Writers, they are both on The Greatest Rock Male Vocalists list, and Paul McCartney is # 8 out of 100 Greatest Rock Bass Players, John Paul Jones is # 21, and Bill Wynman is # 95! George Harrison is # 54 On The Greatest Rock Guitarists out of over 100.

And there are many music professors teaching music courses at good universities on the brilliance of The Beatles especially of John &Paul, including by award winning music professor and composer Dr.Glen Gass, who has been teaching a course on The Beatles and rock music at Indiana University since 1982. On his web site for his course it says the main purpose of this course is to get students to have a better appreciation of this extraordinary group and their remarkable recordings. Dr.Gary Kendal's Beatles course is the most requested course at North Western University. And a music professor by the last name of Heinonen teaches a Beatles course at JYVASKYLA University in Finland, and the university of California also teaches a Beatles course etc.

Also check out Keno's Classic Rock n Roll Site he also runs a Rolling Stones &John Lennon fan site. And he made a Top 10 List and voted and the fans voted. He voted John &Paul # 2 after Bob Dylan as Greatest Rock Song Writers, the fans voted them # 1! He voted Paul McCartney # 2 after John Entwistle as Greatest Rock Bass Player, the fans voted Paul # 3. He voted John Lennon # 2 after Keith Richards as Greatest Rock Rhythm Guitarist, and the fans voted John in a tie with Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones at # 4 .He voted John Lennon # 1 in a tie with Elvis as Greatest Male Rock Vocalist and the fans voted John # 1, he voted Paul # 6 and the fans voted him # 7.

And in 2001 VH1 had a panel of well known musicans and music critcs, that voted The Beatles The Greatest Rock Band Ever, and in 2004 Rolling Stone did the same thing and several people said on message boards that Rolling Stone had also had a panel poll like this and The Beatles were voted # 1 again and for darn great reasons too! Nobody created as much innovative, creative, quality,critically acclaimed, popular diverse songs and albums in such a short amazing period of time as The Beatles and thats why most people know that The Beatles Are The Greatest Rock Band That Ever Was Or Will Be!! Oh and A Hard Day's Night is a great pop rock album!

And even Bob Dylan said decades ago about The Beatles early music, that their chords were outrageous, and the harmonies were wonderful and they were doing things in music that nobody had done before, and music critics of The London Times were praising their interesting and unusual chords that they used even in early songs like She Loves You & I Want To Hold Your Hand. Which were not as simple as they seemed and had clever subtleties in them.

And by the way I have read some people saying on message boards that they don't think The Rolling Stones were the best technical musicians, and many even some fans have said they haven't done anything good in 35 years, and that their overrated and I have also found many people saying they hate or don't like The Rolling Stones and many people say the only Rolling Stones song they like is Paint It Black! Oh and by the way, in every major poll of The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones, The Beatles always win as # 1 even on sites and message boards that are not Beatles fan sites! And when we look at the solo career comparison of Mick Jagger's and Keith Richards solo careers with John, Paul & George's, the facts are John Lennon's first brilliant solo album, and his second great album Imagine are rightfully critically acclaimed, and I love John's Walls & Bridges album and Paul McCartney's first solo album McCartney is very good, and he played every instrument all by himself at age 27, and he played so many different instruments great! Wings 1975 Venus & Mars is a great rock album too!

And he and Denny Laine are the only musicians on Paul's great 1973 Band On The Run album, which is critically acclaimed and popular, and he played every instrument by himself again on McCartney 2 in 1979, and most of the instruments on his 1997 Flaming Pie album, and his 2 recent acclaimed popular albums, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard, and Memory Almost Full. And John Paul Jones, David Gilmore, John Bonham & Pete Townsend all played on 2 songs with Paul and Wings on the last Wings album Back To The Egg, in 1979, and they played in the last Wings concert too in December 1979.

And I and many people understandably feel that John Lennon had the best rock voices ever! George Martin said John's voice was one of the best he ever heard, and in May 1967 when The Beatles were recording their song, Baby You're A Rich Man, two recording engineers said they were always fascinated with the sound of John Lennon's voice, and they always wanted to record it live and when they heard him singing this song live they said they couldn't believe how great his voice was and that anyone could sing that well live.

Also, The Beatles were NEVER a boy band at all not even in 1963, 1964 and 1965, and they were Mostly a Great ROCK Band from the start! They started out playing 8 hours a night for two years in a row playing in the sleazy strip clubs of Hamburg Germany wearing tight leather black pants and jackets, cursing and smoking on stage, and taking speed pills to awake, and going to bed with many young women groupies. The cleaned up image was a fake joke that their manager Brian Epstein created which John hated and resented the most.

There were a lot of rough thugs who came into those clubs, and if they played bad live, they would have beaten the crap out of them playing 8 hours a night for 2 years! Instead they became the most popular successful group in these German clubs even with all of the competition from other groups from England and Germany! They also played live in The Cavern Club for several years. They worked very hard to get where they got! Their cleaned up image was a fake image created by their manager in their early days.

The Beatles wrote many great rock songs that were pretty rocking for the time, John's great song You Can't Do That from early 1964 which he played lead guitar on for the first time, Paul's great blues rocker, She's A Woman from late 1964, John's I Feel Fine from late 1964, with the first use of feedback guitar, and one of the first songs to have a great guitar riff, a year before The Rolling Stone's Satisfaction came out, Paul's screaming hard rocker especially for 1965, I'm Down which they played even louder and more screaming at the August 1965 Shea Stadium concert, plus Day Tripper, Paperback Writer, She Said She Said, And You're Bird Can Sing, Taxman, all with heavy electric guitar sounds, John's 1968 hard rocking single Revolution, Yer Blues, Birthday, Back In The USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey, plus Paul's Helter Skeklter which as many people have pointed out was the first heavy metal songs, plus John's I Want You She's So Heavy on Abbey Road which many people have also pointed out was one of the first heavy metal songs, plus his great rocker Come Together, Hey Bulldog Paul's Oh Darling, You Never Give Me Your Money, and the hard rocking jam of Paul, George,and John on the song The End, etc!! So anyone saying The Beatles were not a rock band You Are Wrong!