I suspect that the rise of Spotify etc and the demise of MTV and radio has basically ended the era of mega bands.
Everyone is either listening to the stuff they already liked or getting their own personal feed via socials and recommendation algorithms
There's just no way for the labels to push a song everywhere all at once like they used to.
She's kinda interesting, her career really got going in the mid 2000's right around when the music monoculture started to die and now she's managed to pivot it into the socials which seems to be the closest replacement.
At the moment I'd take a bet that history records her as the last pop megastar.
Recently Film Theory did a video covering how with the internet, there’s not really anything ‘popular’ anymore. https://youtu.be/RXiLAn3vUKg?si=UdMqS1dgU82i9U-F
So, Taylor Swift was possibly the last big ‘popular’ artist, and has held onto that title, because after that we all started living in our own filter bubbles.
I also think it’s harder in this climate for bands/artists to get their identity out there. There’s some exceptions, but I see a lot of artists have about a year of relevancy before mainstream radio and front pages of Spotify/Apple Music just forget they exist.
The age of the album is very much over. I’m pretty sure all of us just curate our own playlists of songs we like and stick to that, rather than actively seeking out new music or artists.
It’s crazy to me. Because we have nearly everything at our fingertips to discover, yet we just stick to what we know.
> I’m pretty sure all of us just curate our own playlists of songs we like and stick to that, rather than actively seeking out new music or artists.
Well not all of *us* here, definitely not. We're outliers of course, but I used Spotify to listen album by album - that and finding new artists through cover versions/shared songs are my two favourite things about it.
I'm 38, so I'm sure the percentage of younger people listening to albums dwindles the younger you go, but my eldest sister is in her early 50s and she was saying she does what you describe, so it's not even just an age thing.
>I’m pretty sure all of us just curate our own playlists of songs we like and stick to that, rather than actively seeking out new music or artists.
Do people really do this? Don't they get bored?
I have a playlist of about 3000 songs that I play in the car or background music to some games but I am ALWAYS looking for new bands to add to it. I may be the outlier since music is a pretty huge part of my life.
I hope that they don't. I'm in my late 40s and find new music and frequently. I've gone to concerts of new artists as well. To me, this is an exciting time for music.
When I got my first job in high school, I would go to Circuit City and by 4 cds every week. I loved getting home and listening to new music. It would cost me $30 but I loved it. Now I can find new music in seconds and can skip what I don't like and dive in deep if I like it. To me, a world has opened up.
I'm not far from Chicago, and lots of smaller music venues have opened up. I think we are in a time where you can find music that you love and go see them live even when it's not popular to the mainstream. What a time to be alive!
I handed my little phone to my son while we were driving to Hone Depot earlier and said "here play something, it has every song ever made on it". Wild to think in our teenage years you were lucky to have a full CD wallet or a 3 diac changer, now its just infinite music all the time.
I do still miss opening up a cd and reading through the liner notes and artwork. Reading along to the lyrics to try to understand the meaning behind a song with criptic or poetic lyrics.
With everything gained, something is lost.
It's an interesting discussion, because underground live music is still alive and well - you can find tons of small rock shows at small venues in nearly any city. They just don't translate to label success like they did pre-internet.
But it's harder for small bands now, mainly because of rent. Back in the day, you could survive on welfare or a shit part time job and have time to practice and gig. Not that easy anymore, and I know that in Toronto where I live, that's become an issue holding back the local live music scene. On top of the small venues being bought up, or having to be picky about who they have play because THEIR rents are too high. It's really sad. All down to greed.
I get the impression that's worse in the states where a couple of large companies have bought up all the independent venues.
Here in the UK the live music scene still feels fairly robust, although definitely reduced from what it was.
Top 10 rock tours of 2023 according to Billboard. This is based on sales numbers. They also include the number of tickets sold. This is world wide,not just US.
https://www.billboard.com/lists/top-rock-tours-2023-list
1. Coldplay
2. Elton John
3. Depeche Mode (!)
4. Metallica
5. Dead & Company (Grateful Dead with John Mayer
6. Guns and Roses
7. Blink 182
8. Muse
9. RHCP
10. Phish
That's because rock mega-stardom required a stranglehold on the discoverability, access, advertisement, and review/commentary of music that just isn't possible anymore due to music streaming and social media.
Discovery of new bands is both easy and hard. Easy for random person to find given some time, but very hard for them to gain any significant traction without a major spending a ton on marketing… which just doesn’t happen. It is much easier to market say RHCP singing the same song about California for the 100th time than to spend a lot of marketing $$ for a band like ACTORS. Worse, a lot of legacy acts aren’t really bringing unknown bands in as openers as they used to. E.g., does Paramore _really_ need to open for Taylor Swift? When PSB and New Order toured their opener was Paul Oakenfold. When bands do finally break through to any sort of minor popularity, they’ve been working in it for a lot longer than you’d think (e.g., Wet Leg, IDLES, etc)
teens (for the most part) just aren't into "band" music... it kind of died out with emo/screamo/post-hardcore/pop-core of the Warped Tour era. It's really sad because on my tiktok feed there are super talented high school-aged guitarists & drummers who're just playing solo in their room :((
This kind of bums me out. Not that I don't like some of these bands, but the charts are so dominated by electronic-based music. It feels like actual bands have been limited to the indie scene and maybe country.
I agree that a lot of music in the charts doesn’t really lend itself well to live performances. Not much fun watching someone tapping out samples on a midi controller.
It's much cheaper for major labels to sign up solo acts. With the death of album sales, launching a band will bring much lower profits than before, while the band demands much higher expenditures than a solo act.
Dunno if you consider them old, but seeing arcade fire (and Earth Wind and Fire) at okeechobeefest was unreal. And then still got to see 20+ current bands/artists.
Was a billion times better than Megan thee stallion as a headliner
That list is the biggest tours right?
I'm not going to get out one day write a few songs and put on a tour tat is going to sell out stadiums.
