Relax Musicfan. Your opinion is much appreciated and the discussion is a tough one with strong points from both sides. Nothing wrong with that. It's all Beatlesfans here, but that doesn't mean everybody takes everything for granted, including Kevin.
I think people like Kevin and I notice many other people sort of resent the Beatles. So the tact they will go after is if the Beatles were the not exact first to have a sitar on pop recording though the idea never went through for example well they did nothing with it. I am the other way around George Harrison actually played, and incorporated the instrument into their records unlike the Yardbirds Jeff Beck.
The Beatles music is both simple and sophisticated. There music always provided an easy point of entry that hooks us yet subtle and complex enough that set them apart from the mundane. The blend of simplicity and sophistication was key to their commercial and artistic success. They had their own sound and had an uncanny ability to absorb outside influences and integrate them seamlessly into their sound.
The Beatles were not the first to use overdubbing or multitracking it had been around for awhile. But starting with Rubber Soul and peaking in Sgt. Pepper. The Beatles use of it and style achieved tremendous results that they inspired legions of imitators. Songs like “Eleanor Rigby” and “A Day in the Life” expanded the range of rock music and people started to associate those songs to high art. Because of all this the Beatles had a huge influence on the sound of rock music. Rock records from 1962 to 1970 sounded a lot different, they were better produced and offered a lot broader palette of sounds
The main difference between the Beatles and Dylan is that Dylan did it mainly with words the Beatles did it music, studio and words. The Beatles there is a beautiful coordination between lyrics and significant musical features that you hear on “Eleanor Rigby” and “A Day in the Life”.
Bob Dylan influenced the Beatles lyrically to write more meaningful and less teen orientated music. But the Beatles were expanding their sound world in a more adventurous and in encompassing way. Bob Dylan drew on existing pop styles and used them in a more serious lyrical approach. The Beatles by contrast reached further away from musical traditions far removed from rock and roll traditions like classical Indian music or string quartets playing classical music. Moreover they synthesized these aspects seamlessly into their music that it became the fabric behind their music
The Beatles and Dylan was part of the explosion that created a new sound world that took over the marketplace. You had Motown, soul and the merging of various rock subgenres. There were other groups were working in the same path as the Beatles and Bob Dylan like Brian Wilson, the Who and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. But no one did more to make rock a form of a compelling expression as an art form more than the Beatles and Bob Dylan.