In about 6th grade, one of the classes I was in divided itself into Beatles fans vs. Kiss fans. One had to choose which band they liked better – and the class was pretty evenly divided (this was about 1978 or 1979 after all – the height of Kiss’s popularity). I liked Kiss, but didn’t have much trouble deciding to side with The Beatles. It was a pretty serious thing in the class and I recall some pretty heated arguments over which band was better. The Kiss side liked to argue that their band was better because Kiss was heavier and “rocked harder” (plus they had the makeup and we were 11 years old – so that was a positive, not a negative). This set back the Beatles side temporarily until we came back with “Helter Skelter”, which successfully trumped their argument.
It all seems pretty silly now, because how can you really compare those two bands? It’s like comparing apples and oranges, as the saying goes. But, we were kids – mostly not very influenced by rock journalism and society telling us which bands were “cooler” to like. We were going mostly by gut feelings and what appealed to us most at that age. It would be very soon that other factors influenced those decisions. Plus, as we got older we were exposed to more music which expanded our base, and our horizons.
musictoeat.com 
The answer is easy. The Beatles are the better band. They broke musical and cultural ground in every way from first using electronic guitar feedback in “I Feel Fine” to changing our society and the world! Many rock stars, from Bono to Steven Tyler, credit The Beatles with inspiring them to follow their musical career paths. Even Keith Richards said that The Stones made a conscious decision to be the anti-Beatles when they started, so without The Beatles, we wouldn’t even have The Stones. Kiss, in my humble opinion, isn’t in the same universe when it comes to what The Beatles accomplished musically and culturally. 🙂 Just my opinion…….
I think your opinion is shared by most people (including me!), Keep in mind, we were only 10 or 11 years old, though…
I know. You missed the incredible Beatles era by a few years. There will never be anything like it again. (Well, actually, The Beatles era is still going on — just not in the Beatlemania way.) Ringo once remarked “we’re doing pretty good for a band that broke up in ’69.” This was said after One went to number one.
By the way, did you do the “make-up” job on The Beatles photo?
No, I found that picture on the Internet…there’s a bunch of similar ones out there too, if you do a google image search under “beatles kiss”. Quite entertaining…