A life-changing group: Howard Stern names the “number one band of all time”
Howard Stern has a relationship with music like very few others. While not actively pursuing a life in music creation, Stern knew the feelings evoked from being immersed in sound art were too strong to walk away from. He was captivated by the vibrating airwaves and transfixed by their power to touch the hearts and minds of those who heard them. Music for Stern was always far more than a vocation. The songs of his favourite records and bands were his very lifeblood.
Like so many before him, it was Stern’s home life that kickstarted a lifelong love affair with the arts. “When I saw my father as a recording engineer … I was enamoured,” he once commented. “Looking at how my father was so reverential to those people, I thought that maybe he could look at me with that kind of respect if I could get behind a microphone,” he added. It would appear that his journey to becoming one of the most highly regarded DJs of his generation was already laid out in front of him.
With his father encouraging Stern to understand audio from a young age, Howard was immediately drawn to the medium of radio. Aged five and housed in his basement, Stern’s father equipped his son with a turntable, microphone and tape machine. It was from here that the love affair with radio began.
While those formative years in the basement of his family home may have laid the foundations for what was later to become The Howard Stern Show, it was actually Stern’s determination to understand the world of media and the technical challenges that radio would face that proved pivotal. Stern, who was reasonably quiet and reserved in his personality during his early teens, became addicted to radio. He thrived on the backend, understanding the inner workings and slowly building his knowledge before later making the jump to the next step.
Of course, now, as we reflect on his career to date, the accomplishments of Stern from Sirius XM radio to America’s Got Talent needs no real introduction, but it is his commitment to the arts that allowed him the platform to thrive. Now, he can look back, having rubbed shoulders with the many greats of the entertainment world, feeding off their influence and passing on his wisdom in return. It is this knowledge that has led Stern’s followers to dig deeper into his inspirations.
Taking a caller as part of his now-famed radio broadcast, Stern entered a discussion about the three greatest rock bands of all time. While the caller kicked things off with Led Zeppelin, Queen and Rush as his picks for the best, Stern laughed him off with incredulous humour. “If you’re talking overall singular artists, then I can talk to you about James Brown, and I can talk to you about a lot of other people who were important,” Stern responded.
However, the true leanings of Stern’s all-time favourites were still to come: “And fuck all the bullshit with Buddy Holly and the Crickets all that crap, none of it matter until The Beatles, fuck Elvis, fuck Crickets, all that shit,” he added.
Like so many children of his generation, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Paul Weller, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and countless other gigantic names in culture, the arrival of The Beatles was a life-changing event. Osbourne later claimed seeing the band was like waking up to a world full of colour, leaving behind the black-and-white doldrums of a life pre-Beatles. For Stern, it was a similar experience.
Never afraid to be definitive, Stern closed his argument simply stating: “I tell you, The Beatles are the number one band of all time.”
In another conversation with a caller, Stern would also proclaim that The Beatles have the best record of all time. Asked to pick his three favourite LPs of all time, he shared: “If you were going to pick number one, it would have to be a Beatles album, I’d probably say it’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” he said.
While he may have grown into one of the biggest names in radio history, Stern can look back and still see himself as the young kid being blown away by four lads from Liverpool.