What do you think would have happened if this happened to the Beatles?

Question

now this might not make historical sense, but bear with me,

what if they had split up in the really early days, and

one team consisted of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best

the other John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Ringo Starr

which group would have had more success and why?

of course assuming Sutcliffe stayed alive, which band do you think would be more popular today if they both had the same length run as the real beatles

Answer 1

Here's what would really happen: Paul would ask Pete to go and get lunch for him and George, and while he was gone, Paul would record all the drum parts. And because George would be prepared for the eventuality where he would have to say "I won't play if you don't want me to play", so Paul will say, "okay, um, why don't you go help Pete with the lunch?" and then record all the guitar parts as well.

Meanwhile, John would be like, "So what if Stuart can't play the bass, we can still have a good time right?" and Ringo would be like, "okay" and proceed to by a round of drinks for everybody, and they'd end up sitting outside some art gallery staring and giving critique at the artworks.

Then they'd see George and Pete walking buy carrying lunch and ask them to join their group instead, and they'd say "yes" and then John would ask Pete to go get tea, and while he was away, they'd sneak into the studio and record the highly influential Plastic Ono Band album, and write songs for each other to sing.

Answer 2

Rock and roll bands are like capturing lightening in a jar. The Beatles were the ulitmate in that. Chances are, both bands would fail. Excuse the cliche, but the Beatles were the perfect storm. Emphasis on the "perfect."All of their spinoff endeavors were mediocre at best. A nice question, which shows your obvious grasp on music history. I appreciate that. But I dont see either of those bands eclipsing what the Beatles were all about.

That being said, the group with George would be better. Most people dont realize how great George Harrison was on guitar, and how much he contributed to the Beatles. When Eric Clapton calls someone the greatest guitarist of his era, people should listen.

EDIT: For the asker

Any friend of Roy Orbison is a friend of mine. Possibly the sweetest voice ever recorded!

Answer 3

Probably the One with Paul cause Paul just knows how to make commercial success. Even in their solo work, Paul was the most sucessful. But then again, I never like his solo stuff much either..... but George really was the backbone to the Beatles and he is an amazing guitarist. I'm personally not a big fan of Pete Best though.

Answer 4

McCartney had released more albums until Lennon's death. Lennon wrote more of the songs that people feel are "Beatles" songs towards the end of their run.
Ringo Starr had more #1 singles (with 8) than the others.
With those statistics, I would guess that John, Stu, and Ringo would have come out on top.

Answer 5

Team A outsells Team B, simply because Paul McCartney's willingness and ability to be commercial far exceeded John's and Ringo's, for sure.

Team B might have made more interesting music, though.

Answer 6

I'm assuming the band with McCartney and Harrison, since Stu couldn't really play bass all that well, he was just a good friend and artist that the others wanted to have with them. Musically, I doubt that he could have cut it.

Answer 7

I believe the one with McCartney and Harrison because Paul probably was the most prolific of the song writers and
George was a great guitar player. (My Opinion)

Answer 8

Paul would be more appealing
but as the 60's got more into peace I'd say that John would have more success

Answer 9

oooh....I'm gonna bring this one up next party! It's like if yin and yang were to split---rock vs. pop. All I know is neither would be as good as the Lennon-McCartney team.

Answer 10

I would say the Paul/George/Pete combo because it would have had the most songwriting talent.