Most stadium tours have bands that have been going for a while in order to build a fan base. There might be the odd outlier but I'm retry sure this is the case
The Spotify top 10 artists is vastly different
This. People fall in love with their favorites in their teens and 20s, and then twenty years later they're the group with money, driving the trend of cultural significance.
In your 30s: "What happened to my favorite bands?"
In your 40s: "Holy crap people are listening to 80s again?"
I love DM as well. I have for 40+ years (yes I'm that old, sobs onto the keyboard), but your comment is precisely what I don't like about a lot of bands I have always loved. They've been playing the same stuff for 40 years.
I remember when the Clash moved to the US and started playing a western / southwestern / country influenced style. Their fans shit all over them, but I bet a) they were playing what they enjoyed so that's always good, b) if you don't evolve you stagnate - who needs a dozen more songs like the last 200 songs a band has put out, and c) fans fall away if things are always the same.
I always thought U2's best album was Achtung Baby. Different than anything else at the time and definitely a 180 from their previous few efforts.
There's nothing wrong with liking the same style of music all of the time, I'm just stating my own opinion, but if I want the same stuff over and over, I'll just put on the radio.
I went to one of the Depeche Mode shows on this tour and they fucking nailed it, which makes sense since they've been at it 40+ years. Crowd was standing the whole time and knew every word to every song, and awesome diversity, too - grandparents wearing Doc Martens bringing their dweeby grandkids and whatnot.
Dude. Depeche Mode was in Cleveland a few weeks ago and my friend MET THEM AT A BAR BEFORE THEIR SHOW. I was pissed he didn’t text me to tell me to come out!!
I've had this happen multiple times! If there's a band you like at a venue near you, go to a different bar in the vicinity.
A few time you may get lucky and spot them, because 1) they know they'll be totally harangued at the venue by fans pre-show and 2) they legit want to check out something different in the city before performing and then traveling on.
Coldplay charge a LOT for their tickets.
I remember looking into seeing them a few years ago and floor tickets were like $750
$200+ would have got me in the nose bleed seats
I didn't go haha
It’s weird not seeing DMB sitting in the top 5, considering they’ve got third most ticket sales. Kinda makes sense I guess, they skipped a few big shows this year.
It’s even more bizarre that the Stones have 8 million less tickets sold, but made a billion more dollars in revenue.
Ah, more data! What is interesting is that this list doesn't correspond at all with the list of most monthly listeners that I linked. Some acts do well on both lists (Coldplay, Elton John) but John Mayer is 562 and Depeche Mode, Blink-182 and Muse are all in the 600's in terms of ranking, and The Grateful Dead and Phish aren't even on the list.
I am very jealous. I listen to the hell in a bucket, let it grow, and scarlet fire regularly still. Every song in this show is like a best version of it. That whole summer 89 tour might be their best tour in my opinion
Phish / Dead (& co) are basically economies on wheels… and they really haven’t stopped gigging for decades. I don’t know about the *biggest* band on the planet, but the amount of money that floats around those bands in both legal and illegal ways is astronomical, and nonstop. There are also so many Dead / Phish adjacent bands and festivals it’s hard to calculate.
That’s true. In some ways, when you measure influence, the Dead has a distinct, identifiable, multi-generational, and sustained staying power on people. I love many other bands more than the Dead, but they really kept the idea of a music festival alive.
Their entire existence has been sanctioned and non-sanctioned music festivals around them. Sanctioned and un sanctioned recordings. It wasn’t a cult, although some cults wandered in their circles. It’s not just a Woodstock nostalgia, but the idea that you can create festivals, modern day traveling circuses, and dissociate / disconnect from the outside world.
They established the idea of not just “camping out” for tickets or waiting for the show… but the waiting becoming its own spectacle of import.
Yeah two different metrics for likely different music fans.
Streaming reach is likely under 40 year old crowd and based on this list the people spending the most on tickets are older generations - Gen X largely
Not to brag but I got into the top 1% of listeners on Spotify this year. Credit to my 2 year old as she puts it on herself with Alexa. Shout out to the deep cuts like “Rattlin’ Bog”. 😂
A few years ago I took my kids to see the wiggles in New Hampshire. We made an overnight out of it, stayed at a hotel the night before the concert.
That morning at breakfast, were the only ones in the hotel restaurant and a bunch of really fit folks walked in and sat down, and it wasn't until they started talking with Australian accents that we realized we were sitting less than 20 feet away from THE Wiggles. Emma Wiggle was literally in the same room as me.
We were both so starstruck we didn't say anything, and the kids didn't recognize them out of costume. But it was pretty awesome.
Not that streams are everything, but [here is a list with artists by monthly listeners on Spotifyas of now](https://kworb.net/spotify/listeners.html). It should be noted that it is Christmas season, so the artists with Christmas songs do have experienced a significant bump on this list. In a month time it is more representative of how popular an artist truly is.
Going by that list, at the moment Coldplay is the highest ranked band, at 10. Of all the other artists mentioned so far (as a possible biggest band, I am including joke answers though) with their ranking **EDIT: (because there is some misunderstanding) This is the list with all bands mentioned in this thread as biggest band at the time of making this post, not ranked means that someone mentioned them in the comments, but they are not in the list that I linked to:**
Taylor Swift 1 (but not a band)
Queen 30
Maroon 5 35
Imagine Dragons 39
Arctic Monkeys 54
Linkin Park 86
Red Hot Chilli Peppers 107
Green Day 137
Beatles 140
BTS 149
The Rolling Stones 197
Radiohead 226
Metallica 233
U2 286
Foo Fighters 333
Måneskin 338
Blackpink 371
Muse 616
Chumbawamba (not ranked)
Wiggles (not ranked)
Gang of Youth (not ranked)
Amyl and The Sniffers (not ranked)
Old Gods of Asgard (not ranked)
Pop music is only half about the music, the other half of the artistry in pop is about the visuals.
