I posted this on FB and felt, with a couple of minor edits, the post should have a more permanent place:
SiriusXM's Beatles station did a whole weekend of Peter Asher, longtime Beatles' friend and later producer of great note, playing 100 Beatles songs chosen by those fans who filled out a form or called SiriusXM. "I'm a Loser" was no. #99! What hit me as my wife and I were listening while driving in the car this weekend was how the Rolling Stones used to be considered #2 to the Beatles (they even show up ironically on the Sgt. Pepper cover as such), and so many Baby Boomers still reflexively think that. Yet, I can't think of 100 Rolling Stones songs worth remembering, which is amazing to me considering the number of Beatles songs which did not make the 100 list this year, and could easily have done so.
I think I've said this before, but if I had to list the top 1960s and 1970s pop bands, with criteria of (1) the number of hit or worthy songs, (2) how the songs shaped American culture, and (3) how the songs have stood the test of time, I would start with The Beatles, but I would place Simon & Garfunkel above pretty much everyone else. They had maybe ten hit singles at most, but every one of their albums were extraordinary works, with nearly every song being fabulous. And then, in the 1970s and 1980s, Paul Simon showed, in a solo career, multiple incarnations where he mattered in terms of song output.
I would also include bands like The Beach Boys, not so much that their music means much to Millennials, for example, or especially Digital Kids (those born after 2000 and I frankly admit that is my phrase for them), but because they had so many hit songs over their years, and there is something about The Beach Boys which spoke to a particular part of America's then predominating white middle class culture (and still speak to me...). In that sense, The Beach Boys are Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby, where it may become more difficult to understand the appeal as each decade goes by.
Other bands I would list as most important 1960s and 1970s bands in those criteria listed above begin to get us into matters of taste and we completely lose the hit songs criteria as AM radio gets lost around 1968, and albums, not hit singles, become more significant in terms of record sales and popularity, as well as moving from AM to FM radio as a barometer. However, I think the following bands arguably fit the criteria, such as The Who, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and The Kinks. And all of those bands just named beat out The Stones in my perhaps not so humble view. To me, The Stones' best years were 1964-1969 and then, from there, their output becomes almost completely unimpressive to me. I never got the appeal of "Exile on Main Street" (1972) and can't think of a song off that album that means anything to me when I hear it. I'd rather listen to John Lennon solo records from the early 1970s, and certainly would rather listen to McCartney's first solo album from 1970 or 1971, I forget when it was released. And when I think of individual rockers who stood up tall in the late 1960s and still are going strong, Neil Young stands taller than just about anyone else, and I think he speaks to young people today better than most rock troubadours of that time period. And let's not forget, The Beatles are gone by 1970, and yet, in their 1962-1970 period, the output is beyond amazing.
Oh well. Your mileage will most certainly vary.
