Ashes to ashes, funk to funky:

4. David Bowie (62)

98 gone, 3 left:

The Rolling Stones (60)
Bob Dylan (51)
The Beatles (47)

Anybody surprised by that?

In this, our second-to-last week, your top choice for elimination gets 3 points.

And now, Week 34.

Sigh. I was afraid of this. If you combine all 3 of the top artists, I'd like maybe 4 songs, all of which are by the Rolling Stones. Music would cease to matter to me if I was stuck with the discographies of the remaining artists, but perhaps then I would grow to appreciate it more!

1. The Beatles
2. Bob Dylan
3. The Rolling Stones

All this way and it looks like the Beatles will win. Oh well, so much for my hope of an underdog.

3 points - The Beatles
2 points - Bob Dylan
1 point - The Rolling Stones

3 pts. Beatles
2 pts. Stones
1 pt. Dylan

3 points : Bob Dylan
2 points : The Beatles
1 point : The Rolling Stones

I would not be as virulent as Moonbeam but the island has suddenly lost some interest to me !

1. Rolling Stones 3
2. Bob Dylan 2
1. Beatles 1

3 Points- Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan was not interested in production or really being that progressive musically. The vocals are the biggest reason for me.
2 Points- The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones are a great band. The Beatles had to pave the way for them and inspire them to write their own music. The Beatles flourished using non rock sources with rock and The Rolling Stones results were mixed at best.
1 Point- The Beatles. The Beatles early stuff is just way more original and inventive than the Stones or Bob Dylan. They covered songs like "Roll over Beethoven" and "Honey Don't" yet they came up with songs that musically are nothing like it "Don't Bother Me", "If I Fell", "Not a Second Time" "Things We Said Today". All you need to do is study the chords and harmonies the Beatles were using.

The Rolling Stones were not as progressive or as innovative as the Beatles and Dylan said the Beatles were pointing the direction of music. That's good enough for

1. (3p) Bob 'The Builder' Dylan
2. (2p) Rolling Scones
3. (1p) The Beatless

Moonbeam’s comment got me a-thinkin’. I’ve known for a while that the Beatles have by far the largest number of songs on AM: 71 if you include the bubbling-unders. Want to guess who’s in second place?

It’s a two-way tie between Dylan and the Stones, with 46 each.

Moonbeam, I know debating sixties music with you is a fool’s errand, but that’s 163 songs…I can’t believe anyone can’t find more than four that are any good (that’s about 2.5%).

****

BTW, the full top ten artists with the largest number of songs on AM:

1. The Beatles (71)
2. Bob Dylan (46)
2. The Rolling Stones (46)
4. Elvis Presley (32)
5. Madonna (26) (yikes)
6. U2 (23)
7. Prince (22)
8. James Brown (20)
9. The Beach Boys (19)
9. David Bowie (19)
9. Aretha Franklin (19)
9. Neil Young (19)

****

Oh yes…my ballot:

1. THE ROLLING STONES (3 pts)
2. BOB DYLAN
3. THE BEATLES

8 points: Lennon and his Funky Triplets
2 points: The Band That Gathered No Moss
-3 points: Jack Frost

3 points - Rolling Stones
2 points - Bob Dylan
1 point - The Beatles

1. Beatles
2. Dylan
3. Stones

3 pts: Stones
2 pts: Beatles
1 pt: Bobby D

All you need to do is study the chords and harmonies the Beatles were using.


And notice the overwhelming blandness of it all.

3 points - The Beatles
2 points - The Rolling Stones
1 point - Bob Dylan

And 3/4 of The Beatles' songs + 1/2 of The Rolling Stones & Bob Dylan's are on AM because of the Beatles, Stones and Dylan bandwagons respectively.

Well now that Bowie is gone, not much left to do.

3 Points - The Beatles
2 Points - The Rolling Stones
1 Point - Bob Dylan

Wow, it seems that it always ends up with the three usual suspects.

Anyway:

3 pts - Rolling Stones (don't care much about them)
2 pts - Beatles (like them a lot)
1 pts - Bob Dylan (love him)

3 pts: Bob Dylan
2 pts: The Rolling Stones
1 pt: The Beatles


Are any of us (anyone at all) still actually enthusiastic about this game any more?
The most unlikely result now is that the Stones would win - and even if that happened it'd hardly be a shock.

