The GLW were having a chat the other night about who/what is the biggest band in the world right now.
Came about when BiL way back when was saying that the Rolling Stones were the biggest band in the world. At that time U2 and Radiohead were both clearly bigger, in our opinion.
But then we realised that we were just as out of date as he was then.
So who is/are the biggest bands in the world Right Now (biggest meaning most popular, not best, richest etc.)?
Google says BTS or Blackpink. I’d have thought a rapper, but I’d probably say Kanye when he is so 10 years ago.
What do the Massive think?
Drake. Almost certainly. And then, yeah, probs BTS, maybe Ed Sheeran. Taylor Swift will be up there too.
Bands aren’t really a thing just now, are they? Not in the sense of 2-4 instrumentalists and a singer. The instrumentalists are more or less dispensable since tech allows one musician to make a record completely alone, and also play it pretty much live too. I can’t stand Ed S, but he’s pretty deft in how he triggers and layers samples and voice parts live.
I daresay the rock band format will be back, but it’s going to need to find some way to sound a bit fresher that isn’t just founded on gimmicks (eg Royal Blood). But then, maybe not with the freshening-up: us older lot might’ve seen and heard similar when the new bands arise, but the kids won’t have. It only needs to sound fresh to them.
Guess who?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2020/07/14/beatles-bts-1-million-albums-2020/
Quite possibly The Polyphonic Spree, I’d have thought:
Current members:
Tim DeLaughter – lead vocals, guitar, piano
Mark Pirro – bass
Jessica Jordan – backing vocals
Jenny Kirtland – backing vocals
Kristin Hardin – backing vocals
Elizabeth Evans – backing vocals
Neil Smith – backing vocals
Julie Doyle – backing vocals
Natalie Young – backing vocals
Constance Dolph – backing vocals
Jason Garner – drums
Bach Norwood – piano, keyboards, backing vocals
Rachel Woolf – flute
Allen Halas – percussion
Buffi Jacobs – cello
Thaddeus Ford – trumpet
Paul Deemer – trombone
Mike St.Clair – trombone, synth effects
Heather Test – French horn
Sean Redman – violin, mandolin
Kelly Test – percussion
Victoria Arellano – classical harp
Nick Earl – guitar
Darin Hieb – trumpet, backing vocals
Ryan Fitzgerald – guitar, backing vocals
That’s one member for every 0.5 records sold, I suspect.
I saw them at Rock City way back and I reckon there were 25 of them then too. Took them an age to get on stage. I can’t remember if they went through the rigmarole of clearing off at the end and then coming back for an encore, or whether they just played straight through. The latter would have been the sensible choice.
I was playing in a band at the time and our usual fee for a gig was around £150. That would have worked out at £6 each for them.
Wikipedia talks about them in the present tense but how do you imagine they make any money at all? I mean, clearly they can’t.
I’ve always assumed they’re Mormons/Seventh Day Adventists/Scientologists or one of those things where they all shag each other…oh yeah, a band.
You’ve not come across Joe Broughton’s Conservatoire Folk Ensemble, have you?
Thanks Cheshire! What a tonic for these glum days of distancing.
The Norwegian PM just got heavily fined for having a birthday party with 13 people.
Good job she didn’t book this lot for the festivities!
@Vulpes-Vulpes
Those mini solos band members do after they’re introduced to the audience intros must take up 99.9% of every TPS show
Their version of Lithium is fantastic, mind
What about Taylor Swift? She seems to sell an awful lot.
The Taylor Swift is a “band”? Like, Blondie is a band??
She has a band, I’m sure.
They’re called The National I believe
Cockney Rejects?
Probably not the biggest in Lonodon, or the East End, or even the road where they live (they all live in the same house don’t they? That’s what bands do. Right?)
Kanye and Drake are bands?
If you go on tickets sold for tours, I would say U2, Stones, Coldplay. Muse etc
Well since the OP didn’t specify a definition of band, and mentioned Kanye, I assumed he meant it as a shorthand for acts.
Is it The Billie Eilish Experience? Nowadays heritage bands are the biggest. Queen, AC/DC and those already mentioned.
Yep this plus Foo Fighters
“Bands!”. “Guitar solos!”. I believe this is the sort of thing that prompted the coining of the expression “Okay, Boomer..”
We’ve been here before.
Every four or so years colossal claims are made on behalf of an act, and those figures and statistics are always compared to The Beatles… fast forward four or so years, and the next act on the block is similarly compared to The Beatles, not, you’ll notice, the act for whom colossal claims had been made four or so years ago.
Remember Glee, the TV series/“unprecedented” record sales/“biggest thing ever,” why didn’t that become the new benchmark for massive success instead of The Beatles?
Answer: because it was complete bollocks!
Do you know… I’ve never thought of that before. That’s absolutely right.
Are we measuring music sales, concert tickets or both, possibly allowing for merch sales too?
If it’s merch sales, the biggest band in the universe is The Ramones.
Closely followed by Motörhead.
I was thinking of The Ramones but also the Stones with the “lips”.
