My hypothetical group of dead musicians is better than yours (BAND VERSION)

Thanks Fever. I was almost going to forfeit this round due to lack of time and that I am at work right now, but have decided to quickly rush through this round and allow more time for myself for the next two. First of all, I concede John Bonham. My opponent has presented his case (although mostly opinion), and I have to agree that on the whole, Keith Moon just surpasses John Bonham. _____ BASS "This is not much of a contest really." You're telling me… :D "Mingus is one of the greatest composers of the last century http://www.loc.gov...... and radically re-defined his instrument." This may be so, but the fact that he is a good composer and "re-defined" the bass doesn't mean much in this contest. I contend that a band should be more than the sum of its parts, and the inclusion of Charles Mingus to my opponent's line-up is ill-conceived at best, for the following reasons: - The man deserves much respect for the impact he had on his instrument and on future generations of bass players and composers, but this alone doesn't make him better than Cliff Burton. I liken it to Lenny Bruce and the many comedians who were influenced by his comedy… there is no denying that comedy after Lenny Bruce (and bass after Mingus) is better off because of their genius and their influence, but this is no reason to suggest they are the "best". The most influential, perhaps, but not the best. - He was, by all accounts, not a pleasant man. From Wikipedia: "he was sometimes feared for his occasional violent onstage temper, which was at times directed at members of his band, and other times aimed at the audience. He was physically large, prone to obesity (especially in his later years), and was by all accounts often intimidating and frightening when expressing anger or displeasure. Mingus was prone to depression. He tended to have brief periods of extreme creative activity, intermixed with fairly long periods of greatly decreased output." http://en.wikipedia.org... I will continue this point in the "Live Performance" section later, but suffice it to say now that a man like this has no place in a band with the greats that make up the other ï¿½ of my opponent's band. "Burton played simple riffs competently in a Heavy Metal band..." My opponent has clearly not read much about Burton if this is the extent to which he can praise his musical ability. Burton was trained in classical composition and his "early influence was essential in creating the unique musical style for which Metallica became famous." Metallica, the band that Burton essentially led musically until his untimely death, has gone on to sell 100 million albums. http://en.wikipedia.org... My opponent may say that they sold a majority of those albums without Burton's aide, but what we need to consider is that not only did Cliff Burton influence the band more than any other member, but that after his death, the band has only declined in quality. I propose that had Cliff Burton remained alive, that figure of 100 million would be much higher. _______ GUITAR "Who? (jk)" JK alright! My first argument for the guitarist section, voters, is a video: http://www.youtube.com... I will leave it to the voters to watch that video and tell me with a straight face that Vaughan doesn't outplay Jimi on that tune 10-fold. "Again Google is an illuminating tool here. Try searching for "greatest guitarist" or "best guitarist" and have a guess who's name consistently appears at the top of every list (it's not Stevie's). http://www.google.co.uk......= http://www.google.co.uk...; What my opponent has failed to mention is that these lists are more often than not created by idiots. When asked who the greatest guitarist is, those who don't know much about music always resort to Hendrix. It's the fall-back selection to make them seem like they know what's going on in the world of music. I would suggest that this "evidence" is no evidence at all, it's just an accumulation of idiots and no-nothings who have fallen into the "Jimi is the best" trap. "Vaughan's own Wiki page notes the debt he owes to Hendrix as an inspiration. http://en.wikipedia.org...... This is further evidenced by the fact he has covered several Hendrix tunes." Certainly, he's an influence, but is he better? That is what we are trying to find here. The video I've provided above is what we should be using to guage our opinions on, and I leave it to the voters to do so. "Jimi's songs are much more well known and his singing style and composition skills would be more of an asset to any band than Stevie's." Jimi was a terrible singer. I love Bob Dylan, he's my favourite performer, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend he was a good singer. Likewise Jimi. Stevie Ray Vaughan trumps my opponent in the singing department. ______________ SINGER "Freddie was an incredible entertainer but Lennon was a musical and visionary genius." I would say that they were both musical and visionary geniuses, on a par with one-another in this department. "Lennon is far more celebrated as a composer and lyricist having written many of the most poplar and most covered songs of all time. Although Mercury did write some of Queen's songs he is generally regarded first and foremost as a singer, with Brian May receiving most of the musical credit for Queen." Right, but we are talking about our singers as singers. Anyone who thinks Lennon has a more distinctive, versatile and overall better singing voice than Freddie Mercury is sadly mistaken. John Lennon has pretty much one voice he uses for every song, and a slight scream he uses in some songs, 'Mother' for example. Freddie Mercury is a virtuoso, he can sing the very high and the very low. He is also a far more entertaining and exciting front-man than Lennon, hands-down. "Mercury played a bit of piano but had nothing on fellow homosexual rocker Elton John. Lennon could stroke the ivories with the best of them and was a fierce axe man to boot." Elton John is not in my opponent's band so I don't know why he mentioned this. ____________ SONG WRITING & COMPOSITION I'm going to argue this one by contending that for a band to write good songs, they must work together as a team. I will show in the next section that in my opponent's band, this would be very difficult indeed. My opponent's band's inability to work together would extend to song writing as much as live performance. __________ LIVE PERFORMANCE My opponent has argued the Live Performance section by treating the individuals separately, but I think it's obvious that how the band works together is more important. As I've stated earlier, Charles Mingus was an often-times depressed, angry, violent man, with that violence often aimed at his own band members, the rest of the time at the audience who paid to go see him play. Keith Moon was known to fall asleep on stage, mid-song, due to excessive drug use. http://en.wikipedia.org... Yoko Ono would no doubt ensure that John Lennon would not get along with the rest of the band members, due to the undeniable fact that she's a bitch. She broke the Beatles up, she'd no doubt break this band up too. A band filled with tension is no band at all, it is a bunch of individuals playing their instruments. This would show on stage. Hendrix was, by all accounts, a professional and a brilliant live player. But even Jimi would struggle to maintain his onstage grace when accompanied by the band of misfits my opponent has presented. My band, on the other hand, were all a part of a successful band at one stage or another, their untimely deaths the only things that forced their departure. Once again, a band is a group of musicians playing together, not a group of destructive, comatose individuals who despise and act violently towards one-another. ---- Thanks mate, back to you.