Name any rubbish 21st century pop singer - I prefer them to Bob Dylan.

3 - Dylan
2 - Stones
1 - Beatles

I just don't understand it - why anyone would put the Beatles above Dylan...

3 points: Beatles
2 points: Rolling Stones
1 point: Bob Dylan

as someone who's been giving Dylan 5 points since December, I can say for my part that it's a matter of taste. Dylan is appallingly rubbish, although his lyrics are good. (Then he should have just published books of poetry for the last 45 years or so)

I just don't understand it - why anyone would put the Beatles above Dylan... Maybe because Dylan can't sing or that the Beatles had better melodies. Dude go listen to the vocal harmonies on Abbey Road and they did not have to rely on five singers like the Beach Boys either or studio musicians either.

Midaso you are entitled to your opinion. Every week you constantly bash the Beatles. Recently, I kept my opinions to myself. To these ears it's hard to say Dylan sounds musically better than say "In My Life", "Norwegian Wood", "Rain" "Yesterday", "Dear Prudence" "Eleanor Rgby" "Let It Be" "A Day in the Life" "Here There and Everywhere", "I've Just Seen A Face", "Blackbird" "Julia", "Hey Jude", "Things We Said Today" and maybe 80 other songs.

If Dylan wins on this poll fine it does not change my opinion.

3 points- Rolling Stones
2 points- Bob Dylan
1 point- Beatles

Harpo, I agree that there’s something slightly dispiriting about having the usual suspects in the top three. Not to say they’re not deserving, but…well, we started with such a rich array of artists to contemplate, and for most of Survivor (for me, at least) there really was a sense that almost anything could happen. We don’t have that anymore, and it’s too bad.

So maybe, to keep things interesting, now would be a good time to look back at where we’ve been. Being a mad scientist, I’ve been keeping track of the results of Survivor, and here I can reveal the biggest overachievers, and the most surprising washouts, of the last eight months of competition.

****

I’ve taken each artist’s Survivor “ranking” and divided it by their actual AM ranking to see which artists we, as a group, liked a lot more than the critics. These are Survivor's overachieving dark horses:

1. Radiohead (Survivor #5 / AM #19): .263
2. Johnny Cash (#16 / #43): .372
3. The Kinks (#13 / #33): .394
4. Nick Drake (#36 / #91): .396
5. Neil Young (#7 / #17): .412
6. Tom Waits (#29 / #59): .492
7. The Velvet Underground (#6 / #12): .500
8. Sly and the Family Stone (#21 / #40): .525
9. Leonard Cohen (#48 / #87): .552
10. PJ Harvey (#34 / #61): .568

Radiohead took this category by a considerable margin (hope Kevin’s reading this).

By the way, in these stats I didn’t include artists who were voted into the field during the Loophole Round (remember that?), because some of them are ranked so low on AM that the comparison would have been unfair. By far, our two biggest collective favorites from the Loophole Round are Curtis Mayfield (.257) and Hank Williams (.269).

More numbery goodness later tonight.

Maybe because Dylan can't sing


Right, be superficial.

Lots of folks sang better than The Beatles anyhow. You just didn't hear them because they were on the outskirts, and The Beatles were in the center.


Dude go listen to the vocal harmonies on Abbey Road and they did not have to rely on five singers like the Beach Boys either or studio musicians either.


Huh?

Brian Wilson didn't need 5 singers - he had them out of habit.

And also, what's the difference between 5 singers and 3 if you're going to multi-track them to the sky in the latter case?

And The Beatles, from 1965 on, were all about the studio musicians or the studio tricks, so I can't see what you're talking about.

Who even cares about studio musicians? That's akin to saying classical composers suck because they need ensembles.


To these ears it's hard to say Dylan sounds musically better than say "In My Life", "Norwegian Wood", "Rain" "Yesterday", "Dear Prudence" "Eleanor Rgby" "Let It Be" "A Day in the Life" "Here There and Everywhere", "I've Just Seen A Face", "Blackbird" "Julia", "Hey Jude", "Things We Said Today" and maybe 80 other songs.


To these ears, it's easy to say almost all of the song you've mentioned are actually a bit dumb. If it wasn't for the Beatlesy charm and hype, you'd recognize them as dumber melodically than what acclaimed but fringe artists can do.