Even back in the 80s this is true, Madonna thrived on her visuals and MJ choreographed his own spectacles on stage with things like moonwalking, impossible leans, and only wearing one glove.
It’s not. Not at all. In China QQ music has over a quarter of a billion subscribers. India has something similar Korea has way less population but they have another preferred streaming service.
Its crazy finding some of these channels once in a while.
Some seemingly random person who no one here in the western world would have heard of, and yet you find out that the person still have more views/plays than the 10 most popular people from the west combined.
I have kind of been seeing it a lot when I stumble on German channels as well. I am assuming its because the average german don't understand english, so they stick to channels with their native language.
There's some German channels that literally seem like every person in German must have been to the channel judging by the views.
Germans on average speak very good english from my experience. When I was there in 2008 it was incredibly easy to go around and interact with people not knowing any german at all. I think it's either required or incredibly common for them to take a ton of english classes in school. I've also been to France, Greece and Bulgaria, Germans overall were by far the best at speaking English and actually a lot of them spoke it so well you could easily hold a full conversation for hours with only the rare occasional hiccup.
at least for south korea, it’s not. south korea has their own streaming platforms such as melon. and as for the more western-centric platforms, youtube and youtube music are far more popular there than spotify
Hybrid theory is one of the best selling albums of the century so far (I think it’s behind an Adele album and the Beatles number 1 album), and the unreleased single from meteora they released did very well and has well over 100 million streams. They had a lot more longevity than people probably expected them to have 20 years ago.
One of the biggest testaments to the Beatles’ greatness is that the best selling album of the 2000s was their album 1: a compilation of their record 20 number one hits. It came out 30 years after they broke up.
Had no idea! Interesting. I liked them when Chester was alive and saw him when he fronted STP. Had no idea they were still so popular. Ahead of some pretty legendary bands on there.
The measurement has changed from purchases to plays. Once one makes the purchase, they can listen to the track endlessly without any surveillance.
I bet if we could somehow measure the number of listens in 1990, the most popular band nationally would not be Nirvana or whatever was the band of the moment, but a song from an all-time great artist (The Beatles, Michael Jackson, etc.) or a more utilitarian track.
Some of you throwing legacy names around won't like this answer, but globally the biggest group is BTS. (Yes, even though they're all in the military.)
In the more traditional sense of the word "band", it's been Coldplay for years.
The BTS Coldplay connection runs deep lol
Kim Seok-Jin (Jin) from BTS considers Chris Martin a mentor in the industry.
His last non-bts performance before his enlistment was at a Coldplay concert where he sang “The Astronaut” as a duet with Chris Martin.
Martin co-wrote the lyrics and Coldplay did the instrumentals for the track.
BTS is the only right answer, they’ve been huge globally for the last few years. Even thought they haven’t been as active because of members going to the military they’re still doing huge numbers
Metallica was just playing 2 stadium shows in each city so they’re going strong still.
BTS probably but they’re on hiatus. Might still be the biggest though.
Band or Performer? I'd say Taylor Swift has to be up there somewhere, just from a popularity and revenue standpoint. The eras Tour made a BILLION dollars in ticket sales alone, I don't think any act can top that.
But it's hard to tell, and there are many different genres. Also, a bit of time needs to pass to separate the acts that have a truly lasting effect on pop culture from the one hit wonders and temporary trends
I generally think that the level of Rockstar-Fame of decades past and legendary 'biggest band in the world' status is much, much harder to achieve today, because of the internet. The variety and availability of music is much greater, as opposed to 30 years ago when MTV and a handful of TV stations and execs could basically decide who got fed to the masses as the next big star. If someone truly made it 30 years ago, there was no way to 'escape' him in mainstream media
I couldn't name a single Taylor Swift song
> 'Cause you're gonna go to the record store
You're gonna give 'em all your money
Radio plays what they want you to hear
They tell me it's cool, I just don't believe it
-Reel Big Fish
It's indeed much more diluted these days with people have so many more channels to take in music. Much more fractured this day.
I couldn't name a song of hers, but gets she has a massive appeal.
> I couldn't name a single Taylor Swift song
If you're the kind of person who can't name a single song by the most popular musical artist in the world, I feel like you're that kind of person no matter what era you could be theoretically dropped into.
“higher power” is a good song imo and it’s like 3? years old.
Then they have that my universe song they did with BTS too
That one with chainsmokers was a fucking banger too and it was like 5-6 years old “Something just like this”
They put out something every 2-3 years
Right? When I saw the first mention I thought it's a die hard fan throwing this out. Was super surprised when scrolling and seeing it as the most mentioned band.
I don't follow them and I can only identify one of their songs. That said, last year they had an insanely successful tour. For instance at Buenos Aires they played 10 shows in the span of two weeks, all at capacity ([more than 60,000 persons per concert](https://twitter.com/humanheart___/status/1603273545983070209?lang=en)) in Argentina's largest soccer stadium.
BTS was the gateway drug for my 8 year old to learn about an entire culture, then an entire region of the world. I’m just stoked our restaurant options now include Korean fried chicken and sushi. Still working up to kimchi.
While I’m pretty sure it’s Coldplay for bands, or Taylor swift for singular artists, it’s hard to say that anyone has that striking feeling of defo being the top band that everyone knows about like in the 80’s and 90’s
I think the reason for this and why that title doesn’t have the same meaning anymore is cuz with streaming everyone has such a personalised bubble of music, and we don’t need to watch TV and listen to the charts as much for these things. So all the music news about who’s the biggest and everyone listening to the same thing through tv and radio has been lessened, so now it’s not as obvious I guess
Rather interesting tho, whatever the reason is
Even in the 90s people would have had a hard time with this though
Late 90s was owned by pop. Britney spears, Backstreet Boys, and Nsync were bigger than any band in the 90s
Pop dominates. Bands don’t. It’s been that way since the 80s
I don't know but I really hope rock music or at least instrument made music with real singing makes a renaissance. Gang of Youths are probably the biggest band in Australia now but don't seem well known outside of Australia for some reason
Australia is its own Ecosystem when it comes to music. Y’all have Radio that will actually play local Artists based on… democratic voting. Tones and I would have *never* made it if they were from the US, no one would have supported the music because frankly… not a Model. I think it’s super nice that Music isn’t completely dollar driven there, but around here if you don’t have all of the boxes checked *and* be super lucky you’ll never see *mainstream* success.
