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The best act since The Beatles?

  • 02-06-2017 11:08pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,339 ✭✭✭


    It's coming close to 50 years since The Beatles split up. Many acts since have been touted as the 'New Beatles'.

    All have come up short in one way or another. The Beatles are still generally regarded as the best act ever in popular music & the way music is now, I can't see any act really beat them for value.

    So, who do you think came closet to them in talent, sales, & durability?

    My shout goes to

    Pink Floyd & post '69 era Who. Plus an honourable mention for David Bowie.

    So what's yours & why?


Comments

  • Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 74,773 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    My view - the Beatles were a great studio band. You cannot deny the success they had up to 1970. However they stopped touring in 66. That pretty much means 8 years of churning out (great) songs and 4 years of showing they could deliver them on stage. Some boy bands last longer than that! So yes - a great band, but the fact they stopped so soon perhaps results in a case of their status being partially sustained by nostalgia.

    Compare that with a band like the Who (and indeed the Stones) who have actually improved their live performances over 50+ years. Even Queen at their pomp were around turning out great records and performances for well over a decade.

    And as a solo artist no-one matches Bowie for me.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,249 ✭✭✭holyhead


    Abba for me. Yes they were more pop than rock but the brilliance of the music, songwriting and vocals put them for me comfortably the best group since the The Beatles.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,019 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    It depends on the criteria you use.

    Commercial success or critical success?

    Popularity or cult following?

    Longevity or intensive success?


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,245 ✭✭✭myshirt


    Wings


  • Registered Users Posts: 919 ✭✭✭Joe prim


    myshirt wrote: »
    Wings

    The band that the Beatles could have been (Alan Partridge)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,243 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    Beasty wrote: »
    My view - the Beatles were a great studio band. You cannot deny the success they had up to 1970. However they stopped touring in 66. That pretty much means 8 years of churning out (great) songs and 4 years of showing they could deliver them on stage. Some boy bands last longer than that! So yes - a great band, but the fact they stopped so soon perhaps results in a case of their status being partially sustained by nostalgia.

    I'd be inclined to believe that The Beatles relatively short career producing records only adds to their greatness - between '63 and '70 they kept pumping out inspired music, constantly evolving and staying ahead of the pack right up until the point when they stopped. There was no fallow period or some part of their career where they were less than excellent. All of their contemporaries who outlasted them have released a lot of dross over the years, it's only natural if you've been around so long. The Beatles never had to contend with that problem: that's not nostalgia, just really, really good quality control - all killer, no filler.

    And lets be fair, they played A LOT of gigs between 1960-66 and, during all that, - in the words of internet music critic Mark Prindle - "they pretty much invented modern rock'n'roll by combining the rockabilly of Buddy Holly and Elvis with the crisp vocal harmonies and melodic sensibility of The Everly Brothers" - also while redefining what it meant to be a "band" in the first place. Then they became a studio band and continued to push the boundaries there too. Good going, if you ask me.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Sheridan81


    I think Prince was more talented than Lennon & McCartney. He could do everything and I'm pretty sure he wrote far more songs than those guys. If Lennon was Beckenbauer and McCartney was Cruyff then Prince was Di Stefano. Don't ask me who's Pele/Messi/Maradona/Ronaldo/the Brazilian Ronaldo cause that's the end of my weakass analogy.


  • Registered Users Posts: 54,495 ✭✭✭✭walshb


    Musically I’d go with Queen.

    Performance wise the same..

    Solo artist is without doubt, Michael Jackson!


  • Registered Users Posts: 6 BOON90


    QUEEN


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 187 ✭✭fundi


    Probably Abba. Huge all around the world. I think they were worth more to the Sweden economy than Volvo at the time.


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