I mean seriously - "Norwegian Wood"? "In My Life"? "Yesterday"? Hyped tripe. Want an "Yesterday", go grab a violin and do it better.

All you need afterwards is to brainwash people into thinking you're good.

If you had asked me at the begining what the remaining 3 would be, I would have said stones, dylan, and beatles. Im Guessing that everyone had the same answer. The question now lies. Can Bob dylan beat the beatles with his never ending great career, or can rolling stones 4 classic albums and a handful of greats beat an almost perfect career by the beatles

To me Beatles probably deserve this status due to the fact that they've been such an inspirational and important act since they release there first album. Almost every song and every album has stood the test of time. Thats something you cant say about any artist
in history EXCLUDING: Nick Drake and Velvet underground due to there limited discography.

3points rolling stones
2the beatles
1Bob dylan

Blood on the tracks stands apart from any of the remaing artist works. It gives dylan the edge for me in a very close race

Sad eyed lady of the lowlands is also my favourite song so...

Schleuse - Nothing livens up an anticlimactic finish like some of your patented number crunching. Of course, the next question after the "who do we overrate" list is the "who do we underrate" list!

1. (3 pts) - The Rolling Stones
2. (2 pts) - Bob Dylan
3. (1 pt) - The Beatles

Thats something you cant say about any artist


Try me.

Almost every decent band's best song is better than anything by The Beatles.

Schwah, I aims to please: here are the highly ranked artists who left the island surprisingly early (using the same formula I used in my previous post).

WASHOUTS:
1. Bruce Springsteen (Survivor #27 / AM #6): 4.500
2. U2 (#56 / #15): 3.733
3. Led Zeppelin (#18 / #5): 3.600
4. The Doors (#80 / #30): 2.667
5. Elvis Presley (#24 / #9): 2.667
6. Beastie Boys (#86 / #34): 2.529
7. The Smiths (#68 / #27): 2.519
8. Creedence Clearwater Revival (#83 / #36): 2.306
9. Madonna (#88 / #45): 1.956
10. John Lennon (#79 / #41): 1.927

Here we see one of the limitations of Survivor: most of these are not artists that everybody hates; in fact, they all have considerable support here. But just a handful of committed people needed to dislike an artist to boot them off the island.

(My prints are on the trigger for #3, #4, and #8.)

Interestingly, many of these artists have a reputation for bombast…the top six do, anyway.

****

Finally, there were some artists who have almost the exact same “ranking” in Survivor that they have on AM. These five artists placed within one spot of their AM ranking:

The Who (#9 / #8)
Jimi Hendrix (#11 / #10)
The Clash (#15 / #16)
Run-D.M.C. (#97 / #96)
Pet Shop Boys (#101 / #100)

Only one artist has the exact same ranking in both AM and Survivor: last week’s evictee, David Bowie (although there’s a chance that he will share that distinction with at least one of the remaining three).

On an unrelated and considerably less celebratory note, your humble moderator (that's me) requests that we not turn this thread into another shitstorm.

Like most of you, normally I just ignore posts which are snotty and abusive. But this is getting ridiculous, and I'm tired of having our little music-nerd diversions marred by smugness, solipsism, and hostility.

Bottom line: I welcome the comments of any music nerd who can play nice. But if you cannot make a point without mocking and attacking other forum posters, then I respectfully ask that you stay the hell out of Survivor and the HOA.

(ahem)

Your moderator will now resume his normal policy of benign neglect. I return you to Survivor Week 34, already in progress.

Whatever, man. If someone can dismiss out of hand what I like, I can dismiss out of hand what they like too, even if I secretly like it a lot too.

And it's not new. It's been like this always; not just here, but everywhere. Even Einstein used to be made fun of by his colleagues for his "relativity nonsense", and have spite directed at him once he became famous - just because he was famous. And name any philosopher and check how belligerent they were. Snotty kids, every single one.

All of this over the silliest, most trivial assertive nonsense.

It's not going to end any day soon, so might as well smile and not take each other that seriously.

Being all serious and stuff only makes it worse.

Then again, you can't see facial expressions on forums, and smilies often seem redundant to clarifications - so maybe the snotty are just elusively sarcastic in a harmless way.

Especially when making sweeping statements.

I'll try to stay positive (with or without The Hold Steady). And actually schleuse, as I've said before, this game has been awesome and thanks for putting it on.

