# What bands could seriously be considered in the same ballpark as The Beatles?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-bands-could-seriously-be-considered-in-the-same-ballpark-as-the-beatles/752616>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 19, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-bands-could-seriously-be-considered-in-the-same-ballpark-as-the-beatles/752616 "2016-04-19T02:27:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\
**Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-bands-could-seriously-be-considered-in-the-same-ballpark-as-the-beatles/752616/161 "2016-04-21T14:44:26Z")

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Another thing the Beatles and Beethoven have in common is worldwide instant recognition of many of their songs within just a few notes.

Most people recognize _A Hard Day’s Night_ by just the opening chord (George and John’s Faad9, Paul’s high D on bass and a piano chord by G. Martin).

You would be hard pressed to find anyone on earth who could listen to the 4-note motif of the _ **V** ictory_ symphony and not instantly recognize it as, _“Beethoven’s 5th”_ (BTW, dit dit dit dah is Morse code for the letter “ **V** ”…too bad it’s not for the Roman numeral 5, too).

If you want to disqualify Beethoven because he wasn’t in a band, I suggest we time travel him here, put him on stage behind a Bösendorfer, surround him with 3 of the finest musicians alive today, then tell those 3 to be quiet and let Ludwig solo.

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