The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of the universe. Their total sales are over a billion, which sounds impressive in and of itself, but here's a fact to consider--enough Beatles albums have been sold in the United States that it averages out so that if every Beatles album ever sold was still in existence (I know this isn't the case, but given that my parents have every stupid Hall and Oates vinyl album in our basement, my guess is most are still intact somewhere), it would average out so that almost every single American fifteen years or older would own one. And this is for a British band. Americans like buying American music, but the Beatles seem to be as American as steak and kidney pie.
But anyway, for the last forty years since the dissolution of the Fab Four, many musical acts have been touted as the next Beatles. Some more legitimately than others (perhaps one of the most famous cases of such hype, The Knack, fell well short of inclusion on this list). Here's a rundown of the musical artists that came the closest to earning the title of The Next Beatles.
10. Led Zeppelin--Now, Zeppelin existed a couple years before the breakup of the Beatles, which hurts its stock. Also hurting the stock is that the styles are generally considered quite different. But once you look past the surface, the bands are similar. Besides the superficial similarities of both being British and both being extremely popular bands capable of selling out football stadiums on both sides of the Atlantic, Led Zeppelin were extremely noteworthy among the early "heavy metal" (I dispute using this term on Zep, but others don't) acts by utilizing many different styles. In the same way that the initially very pop Beatles ventured into folk or hard rock territory, the initially hard-edged blues rockers Led Zeppelin went folk (Going to California), funk (Trampled Under Foot), and world music (Kashmir). Few bands can be true innovators and insanely popular--The Beatles and Led Zeppelin are among them.
9. Blur--Of the British bands since 1980, I'd argue that Blur is the one whose sound most resembles that of The Beatles. Their run as a band lasted about as long as The Beatles and they followed a similar trajectory of musical evolution (beginning with an already-popular style and then doing their own thing). Like The Beatles, Blur had an extremely charismatic frontman who went on to tremendous success outside of the band (Damon Albarn went on to make some solo music, but most notably is the frontman for the animated band Gorillaz). But, not to be America-centric, Blur wasn't nearly popular enough in the United States to make them The Beatles. The Beatles are defined by having a global impact, and Blur was basically a pretty popular (think the popularity of, say, Pearl Jam or RHCP in the 90s) British band who had one American hit (Song 2, a song you know whether you know it or not, and which has absolutely no resemblance to a majority of the band's work). To be the Beatles, you can't just be popular with relatively small pockets of people, no matter how good you are.
8. Radiohead--Argument's basically the same as Blur. Both are really popular in Britain, and while Radiohead is bigger in the states than Blur, they aren't in the same freaking stratosphere as The Beatles. Radiohead arguably comes closer to the Beatles pattern of becoming popular in the existing style and then gaining the artistic freedom to do whatever the hell they pleased. Radiohead is also the polar opposite of The Beatles when it comes to personability. A bit part of the Beatles appeal was that they all seem like likable fellows--Thom Yorke, on the other hand, is considered an obnoxious prick even by Radiohead fans.
7. David Bowie--He began just before the breakup of The Beatles, but he really didn't become a musical trailblazer until just after. Perhaps no musical act ever, including the Fab Four, is more known for musical diversity; in 1975 he was recording straight funk albums and by 1977 he was in Berlin recording krautrock. His fans absolutely adore him for his weirdness. The one thing, however, which keeps him out of the Beatles league is that a lot of people detest Bowie. I myself will admit to not being an enormous Bowie fan. The Beatles, however, are loved by everybody. Let's put it this way--if somebody tells me they prefer Lynyrd Skynyrd to David Bowie, I will nod my head and acknowledge the merits to the argument. If they say they prefer Skynyrd to The Beatles, I ask them where they're holding their slaves.
6. ABBA--Now, ABBA is not a rock band. But in terms of being a band that became a worldwide phenomenon, it's pretty damn hard to beat ABBA. For a band you probably can't name any members of, it's hard to imagine a band could reach #1 in ten different countries, as ABBA did with Dancing Queen. Of course, The Beatles were also a damn good band, and ABBA isn't. I'm not trying to sound like some kind of condescending metalhead who can't appreciate lighter music, because I'm not, but what's ABBA's best song? S.O.S? Waterloo? Can these songs really be compared to even mediocre Beatles songs?
5. Nirvana--They have a John Lennon equivalent in Kurt Cobain, they have a Yoko Ono equivalent in Courtney Love, they defined fashion for a generation and they made really good pop music under their own little umbrella. But for as much attention as Nirvana gets as the biggest band of the era (which is true, but this era was really only about two and a half years), do non-rock fans know their music? I could name a dozen Nirvana songs off the top of my head as a relatively casual fan of theirs, but if I asked every single person on my Facebook friends list, which consists primarily of people within a few years of my age, to name as many Nirvana songs as they could, I'm predicting that at least 90% come up with one or fewer. They're arguably more known for Next Beatles hype than for Next Beatles credentials.
4. The Rolling Stones--I know what you're thinking. Well, I have a decent idea. And yes, the Stones were a well-established band who had made most of their classic hits before The Beatles broke up. But the fact is, The Rolling Stones were heirs to the throne and they held it as the most popular rock band in the world for quite some time. Let's keep it fair and limit it to iconic rock songs that everybody and their mother knows that have been released since 1970 (the year the Beatles broke up)--Brown Sugar. Wild Horses. Angie. Miss You. Beast of Burden. Start Me Up. And a bunch of other songs that you merely probably know. They might be peers of the Beatles, but they are also worthy successors.
3. Oasis--I'll be honest: As a die-hard Oasis fan, I never saw the Beatles comparisons. Wonderwall and Don't Look Back in Anger, relatively weak songs by Oasis standards--sure. But overall, the reason Oasis to The Beatles comparisons are valid outweigh the fact that Oasis is more of a hard rock band akin to Led Zeppelin 80% of the time. Oasis is an insanely popular band--their popularity in the United States never really exceeded "able to perform in arenas as a co-headliner" (as they did with The Black Crowes), but I think most Americans under the age of 30 are at least aware that Oasis exists. And in most of the world they were a stadium band until they broke up. They also covered The Beatles more than any other act I'm aware of other than Joe Cocker (note: Oasis covers of Beatles songs generally sound quite different from the originals, notably I Am The Walrus and Within You Without You).
2. Queen--Freddie Mercury is one of the few rock stars whose status as an icon can be compared with the individual members of The Beatles. They made a bunch of great rock songs that everyone knows and are absurdly popular throughout the world. The one thing that keeps Queen from being Modern Beatles is diversity--other than possibly Crazy Little Thing Called Love, basically all of their hits fall into the stadium rock vernacular--unless I'm really missing something, Brian May never polished off a steel pedal guitar or picked up a fiddle. Queen merely has to settle for being a really good band.
1. U2--Popular across the world, check. Iconic frontman/frontmen, check. Musical diversity, check. Inspired by The Beatles, check. Good, check. So is U2 the modern Beatles? No. Nobody is. There also isn't a modern Jimi Hendrix or a modern Pink Floyd for that matter. It's over, guys. There will never be another Beatles, nor should there be. People like to ask hypotheticals like "Would Hey Jude have the same impact if released today?" The answer is pretty damn simple--no, because it was already released in 1968. We don't need a bunch of carbon copies walking around--thanks to relatively arcane technology, we all can listen to Beatles songs today. This ain't Mozart--all the music of the rock and roll era is right there at our fingertips. So let's enjoy the ride.
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