Thing is, the old bands have a huge head start and claim all sorts of sales figures that can’t be verified anyway. It seems surprisingly tricky to find out who is selling the most right now, but I had a crack at it and my initial list wasn’t far off. Though also plus some people I’ve never heard of cos old.
I am guessing it’s BTS but I have asked a real young person who knows a lot about today’s beat combos. I’ll get back to you.
Bachman-Turner-?
I’ve texted him (he’s a student) but it’s just after midday here so I’m not expecting an answer for a while.
He reckons BTS make the most money but that’s largely down to merch and advertising.
If we’re talking just music he thinks the biggest act in the world is t’weekend followed by Taylor Swift.
The merch and advertising for bts is obviously not working then, because I’ve never heard of them! It’s nice to be out of the loop sometimes.
I’m no Madison Avenue advertising hotshot but that might be a demographics thing.
Smith
It’s Krokus is it not?
They are bubbling under the richest 50,000 bands ever.
Niche! No 1 in a list of Swiss Heavy Metal band AC/DC copyists🎸
Are we sure it isn’t Woody Woodmansey’s Submarine?
Sadly sank with all hands after the ill-advised name change from Woody Woodmansey’s U-boat
Still an improvement on Woody Woodmansey’s Mersey Trout.
I wonder if I’m the only Afterworder who saw The Spiders from Mars (Hull Uni Xmas ball 1976).
I listen to a lot of new music, although my focus has slipped over the past 5-6 weeks with moving house (I am NEVER moving again!), but I just had to Google who BTS were, as I’ve never heard of them. I wouldn’t have a clue who the biggest band in the world are, cos I live in my own world.
Out of touch? Moi?
BTS? Isn’t that some kind of sandwich?
For my 18 year old son, bands and guitars are horribly out of date and about as relevant in 2021 as hurdy gurdies and medieval polyphonic ensembles.
Stop Press
I just asked my son what he thinks about guitars and he is more tolerant than I thought.
They don’t feature much in his grimey musical universe but he mentioned that one of his pals plays guitar and listens a lot to Hendrix, Santana, Cream etc. and that he too can enjoy that music sometimes.
That’ll teach me to put words in his mouth.
I’m gong to suggest that we listen to a little Hildegard Von Bingen together later.
Nope, guitars are still not going anywhere, despite what yer man from Decca said.
They’ll be back. But like I said above somewhere, when they do return, everyone over 40 will probably roll our eyes and say it’s all been done.
What do you reckon, outside of metal, was the last wave of genuine guitar band mania involving huge numbers of teenage fans? I’m going to say the early 2000s: the twin prong of 70s-style garage rock / crumpled suit Strokes and Strokesalikes, alongside the emo wars. Seems to me that all the big bands after that were either aping those trends or started as active participants in them.
I think in 2003 sales of electric guitars were at their highest for about twenty years. Rock and roll is here to stay, it will never die. Although it might have the odd snuffle and have to go to bed with a milky drink.
Hurdy Gurdies and medieval polyphonic ensembles irrelevant? That’s a fight where I come from.
I can see it now Renaissance Hurdy Gurdies against Medieval polyphonic ensembles not unlike the sharks and the jets in West Side Story.
That’s going to be fairly one-sided. If someone twats you with a hurdygurdy you aren’t going to be singing songs of love any time soon.
Ah but if the polyphonists produce a wall of sound then it’s difficult to get through with your vielle à roue.
Indeed it is a sandwich.
A new hipster sandwich served in sourdough bread – the (corned) beef tomato and spam.
Just talking to the Light’s daughter (23 so more in touch than most of us here) and she reckons BTS.
She reckons BTS do what?
I think we can all agree that fame has changed.
It seems mighty strange that on a forum where people (largely men) live and breathe pop music 24/7 most of us have never heard of BTS, an act considered successful and famous beyond comprehension.
UK… Christmas 1963… two TV channels… the delivery of a daily newspaper commonplace to most households in the UK… unless you’re a farmer 50 miles from Inverness who lives with his pet sheep, Alan, there is NO WAY you haven’t heard of The Beatles.
I’m sorry, not possible.
You might not know all the names, any of the songs, but they’d have been on radio, on TV, in the papers (even the posh ones), and have just appeared on the biggest show of the year, the televised Royal Variety.
It would be as likely as not having heard that John F. Kennedy had died.
(Cue wag saying, “JFK dead! No way.”)
I am officially a fogey.
I asked my son whether he knew about BTS.
I got a succinct reply. “Too many cooks. K Pop. Not my thing at all.”
I am so out of touch!! I’m the sort of person who thinks William Hartnell is still playing Dr Who.
I guess UK is the only country.
So, I asked the boy (18) (and yes, I probably did mean Acts rather than bands). His view that is that Dave is probably the biggest thing in the UK (I obviously thought that he meant a tv channel), that probably the biggest act in the world is a country act (I prompted Taylor Swift and he agreed), or maybe a DJ like David Guetta or Armin van Buren.
Funnily enough Ed Sheeran hasnt come up in this discussion, which when I think about it is a surprise.
Anyway, I’ve off to play some Steely Dan and prove to my own satisfaction that I am an old, out of touch, fart.