I definitely don't hate the Beatles and don't mind if they win, but I just thought it'd be fun to have a different #1 from the AM forums to distinguish this small sampling of people who post here from the critical majority. I guess we'll just have to do it with our disproportionate love of the VU and Radiohead and our disproportionate loathe for Bruce Springsteen

And on a side note, I was thinking of concocting a game for music made 1970 and later. We'd probably end up with David Bowie and Radiohead at the end, but it'd still be interesting to have a different winner than we're used to.

Wow after tallying up these numbers myself, should be a surprising Week 35...

Straightforwardness based on mild discontent passing off as virulence to the unwary still beats indifferent virulence that passes off as politeness - and any day.

Regardless. I apologize for annoying you, schleuse.

Mismaiome cracks me up.
The Beatles used two or sometimes three vocalists. The vocal harmonies on "Because" is sick and so is "Dear Prudence" Like Billy Joel said about the Beatles once the "Beatles were melodic freaks". They were harmonizing in fourth and fifths rather than in conventional thirds which made them appealing to folk musicians like the Byrds.

The Beatles used studio musicians but at least all four of the Beatles were playing their instruments. Rubber Soul and Revolver were really not that reliant on orchestration. Carol Kaye was basically the Beach Boys bassist for the Beach Boys for two years.


3-points Bob Dylan vocally makes him below these two. His lyrics are cool and he influenced many including the Beatles.
2-points The Rolling Stones- I would have put the Who ahead of the Stones. Like the Beatles they have a deep catalog. So maybe they deserve the second spot.
1 point- The Beatles say what you want about them they basically have influenced much of mainstream rock music and pop music the last 45 years. I can't really say that about anyone including Elvis or Chuck Berry. Any rock musician would kill to have these songs In My Life", "Norwegian Wood", "Rain" "Yesterday", "Dear Prudence" "Eleanor Rigby" "Let It Be" "A Day in the Life" "Here There and Everywhere", "I've Just Seen A Face", "Blackbird" "Julia", "Hey Jude", "Things We Said Today"

You're using Bob Dylan's voice as a reason to vote him out???!!! After all this time - THAT'S the reason. You'd never voted for him before!!!
(By the way,if you look at the history of the grammy awards,you'll find Dylan is more decorated for his vocal work than the Beatles)

3 points: Bob Dylan
2 points: The Rolling Stones
1 point: The Beatles -- I didn't leave my comments on the Beatles last week, so I will do so now.

My all time favourite band. It's nice to see them still in the game, and yeah, it would be nice if they won, but I really do love all three remaining artists.

Three of my all-time favourite albums are Revolver, The White Album, and my #1, Abbey Road.

My personal fave songs of theirs: "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End," "Let It Be," "Hey Jude," "Here Comes the Sun," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Something," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Dear Prudence," "Blackbird," "Lovely Rita," "Cry Baby Cry," "Everybody's Got Something to Hide...," "I Feel Fine," "Revolution," "I Will," "Real Love," "Good Morning Good Morning," "Baby You're a Rich Man," "She Said She Said," "Here, There and Everywhere," "Martha My Dear," "Two of Us," "Hello, Goodbye," "I Am the Walrus," "With a Little Help from My Friends," "Two of Us," "Good Day Sunshine," "In My Life," among many many others.

1. The Rolling Stones
2. Bob Dylan
3. The Beatles

1. Bob Dylan
2. The Rolling Stones
3. The Beatles

No change really. I simply like the sound of the Stones and the Beatles better, although "Blood on the Tracks" is equally brilliant as anything either of those two bands put out. So, respect to all three, although I do have favorites.

Mismaiome cracks me up.
The Beatles used two or sometimes three vocalists. The vocal harmonies on "Because" is sick and so is "Dear Prudence" Like Billy Joel said about the Beatles once the "Beatles were melodic freaks". They were harmonizing in fourth and fifths rather than in conventional thirds which made them appealing to folk musicians like the Byrds.


You still don't get it, do you?

I love The Beatles. The Beatles are my favorite band. I'm a Beatles fan desperately in denial. You don't have to tell me what I know so well.

That said, Prince is still the greatest artist of all times and I will hate you all for the rest of my life for voting him off.

And I still don't agree with any single word you've said, Reuben.