I tend to think it was John, by some margin. Guys like Queen's Freddy Mercury and Brian May would say that he was the most inspiring artist for them and that's how I see it too about him: as amazing artist, not only a great singer, and someone who transcended music. Paul has been on for a while but his solo career, even long as it is, has never felt as meaningful to me as John's. I would even go to say that George's "My Sweet Lord" (plagiarism and all) is more influential than anything Paul has ever released by himself.

Paul is a fantastic musician with a great ear for pop and trends. He was also the most accomplished musician in the band, the best technical singer (although I personally prefer John's voice timbre) with an amazing vocal range. When in partnership with John's sense and Martin's arrangements, Paul was a force to be reckoned, but even on his best days I would say that his compositions trailed behind John's ones (take "A Day in the Life" for example. Nothing in "Sargent" comes even close in terms of pure genius).

So, for me, John.

Lololol

Respect. Like I said, for me anything from "For Sale" until the end of the band could take the spot, since there would be good arguments for any of them (heck, irregular as I think it is, "Help" is amazing and brings "Yesterday" AND "Ticket to Ride" along to boot).

I tend to interpret things not only by my taste and technical quality perception, but also historically. Up to that point, they had been a pop rock band with not as much room for experimentation as they would later have. Then BAM! comes Rubber Soul and along with fantastic tracks it provides a sense of new, anarchic and even rebellious posture with nice messages in between, plus absurdly high quality composition and production values, paving the way for everything that would in their future define the band as "The Beatles", musically. Not the pop culture monsters and beatlemania boys anymore, but gigantic, larger than life musicians, influencers (wut?) and creators. All that, for me, would start here, with this album, which will generally be my pick for best one. And it doesn't hurt that one of their most amazing tunes is also here (In My Life).

Bonus track: I saw one documentary in which George Martin goes to say it is also his favorite album. As the most important member of the band that was not "in" the band (more so than Epstein), I think I'm in good company. :)

I see why The Beatles can be considered the best rock band ever, but I'd like to point out that, while inventing something makes you a pioneer, it doesn't necessarily put you closer to being the best at what you invented.

I don't usually like to tell people there music taste is wrong but your music taste is wrong.

Revolver, when better Beatle bloom: George Harrison 

Haha, someone made a full version of the Simpsons parody of Revolution 9

Complete bullshit.  Don't make stuff up.  That's not even close to being true.    

Educate yourself.

"If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."  -- John Lennon

Bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin were directly influenced by Blues and early American Rock n' Roll.  Rock already existed. The Beatles didn't really invent anything, they just came along and made evolving scenes more popular.

Oh, really, Einstein? Do you even know what a full sentence is? Care to read that properly and try again? For your work here you don't even get a single little star for effort. Sorry.

Nope. Im into Lou Reed, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, Tom Waits etc etc. nice try though, mate.

The Velvet Underground is a much more iconic, important, and influential band than The Beatles could have ever dreamed of being.