When I got my Spotify wrapped videos from artists, I suddenly realized I’m into a whole bunch of Aussie artists, although at least a couple of them now live in the US. Apparently Aussies make good indie rock / indie pop.
We have the same sort of thing in Canada as there’s legal requirements that radio stations have to play a certain percentage Canadian music but in practice it just leads to really mediocre bands getting a shitload of radio play.
I always said that The Living End were and still are criminally underrated. That band should have been one of the biggest in the world. World class musicians each of them and Chris Cheney is a monster songwriter. And their evolution over the years has been awesome.
Shame cause I think a lot of people would like gang of youths. Weird that they haven't broken through elsewhere when they had 3 songs in the top 10 of triple j hottest 100.
You could still say that Rolling Stones or some other old bands are still the biggest. Their tours are still some of the most profitable ones. This century hasn't really provided any new, larger-than-life bands equal to Beatles, Stones, Queen, GNR or others. For last few decades, the thing has been solo artists. And it's still so. Taylor Swift is most likely the biggest name right now and is probably about as well-known as Beatles were in the 1960's. Bands are slowly dying off and it seems that there won't be any world's biggest bands in the near future.
I disagree. You can get into one of their gigs at face value and I wouldn't say it's a super hot ticket. I've had their tickets given for free. Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen are all tougher to access in my experience.
Also, after the first two albums Foo Fighters have kinda put out generic radio rock.
T Swizzle is the biggest artist for sure!
Band seems like it has been between U2 and Coldplay for the last decade or so
Foo Fighters, Metallica, Radiohead, Maneskin, Green Day, Muse, Chili Peppers etc are all in the conversation
Måneskin won eurovision a couple years ago and then proceeded to blow up pretty much around the globe with their cover of the song Beggin; they're pretty good! i'd reccomend a listen
I suspect that the rise of Spotify etc and the demise of MTV and radio has basically ended the era of mega bands. Everyone is either listening to the stuff they already liked or getting their own personal feed via socials and recommendation algorithms There's just no way for the labels to push a song everywhere all at once like they used to.
I think what you meant to say was, Taylor Swift. She literally made $1b on her last tour.
She's kinda interesting, her career really got going in the mid 2000's right around when the music monoculture started to die and now she's managed to pivot it into the socials which seems to be the closest replacement. At the moment I'd take a bet that history records her as the last pop megastar.
Recently Film Theory did a video covering how with the internet, there’s not really anything ‘popular’ anymore. https://youtu.be/RXiLAn3vUKg?si=UdMqS1dgU82i9U-F So, Taylor Swift was possibly the last big ‘popular’ artist, and has held onto that title, because after that we all started living in our own filter bubbles.
Oh yeah, who could forget the band Taylor Swift
I also think it’s harder in this climate for bands/artists to get their identity out there. There’s some exceptions, but I see a lot of artists have about a year of relevancy before mainstream radio and front pages of Spotify/Apple Music just forget they exist. The age of the album is very much over. I’m pretty sure all of us just curate our own playlists of songs we like and stick to that, rather than actively seeking out new music or artists. It’s crazy to me. Because we have nearly everything at our fingertips to discover, yet we just stick to what we know.
> I’m pretty sure all of us just curate our own playlists of songs we like and stick to that, rather than actively seeking out new music or artists. Well not all of *us* here, definitely not. We're outliers of course, but I used Spotify to listen album by album - that and finding new artists through cover versions/shared songs are my two favourite things about it. I'm 38, so I'm sure the percentage of younger people listening to albums dwindles the younger you go, but my eldest sister is in her early 50s and she was saying she does what you describe, so it's not even just an age thing.
>I’m pretty sure all of us just curate our own playlists of songs we like and stick to that, rather than actively seeking out new music or artists. Do people really do this? Don't they get bored?
I have a playlist of about 3000 songs that I play in the car or background music to some games but I am ALWAYS looking for new bands to add to it. I may be the outlier since music is a pretty huge part of my life.
Same here! I love checking out new bands. Spotify does a wonderful job of giving me stuff I like.
I hope that they don't. I'm in my late 40s and find new music and frequently. I've gone to concerts of new artists as well. To me, this is an exciting time for music. When I got my first job in high school, I would go to Circuit City and by 4 cds every week. I loved getting home and listening to new music. It would cost me $30 but I loved it. Now I can find new music in seconds and can skip what I don't like and dive in deep if I like it. To me, a world has opened up. I'm not far from Chicago, and lots of smaller music venues have opened up. I think we are in a time where you can find music that you love and go see them live even when it's not popular to the mainstream. What a time to be alive!
I handed my little phone to my son while we were driving to Hone Depot earlier and said "here play something, it has every song ever made on it". Wild to think in our teenage years you were lucky to have a full CD wallet or a 3 diac changer, now its just infinite music all the time.
I do still miss opening up a cd and reading through the liner notes and artwork. Reading along to the lyrics to try to understand the meaning behind a song with criptic or poetic lyrics. With everything gained, something is lost.
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It's an interesting discussion, because underground live music is still alive and well - you can find tons of small rock shows at small venues in nearly any city. They just don't translate to label success like they did pre-internet.
But it's harder for small bands now, mainly because of rent. Back in the day, you could survive on welfare or a shit part time job and have time to practice and gig. Not that easy anymore, and I know that in Toronto where I live, that's become an issue holding back the local live music scene. On top of the small venues being bought up, or having to be picky about who they have play because THEIR rents are too high. It's really sad. All down to greed.
