Stevie Wonder vs. Jimi Hendrix
David Bowie vs. The Beatles

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

Bowie for the win.

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

This 1st matchup is tough, you take Stevie's high point (1972-1977) and Jimi's career (1966-1970) and it's a wash. Then you take into account Stevie's work in the 80's i.e. "I Just Called To say I Love You" and "Part-Time Lover" and the pendulum swings in Jimi's favor...

Vote: Jimi Hendrix

The 2nd matchup features an artist who recreated himself over a long and propserous career vs. a band that put out a gazillion songs over what is unquestioned the greatest 8 year run of any artist. To me The Beatles had alot of highs, but some serious lows i.e. "Yellow Submarine" for one. Bowie had an amazing stretch in the early 70's, but created some masterpieces in the late 70's, some great pop hits in the 80's and his work with the great Trent Reznor in 1997 is enough for me to swing the pendulum in his favor. Plus I like "Life On Mars", "Starman" and "Ziggy Stardust" more than any Beatles song.

Vote: David Bowie

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie - I did say that Beatles were my #1 yesterday, but for a long time I have been really unsure about that. A vote for Bowie feels better.

Jimi Hendrix
The Beatles

Jimi Hendrix
David Bowie

Stevie Wonder
The Beatles

I find that Starman and Life on Mars are reasonably decent songs, but perhaps a bit overrated. My guess is that there are some nuances or aspects of these songs that I have missed so far. Please enlighten me.

Ziggy Stardust is fine song. But, I prefer about a dozen Beatles songs.

Nice to see that uniformity of opinion is not a problem for us.

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

Perhaps I should restate that. When I am rifling through my song collection and putting together a playlist of songs I want to hear that day I am more likely to play those 3 Bowie songs than any Beatles song. I just happen to like them more, nothing more nothing less.

JIMI HENDRIX OVER STEVIE WONDER. Very, very hard to go against Stevie in this matchup. They’re both geniuses and icons in about equal measure. I give Hendrix a very slight edge because I think he’s a bit more revolutionary than Stevie. But I wouldn’t insist on it.

THE BEATLES OVER DAVID BOWIE

1. Revolver
2. Abbey Road
3. Low
4. Ziggy Stardust
5. Rubber Soul
6. Hunky Dory
7. Sgt. Pepper
8. Station to Station
9. Heroes
10. A Hard Day’s Night

The distance between the Beatles and Bowie is about the same as that between Radiohead and the Stones (for which I posted a similar list). Narrow margin, but there’s clearly daylight between them. iirc, I had the Beatles as a 20 and Bowie as a 19.

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For the last few rounds, I’ve been very pleased to see a nice chronological parity, with no decade or era dominating. Sadly, that went out the window for the final four. If you break down the “great nine” in the chronological order of their career peaks, you get something like:

The Beatles
Jimi Hendrix
David Bowie
Stevie Wonder
Prince
Madonna
U2
Nirvana
Radiohead

Well, guess what? The five most recent artists didn’t make the final four. Believe me, I like all of our final four…but none of them has released a classic album in the last 33 years.

Nice to see that perseverant passive-aggressiveness is not a problem for us.

I'd put Scary Monsters up there as a classic!

Two very easy choices for me now!

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

I like the 70s a lot more than the 60s, and arguably the two greatest artists of the 70s are my votes here.

this. plus Wonder's "Characters"!1!




ok, ok, fine, i've given it a try. and, yeah, thanks again, i still know the way to my bunker of shame..

Jimi
Bowie

I think the winner of the Beatles-Bowie match will take the crown, but I would love to see Jimi take it.

Jimi Hendrix
The Beatles

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

I will not vote in the final if the Beatles make it. Why? It's too predictable...

Jimi Hendrix
The Beatles

Jimi Hendrix
The Beatles

Hendrix and the Beatles.

Easy picks for me. Hendrix is responsible for two of my top four albums all time, and I consider him the greatest rock guitarist all time. Stevie Wonder is awesome, but so is everyone left.

Beatles versus Bowie is a little closer, but Bowie's quirky for the sake of quirkiness sometimes gets on my nerves.

Jimi Hendrix
The Beatles

I have an incredible respect and love for all four artists, that said, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix are my two very favorite artists. I'll vote for Jimi over The Beatles if it comes to it though, only so we dont have music's eternal winner take another one.

Jimi Hendrix
the Beatles

Jimi Hendrix
David Bowie

My favorite ten songs among these artists:

1. Tomorrow Never Knows
2. Heroes
3. Five Years
4. Sound and Vision
5. Higher Ground
6. Rock 'n Roll Suicide
7. In My Life
8. All Along the Watchtower
9. Bold As Love
10. Warszawa

Bowie dominated this list more than I expected he would.

Top 10 Songs among these artists:

1) Let It Be
2) Hey Jude
3) Help!
4) Yesterday
5) Superstition
6) A Day In the Life
7) All Along the Watchtower
8) A Hard Day's Night
9) While My Guitar Gently Weeps
10) Changes

Top 10 Albums among these artists
1) Abbey Road
2) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
3) Talking Book
4) Revolver
5) Innervisions
6) Rubber Soul
7) Are You Experienced
8) White Album
9) Songs in the Key of Life
10) Let It Be

Wonder
Beatles

Jimi Hendrix
The Beatles

Free... like a river!

