Grammy-winning producer Steve Lillywhite claims Queen are “more relevant today than The Beatles”
The multiple Grammy-winning producer Steve Lillywhite has claimed that Queen are “more relevant today than The Beatles are” as he weighs in on the debate about who is the greatest band of all time.
Lillywhite is known for his work with Talking Heads, U2, Joan Armatrading, The Rolling Stones, Crowded House, The Killers and Siouxsie and the Banshees among many others. His Grammy wins include ‘Album of the Year’ for U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and ‘Producer of the Year’.
However, despite his work being studio based, while appearing on Warren Huart’s Produce Like A Pro podcast, he explained that a what makes a band the best in the world is their ability to play in front of a live audience. Given that The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, Lillywhite claims this hamstrings them heavily in the debate surrounding the best band ever.
“Always it’s been The Beatles when you talk about the greatest bands ever,“ he explained. “But there’s an argument now that the Beatles never made anything you could play in a stadium. The Beatles never made anything you could play at a huge sporting event.”
“So Queen, when you talk about the greatest bands ever – I would never say anyone is the greater than The Beatles – but there’s an argument right now that Queen, because of their ability to transcend stadiums, there’s an argument that they are more relevant today than the Beatles are,” he continued.
However, fans of the ‘Fab Four’ would argue that from mid 1964-onwards, the band almost exclusively played either stadiums or large auditoriums in an era whereby the sound quality of large-scale amplification made this a rarity.
Why did The Beatles stop touring?
Lillywhite is not the only person to ever cite this argument against The Beatles. “Musically, The Beatles had a lovely sound and great songs,” Keith Richards once told the Radio Times. “But the live thing? They were never quite there.” However, Richards has played 2045 shows to date with The Rolling Stones, whereas The Beatles still managed to play live 1471 times with a whopping 391 of those coming in 1962. “They stopped touring in 1966 – they were done already. They were ready to go to India and shit.”
Although this relentless touring in the early days and the stresses of Beatlemania were also surely factors, the ‘Fab Four’ argued at the time that they simply couldn’t hear each other play because of their screaming fans. At the time, PA systems and in-ear technology was not up to the standard required to allow them to play huge shows anymore.
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