I get the impression that's worse in the states where a couple of large companies have bought up all the independent venues. Here in the UK the live music scene still feels fairly robust, although definitely reduced from what it was.
The live music scene for smaller artists is completely different from the biggest venues
Top 10 rock tours of 2023 according to Billboard. This is based on sales numbers. They also include the number of tickets sold. This is world wide,not just US. https://www.billboard.com/lists/top-rock-tours-2023-list 1. Coldplay 2. Elton John 3. Depeche Mode (!) 4. Metallica 5. Dead & Company (Grateful Dead with John Mayer 6. Guns and Roses 7. Blink 182 8. Muse 9. RHCP 10. Phish
Fascinating list! Not a single recent band. Everybody's a couple of decades old.
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AC/DC member said that in one of grohls docus iirc
Thought it was Lars that said that. Point remains though.
That's because rock mega-stardom required a stranglehold on the discoverability, access, advertisement, and review/commentary of music that just isn't possible anymore due to music streaming and social media.
Discovery of new bands is both easy and hard. Easy for random person to find given some time, but very hard for them to gain any significant traction without a major spending a ton on marketing… which just doesn’t happen. It is much easier to market say RHCP singing the same song about California for the 100th time than to spend a lot of marketing $$ for a band like ACTORS. Worse, a lot of legacy acts aren’t really bringing unknown bands in as openers as they used to. E.g., does Paramore _really_ need to open for Taylor Swift? When PSB and New Order toured their opener was Paul Oakenfold. When bands do finally break through to any sort of minor popularity, they’ve been working in it for a lot longer than you’d think (e.g., Wet Leg, IDLES, etc)
RHCP have done a great job bringing in promosing and new artist these recent years, not only new artist, but some
teens (for the most part) just aren't into "band" music... it kind of died out with emo/screamo/post-hardcore/pop-core of the Warped Tour era. It's really sad because on my tiktok feed there are super talented high school-aged guitarists & drummers who're just playing solo in their room :((
That’s kind of the trend right now. Every major festival’s headliners are bands that have been around for 20+ years
This kind of bums me out. Not that I don't like some of these bands, but the charts are so dominated by electronic-based music. It feels like actual bands have been limited to the indie scene and maybe country.
I agree that a lot of music in the charts doesn’t really lend itself well to live performances. Not much fun watching someone tapping out samples on a midi controller.
It's much cheaper for major labels to sign up solo acts. With the death of album sales, launching a band will bring much lower profits than before, while the band demands much higher expenditures than a solo act.
Dunno if you consider them old, but seeing arcade fire (and Earth Wind and Fire) at okeechobeefest was unreal. And then still got to see 20+ current bands/artists. Was a billion times better than Megan thee stallion as a headliner
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How could you not consider those two old?
That list is the biggest tours right? I'm not going to get out one day write a few songs and put on a tour tat is going to sell out stadiums. Most stadium tours have bands that have been going for a while in order to build a fan base. There might be the odd outlier but I'm retry sure this is the case The Spotify top 10 artists is vastly different
Yeah, the biggest tours will be somewhat established musicians because you need a decent sized catalog to fill a show that big.
Because the people who listen to those bands are older, and are more likely to afford the inflated ticket prices.
Before Napster, it used to be expensive CDs, affordable concerts. Since then it's the opposite, affordable streaming, expensive shows.
This. People fall in love with their favorites in their teens and 20s, and then twenty years later they're the group with money, driving the trend of cultural significance. In your 30s: "What happened to my favorite bands?" In your 40s: "Holy crap people are listening to 80s again?"
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Saw them in Nov - one of the best shows of my life. Sold out too.
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Their latest album Memento Mori is amazing. It’s literally everything they are and everything they have been playing for years.
I love DM as well. I have for 40+ years (yes I'm that old, sobs onto the keyboard), but your comment is precisely what I don't like about a lot of bands I have always loved. They've been playing the same stuff for 40 years. I remember when the Clash moved to the US and started playing a western / southwestern / country influenced style. Their fans shit all over them, but I bet a) they were playing what they enjoyed so that's always good, b) if you don't evolve you stagnate - who needs a dozen more songs like the last 200 songs a band has put out, and c) fans fall away if things are always the same. I always thought U2's best album was Achtung Baby. Different than anything else at the time and definitely a 180 from their previous few efforts. There's nothing wrong with liking the same style of music all of the time, I'm just stating my own opinion, but if I want the same stuff over and over, I'll just put on the radio.
Paid much less for my tickets. How the hell does Depeche Mode have such a great drummer?
I went to one of the Depeche Mode shows on this tour and they fucking nailed it, which makes sense since they've been at it 40+ years. Crowd was standing the whole time and knew every word to every song, and awesome diversity, too - grandparents wearing Doc Martens bringing their dweeby grandkids and whatnot.
What year is it again?
Dude. Depeche Mode was in Cleveland a few weeks ago and my friend MET THEM AT A BAR BEFORE THEIR SHOW. I was pissed he didn’t text me to tell me to come out!!
I've had this happen multiple times! If there's a band you like at a venue near you, go to a different bar in the vicinity. A few time you may get lucky and spot them, because 1) they know they'll be totally harangued at the venue by fans pre-show and 2) they legit want to check out something different in the city before performing and then traveling on.
Fuck ya phish and dead! How tf does Coldplay top the list?
Coldplay charge a LOT for their tickets. I remember looking into seeing them a few years ago and floor tickets were like $750 $200+ would have got me in the nose bleed seats I didn't go haha
I could see Phish 7 times on the floor for what Coldplay charges
Hope your brother is doing well.
This isn't who it would be If it wasn't who it is
Thanks Liz.
Their concerts sell very well, simple as. I know lots of people who’ve travelled to see Coldplay.