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

STEVIE 19 Jimi 15
BEATLES 20 Bowie 19

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

Jimi Hendrix
David Bowie

Not very hard choices, for the semi-finals. I hope anybody has a chance against The Beatles.

Stevie Wonder
David Bowie

Stevie
Beatles

Stevie Wonder vs. Jimi Hendrix

The album line-up:

1. Are You Experienced?
2. Electric Ladyland
3. Songs in the Key of Life
4. Innervisions
5. Axis: Bold As Love
6. Talking Book

Verdict: Jimi

David Bowie vs. The Beatles:

1. Rubber Soul
2. Revolver
3. Ziggy Stardust
4. Abbey Road
5. Sgt. Pepper's
6. A Hard Day's Night
7. Please Please Me...

Well, you can see where this is going.

Verdict: The Beatles

Yeah, I had a feeling you'd say that!

I love Scary Monsters, but I'm not convinced it merits "classic" status...I'm trying to correct for two biases of mine: 1. Scary Monsters was my first Bowie album, so I have a particular fondness for it (I think you've said it was yours, too, Moonbeam); and 2. It was the last decent album he released for at least a decade. At any rate, I can't honestly put it in the same category as Low or Ziggy.

But, conceding your point, it still works out to one classic album in the last 30 years for the final 4. For a tournament that has managed fairly broad cross-decade representation up to now, I think this 11th-hour cringe is a damn shame.

How about Let's Dance?
And really, I still don't see why age matters. If it's good music, it shouldn't matter how old or young it is.

Stevie

I've listened to 2 albums by each and Stevie would take frst and second. And also (apart from All Along The Watchtower), Stevie would dominate my songs list as well.

Bowie

1) Revolver
2) Ziggy Stardust
3) Abbey Road
4) Station To Station
5) Low
6) "Heroes"
7) Sgt Peppers
8) Hunky Dory
9) White Album
10) Young Americans
11) Rubber Soul

One thing I really respect about Bowie, is that he went where the 60s didn't go. I was listening to Aladdin Sane the other day, and then it came to Aladdin Sane the song and I thought to myself, "Wow, as much as I love Bob Dylan, he would never release a song like this". I think the same applies for the Beatles, VU, and all of the other 60s bands I've heard. You may call it whacky for whacky's sake, but it's welcome to me.

As for songs, off the cuff -

1. Tomorrow Never Knows
2. Suffragette City
3. "Heroes"
4. Abbey Road Medley
5. The Bewlay Brothers
6. She Said She Said
7. A Day In the Life
8. Moonage Daydream
9. Queen Bitch
10. Rock n Roll suicide

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Let’s Dance. For an artist whose whole schtick was constantly pushing the envelope, it’s a strangely of-its-times record; most of it sounds like something that any number of middle-tier new wave bands might have released in 1983 (I do like “Modern Love,” though). It’s a high-profile Bowie album because it was a huge commercial success, but it’s less interesting than almost every one of his 1970s albums.

I could not agree more that “if it’s good music, it shouldn’t matter how old or young it is.” But good music from the last three decades has been completely shut out of our final four. I believe (partly as a matter of principle, but I think the evidence is in favor of it) that pop music from 1965-1980 is no better, and no worse, than music from 1980-1995, or 1995-2010. Somehow, though, the final four slots ALL went to representatives of the 65-80 era.

Don't get me wrong--they're all great. But to have the veterans beat the newbies in ALL FOUR final (9) matchups, in three cases by very narrow margins, is a hard pill for me (don't worry, by tomorrow I'll be over it).

And after Radiohead beat the Stones, I had such high hopes…

Stevie Wonder
The Beatles

Winners in the Final 4...

Jimi Hendrix 54.2% / Stevie Wonder 45.8%
The Beatles 58.3% / David Bowie 41.7%

I think the absence of newer bands has more to do with the older bands being consensus favorites and the newer bands having more divided fan bases. Bands like Radiohead and Nirvana have a lot of die hard fans, but they also have a lot of people who hate them, whereas bands like the Beatles and Stevie Wonder don't have many haters.

I think there are 3 factors that go into that.

1.) I do not have exact demographics, but I'm pretty sure at least 75% of the voters are over the age of 30.

2.) Nearly 100% of the voters have a vast knowledge of music in general and a deep appreciation for the classic sounds of what is perhaps the most important stretch musically, the late 60's.

3.) As Bill pointed out, music over the past 20 years has so many different opinions and tastes. Everything is so spread out and there is so many different styles and genres that fans are either for or against, it is hard to have one artist that sorta breaks down those differences thus making it harder for a current band to make it through a long tournament like this.

Regarding #1: I’m not at all sure that voter age correlates well with era preference. As Midaso pointed out, I’m over 40—I entered the world within a month of Magical Mystery Tour and Axis: Bold as Love—and I am not a classic rock guy. I voted for Radiohead over the Stones (and over Bowie).

At least on AM, it’s been well-noted that some of our younger voters are much more likely to go for the 60s and 70s music than us older farts.

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Regarding #2: AAAAARRGH!

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Regarding #3: Yes.

Hello, how do you find these results for The Beatles and Bowie ? Thanks.

It's a culmination of this forum, people who vote via e-mail, my facebook page and the Slicknation fanpage.