It’s weird not seeing DMB sitting in the top 5, considering they’ve got third most ticket sales. Kinda makes sense I guess, they skipped a few big shows this year. It’s even more bizarre that the Stones have 8 million less tickets sold, but made a billion more dollars in revenue.
Ah, more data! What is interesting is that this list doesn't correspond at all with the list of most monthly listeners that I linked. Some acts do well on both lists (Coldplay, Elton John) but John Mayer is 562 and Depeche Mode, Blink-182 and Muse are all in the 600's in terms of ranking, and The Grateful Dead and Phish aren't even on the list.
Jam bands are more likely steamed on Nugz net which caters to live shows. I'll bet grateful dead and phish are near the top.
Also you can listen to every grateful dead ahow for free on archive.org If anyone is interested some gems are 5/2/70 8/27/72 5/8/77 8/6/82 7/7/89
> 7/7/89 I was there! You just gave me goosebumps!
I am very jealous. I listen to the hell in a bucket, let it grow, and scarlet fire regularly still. Every song in this show is like a best version of it. That whole summer 89 tour might be their best tour in my opinion
Phish / Dead (& co) are basically economies on wheels… and they really haven’t stopped gigging for decades. I don’t know about the *biggest* band on the planet, but the amount of money that floats around those bands in both legal and illegal ways is astronomical, and nonstop. There are also so many Dead / Phish adjacent bands and festivals it’s hard to calculate.
Yeah its crazy its like its own micro-economy, micro world.
Thats what happens when you create a subculture that has multigenerational staying power like the Dead did.
That’s true. In some ways, when you measure influence, the Dead has a distinct, identifiable, multi-generational, and sustained staying power on people. I love many other bands more than the Dead, but they really kept the idea of a music festival alive. Their entire existence has been sanctioned and non-sanctioned music festivals around them. Sanctioned and un sanctioned recordings. It wasn’t a cult, although some cults wandered in their circles. It’s not just a Woodstock nostalgia, but the idea that you can create festivals, modern day traveling circuses, and dissociate / disconnect from the outside world. They established the idea of not just “camping out” for tickets or waiting for the show… but the waiting becoming its own spectacle of import.
The Dead and Phish have their own streaming apps. No surprise they wouldn’t even register on Spotify’s list…
Yeah two different metrics for likely different music fans. Streaming reach is likely under 40 year old crowd and based on this list the people spending the most on tickets are older generations - Gen X largely
The Wiggles
Good call thanks for introducing me to this band. I’m currently doing the Propellor
Don't overlook their non-kids stuff https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsyPiuBJ_U_xflVnOsfrJrXybY3XvmkD1&si=-g8g_1xLTNICSQmg
As if they’ve covered the Chats hahahah
There’s been so much drama in the Wiggles the last few years too! Marriage, divorce, juicy stuff!
Just cuz that bitch Jenna is trying to check off a box!
I haven't thought of them in 15 years - I need to catch up. We saw them live and for many years my son thought they lived at Allstate Area.
https://preview.redd.it/e97nqoo4xn9c1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12479b72375e18c832f78f63aa647d2a33c434cd
Great. Now "Big Red Car" is in my head; but it's been 5 years since my daughter stopped watching them.
“Did they play Big Red Car?” “They opened and closed the show with it…it was awesome…” Love that line from Scrubs
Aha I forgot about that joke. Thanks for reminding me/causing a nice laugh
Always have been
Always will be
Same as it ever was
Letting the days go by- (*wiggles flowing underground*)
Not to brag but I got into the top 1% of listeners on Spotify this year. Credit to my 2 year old as she puts it on herself with Alexa. Shout out to the deep cuts like “Rattlin’ Bog”. 😂
Fruit Salad is my favourite prog epic
Yummy yummy
Emma Wiggle is my guilty crush
A few years ago I took my kids to see the wiggles in New Hampshire. We made an overnight out of it, stayed at a hotel the night before the concert. That morning at breakfast, were the only ones in the hotel restaurant and a bunch of really fit folks walked in and sat down, and it wasn't until they started talking with Australian accents that we realized we were sitting less than 20 feet away from THE Wiggles. Emma Wiggle was literally in the same room as me. We were both so starstruck we didn't say anything, and the kids didn't recognize them out of costume. But it was pretty awesome.
Not that streams are everything, but [here is a list with artists by monthly listeners on Spotifyas of now](https://kworb.net/spotify/listeners.html). It should be noted that it is Christmas season, so the artists with Christmas songs do have experienced a significant bump on this list. In a month time it is more representative of how popular an artist truly is. Going by that list, at the moment Coldplay is the highest ranked band, at 10. Of all the other artists mentioned so far (as a possible biggest band, I am including joke answers though) with their ranking **EDIT: (because there is some misunderstanding) This is the list with all bands mentioned in this thread as biggest band at the time of making this post, not ranked means that someone mentioned them in the comments, but they are not in the list that I linked to:** Taylor Swift 1 (but not a band) Queen 30 Maroon 5 35 Imagine Dragons 39 Arctic Monkeys 54 Linkin Park 86 Red Hot Chilli Peppers 107 Green Day 137 Beatles 140 BTS 149 The Rolling Stones 197 Radiohead 226 Metallica 233 U2 286 Foo Fighters 333 Måneskin 338 Blackpink 371 Muse 616 Chumbawamba (not ranked) Wiggles (not ranked) Gang of Youth (not ranked) Amyl and The Sniffers (not ranked) Old Gods of Asgard (not ranked)
I’m surprised BTS is not higher but maybe Spotify is not the preferred platform in Asia?
Look at YouTube views comparatively to Spotify, it's crazy. Half the popularity with kpop is the visuals and MVs
Pop music is only half about the music, the other half of the artistry in pop is about the visuals. Even back in the 80s this is true, Madonna thrived on her visuals and MJ choreographed his own spectacles on stage with things like moonwalking, impossible leans, and only wearing one glove.
It’s not. Not at all. In China QQ music has over a quarter of a billion subscribers. India has something similar Korea has way less population but they have another preferred streaming service.
Its crazy finding some of these channels once in a while. Some seemingly random person who no one here in the western world would have heard of, and yet you find out that the person still have more views/plays than the 10 most popular people from the west combined. I have kind of been seeing it a lot when I stumble on German channels as well. I am assuming its because the average german don't understand english, so they stick to channels with their native language. There's some German channels that literally seem like every person in German must have been to the channel judging by the views.
Germans on average speak very good english from my experience. When I was there in 2008 it was incredibly easy to go around and interact with people not knowing any german at all. I think it's either required or incredibly common for them to take a ton of english classes in school. I've also been to France, Greece and Bulgaria, Germans overall were by far the best at speaking English and actually a lot of them spoke it so well you could easily hold a full conversation for hours with only the rare occasional hiccup.
I think it's because they're on a military break or something, haven't heard anything about them in a while
at least for south korea, it’s not. south korea has their own streaming platforms such as melon. and as for the more western-centric platforms, youtube and youtube music are far more popular there than spotify
they're on a group hiatus, have been for a bit more than a year, so streams have gone down a bit
In Japan at least, Apple Music and Amazon Music are bigger
Linkin Park, being 86th, surprised me the most.
Hybrid theory is one of the best selling albums of the century so far (I think it’s behind an Adele album and the Beatles number 1 album), and the unreleased single from meteora they released did very well and has well over 100 million streams. They had a lot more longevity than people probably expected them to have 20 years ago.
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It appeals directly to teen angst, which will always exist.
Appeals to adult angst too, honestly
One of the biggest testaments to the Beatles’ greatness is that the best selling album of the 2000s was their album 1: a compilation of their record 20 number one hits. It came out 30 years after they broke up.
Had no idea! Interesting. I liked them when Chester was alive and saw him when he fronted STP. Had no idea they were still so popular. Ahead of some pretty legendary bands on there.
Surprised amyl and the sniffers are so high! Sick band
I can't believe they made it all the way to Not Ranked!
Old gods of asgard should be 1
Show me the Champion of Light!
So sad
But true : )
Depressing that there are no new rock bands. Particular era where solo artists rule. Can't wait for bands to cycle through to popularity again.
The measurement has changed from purchases to plays. Once one makes the purchase, they can listen to the track endlessly without any surveillance. I bet if we could somehow measure the number of listens in 1990, the most popular band nationally would not be Nirvana or whatever was the band of the moment, but a song from an all-time great artist (The Beatles, Michael Jackson, etc.) or a more utilitarian track.
Måneskin
Seen them the past two years. Such a fun band.
Im rooting for them, but there is nothing underneath the hood
Old Gods of Asgard are really having a resurgence aye! Haven't heard much from them since their heyday in the 80s. Truly timeless music though.
The Be-Sharps would be up there if Kirk Van Houten had joined the band.
Unfortunately, he couldn't borrow a feeling.
But he lives in a race car bed!
I sleep in a bed with my wife.
Singles life is great, I can do whatever I want. Today I drank a beer in the bathroom.
If you ask me they should have brought back Wiggum!
Bake em away toys!
Barney forever, Wiggum never!
WIGGUM FOREVER, BARNEY NEVER
Earth Wind and Fire. They've got like 26 dudes on stage!
Cattle Decaptation.
WE EAT OUR YOUNG
Every body a host… every body INFECTED!!! Corpses white as a ghost… naturally SELECTED!!!
Some of you throwing legacy names around won't like this answer, but globally the biggest group is BTS. (Yes, even though they're all in the military.) In the more traditional sense of the word "band", it's been Coldplay for years.
Interesting to see the amount of Coldplay responses. BTS doesn't surprise me - although I've had zero exposure to them.
Didn't One Direction had that place for some duration, don't know about their popularity now
They were arguably the biggest at one point, but they broke up in 2016
2015 but yes
Same, massive band but I can’t name a single song by them, and I’m someone who listens to the radio and goes out to mainstream bars and clubs
The BTS Coldplay connection runs deep lol Kim Seok-Jin (Jin) from BTS considers Chris Martin a mentor in the industry. His last non-bts performance before his enlistment was at a Coldplay concert where he sang “The Astronaut” as a duet with Chris Martin. Martin co-wrote the lyrics and Coldplay did the instrumentals for the track.
BTS is the only right answer, they’ve been huge globally for the last few years. Even thought they haven’t been as active because of members going to the military they’re still doing huge numbers
Metallica was just playing 2 stadium shows in each city so they’re going strong still. BTS probably but they’re on hiatus. Might still be the biggest though.
Band or Performer? I'd say Taylor Swift has to be up there somewhere, just from a popularity and revenue standpoint. The eras Tour made a BILLION dollars in ticket sales alone, I don't think any act can top that. But it's hard to tell, and there are many different genres. Also, a bit of time needs to pass to separate the acts that have a truly lasting effect on pop culture from the one hit wonders and temporary trends
Technically both would do. She's a clear stand out. Bit in terms of bands, I'm lost.
I generally think that the level of Rockstar-Fame of decades past and legendary 'biggest band in the world' status is much, much harder to achieve today, because of the internet. The variety and availability of music is much greater, as opposed to 30 years ago when MTV and a handful of TV stations and execs could basically decide who got fed to the masses as the next big star. If someone truly made it 30 years ago, there was no way to 'escape' him in mainstream media I couldn't name a single Taylor Swift song
> 'Cause you're gonna go to the record store You're gonna give 'em all your money Radio plays what they want you to hear They tell me it's cool, I just don't believe it -Reel Big Fish
“Baby don’t you sign that paper tonight,” she said. But I can’t work in fast food all my life…
sellout 🙄
It's indeed much more diluted these days with people have so many more channels to take in music. Much more fractured this day. I couldn't name a song of hers, but gets she has a massive appeal.
> I couldn't name a single Taylor Swift song If you're the kind of person who can't name a single song by the most popular musical artist in the world, I feel like you're that kind of person no matter what era you could be theoretically dropped into.
Arctic Monkeys have had a bit of a resurgence in popularity over the last few years. A bunch of their songs have blown up on TikTok.
It's BTS (if you count vocal groups) or Coldplay
I haven’t heard a new Coldplay song in over a decade, I’m surprised so many responded with them.
“higher power” is a good song imo and it’s like 3? years old. Then they have that my universe song they did with BTS too That one with chainsmokers was a fucking banger too and it was like 5-6 years old “Something just like this” They put out something every 2-3 years
Right? When I saw the first mention I thought it's a die hard fan throwing this out. Was super surprised when scrolling and seeing it as the most mentioned band.
I don't follow them and I can only identify one of their songs. That said, last year they had an insanely successful tour. For instance at Buenos Aires they played 10 shows in the span of two weeks, all at capacity ([more than 60,000 persons per concert](https://twitter.com/humanheart___/status/1603273545983070209?lang=en)) in Argentina's largest soccer stadium.
I love built to spill!
BTS was the gateway drug for my 8 year old to learn about an entire culture, then an entire region of the world. I’m just stoked our restaurant options now include Korean fried chicken and sushi. Still working up to kimchi.
Chumbawumba
Yep, every time they get knocked down they just get up again.
Can, questions, be asking, now that stopped time has?
Over 40's nights agree
Bachman Turner Overdrive clocks in at about 800 pounds, pretty sure they are the biggest.
The Polyphonic Spree have 25 members, think they might be bigger.
BTS
BTS
BTS? BTS. I know they’re on a “break” right now but they’ve definitely had a huge huge huge following worldwide.
While I’m pretty sure it’s Coldplay for bands, or Taylor swift for singular artists, it’s hard to say that anyone has that striking feeling of defo being the top band that everyone knows about like in the 80’s and 90’s I think the reason for this and why that title doesn’t have the same meaning anymore is cuz with streaming everyone has such a personalised bubble of music, and we don’t need to watch TV and listen to the charts as much for these things. So all the music news about who’s the biggest and everyone listening to the same thing through tv and radio has been lessened, so now it’s not as obvious I guess Rather interesting tho, whatever the reason is
Even in the 90s people would have had a hard time with this though Late 90s was owned by pop. Britney spears, Backstreet Boys, and Nsync were bigger than any band in the 90s Pop dominates. Bands don’t. It’s been that way since the 80s
I don't know but I really hope rock music or at least instrument made music with real singing makes a renaissance. Gang of Youths are probably the biggest band in Australia now but don't seem well known outside of Australia for some reason
Australia is its own Ecosystem when it comes to music. Y’all have Radio that will actually play local Artists based on… democratic voting. Tones and I would have *never* made it if they were from the US, no one would have supported the music because frankly… not a Model. I think it’s super nice that Music isn’t completely dollar driven there, but around here if you don’t have all of the boxes checked *and* be super lucky you’ll never see *mainstream* success.
When I got my Spotify wrapped videos from artists, I suddenly realized I’m into a whole bunch of Aussie artists, although at least a couple of them now live in the US. Apparently Aussies make good indie rock / indie pop.
We have the same sort of thing in Canada as there’s legal requirements that radio stations have to play a certain percentage Canadian music but in practice it just leads to really mediocre bands getting a shitload of radio play.
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I'd assume Tame Impala or King Gizzard are the largest aussie exports at this point, right?
Parkway Drive are huge atm too. Not Tame Impala huge but regularly doing global arena tours. Aussie metal in general is doing very well.
I always said that The Living End were and still are criminally underrated. That band should have been one of the biggest in the world. World class musicians each of them and Chris Cheney is a monster songwriter. And their evolution over the years has been awesome.
KGATLW seem pretty worldly now.
Shame cause I think a lot of people would like gang of youths. Weird that they haven't broken through elsewhere when they had 3 songs in the top 10 of triple j hottest 100.
BTS
BTS
BTS
still BTS lol. when it comes to worldwide popularity, i dont think anyone is even close to them. solo artist is gonna be Taylor Swift
Metallica. Ye-heaw. Ouh Yeaah. Yeah!
You could still say that Rolling Stones or some other old bands are still the biggest. Their tours are still some of the most profitable ones. This century hasn't really provided any new, larger-than-life bands equal to Beatles, Stones, Queen, GNR or others. For last few decades, the thing has been solo artists. And it's still so. Taylor Swift is most likely the biggest name right now and is probably about as well-known as Beatles were in the 1960's. Bands are slowly dying off and it seems that there won't be any world's biggest bands in the near future.
Arctic Monkeys
Foo Fighters. Everything they do gets massive media attention. They sell out every gig in minutes.
I disagree. You can get into one of their gigs at face value and I wouldn't say it's a super hot ticket. I've had their tickets given for free. Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen are all tougher to access in my experience. Also, after the first two albums Foo Fighters have kinda put out generic radio rock.
Probably The Stones. I mean they’ve had 60+ years to gain fans and are still touring. I don’t think any band will ever touch that level again
T Swizzle is the biggest artist for sure! Band seems like it has been between U2 and Coldplay for the last decade or so Foo Fighters, Metallica, Radiohead, Maneskin, Green Day, Muse, Chili Peppers etc are all in the conversation
Tbh I’ve never heard of Maneskin ever
Yeah, one of those things is not like the others.
Måneskin won eurovision a couple years ago and then proceeded to blow up pretty much around the globe with their cover of the song Beggin; they're pretty good! i'd reccomend a listen
Arctic Monkeys are bigger than Maneskin.
I think it's been Coldplay for over two decades now.
Can’t disagree. Damn I hate Coldplay with a passion.
Billy Mother Fuckin Strings