# Bands and Artists that were contemporaries, but don't seem like it **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185 "2019-11-08T21:01:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bradjam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Bradjam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bradjam)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/1 "2019-11-08T21:01:13Z")
In the musical encyclopedia of my head, bands such as Black Sabbath and Eagles seem like they are from two different realities. But, their careers have run pretty much side by side, when you look at the years they’ve been performing. Same with bands like Fleetwood Mac and The Sex Pistols. So what bands or artists, to you, fit in this category? For the sake of simplicity, let’s exclude artists where the tail end of their career may have coincided with someone first starting up, so something like Frank Sinatra and Nirvana might have some overlap, that’s not quite what I’m looking for! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/2 "2019-11-08T21:04:00Z")
How about Neil Young and “Ricky” James being in the same band? The Mynah Birds. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/3 "2019-11-08T21:05:27Z")
Well, you know, The Beatles and The Stones went head-to-head back in the day. But it seems like the Fab Four haven’t been around in FOREVER and The Stones are still Rolling. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/4 "2019-11-08T21:13:21Z")
The Velvet Underground and … any of their 60s contemporaries, really. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/5 "2019-11-08T21:43:52Z")
My first thought on reading the OP was Sgt. Barry Sadler’s “Ballad of the Green Berets” hitting the top of the the billboard 100 for 1966, beating bands like the Beatles and the Mamas and Papas. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/6 "2019-11-08T22:33:06Z")
Led Zeppelin started a year before Sha Na Na did, both had their hey day through the 70s. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/7 "2019-11-09T00:57:03Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > The Velvet Underground and … any of their 60s contemporaries, really. Just like Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band at the same time or Pere Ubu in 1975. Post punk before punk broke? What? ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/8 "2019-11-09T01:25:30Z")
**Bands and Artists that were contemporaries, but don’t seem like it.** The Bee Gees were always contemporaries of themselves, no? So how about their late 1960’s music compared to the stuff they put out in the late 1970s? I think it was called Disco or something. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/9 "2019-11-09T01:28:09Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > Led Zeppelin started a year before Sha Na Na did, both had their hey day through the 70s. Sha Na Na played at Woodstock! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/10 "2019-11-09T01:32:27Z")
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Led Zeppelin began… [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ffBRhtWjEQ) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/11 "2019-11-09T01:43:31Z")
Buddy Holly and Willie Nelson. They were born three years apart (Nelson is the older one). They’re both from Texas. They recorded their first songs within a year of each other. ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/12 "2019-11-09T13:21:20Z")
> [@Bradjam](#): > > In the musical encyclopedia of my head, bands such as Black Sabbath and Eagles seem like they are from two different realities. But, their careers have run pretty much side by side, when you look at the years they’ve been performing. Same with bands like Fleetwood Mac and The Sex Pistols. > > So what bands or artists, to you, fit in this category? For the sake of simplicity, let’s exclude artists where the tail end of their career may have coincided with someone first starting up, so something like Frank Sinatra and Nirvana might have some overlap, that’s not quite what I’m looking for! I don’t really agree **The Sex Pistols** and **Fleetwood Mac** have had ‘careers running side by side.’ **The Sex Pistols** (basically) existed for about a year between 1976 and 1977 producing a single album. By 1978 even Cook and Jones dropped the name. The surviving members have briefly reformed a couple of times for a few lucrative “pay day” concerts. **Fleetwood Mac** have existed (arguably) continuously since 1967 in various line ups recording for decades and still touring to this day. Thousands of vaguely well known artists have come and gone during **Fleetwood Mac** ’s existence but there is no particular parallel between the careers of **Fleetwood Mac** and **The Sex Pistols**. In my opinion, anyway. TCMF-2L ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/13 "2019-11-09T15:05:17Z")
Bobby Darin seemed like the victim of a time machine accident who asked the Time Lords to drop him off in 1947 and they missed it by a decade. A Rat Pack-style crooner in the Elvis and Beatles eras, a Teen Dreams pop singer in the age of CSNY, a protest singer as the war was winding down… It was not an enviable career arc. I remember how precious it looked when Tony Bennett and the Red Hot Chili Peppers did their [little schtick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA79xTSyfRY) at an MTV Awards in 1991. Who’d have guessed that Bennett’s career had more horsepower remaining in it than the Peppers’? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/14 "2019-11-09T15:26:56Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I remember how precious it looked when Tony Bennett and the Red Hot Chili Peppers did their [little schtick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA79xTSyfRY) at an MTV Awards in 1991. Who’d have guessed that Bennett’s career had more horsepower remaining in it than the Peppers’? The smart money would have all been on Bennett. In 1991, Bennett had been around for forty years. It was unlikely his career was going to collapse. The Red Hot Chili Peppers may have been huge in 1991. But the only people who would believe that meant they would be huge forever would have been young fans. Anyone older would have seen other performers who had been just as big at their peak and who then vanished a few years later. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/15 "2019-11-09T16:41:18Z")
How about the Monkees and the MC5? They both formed, under very different circumstances, in 1966. One made harmless pop rock for teenyboppers, as commercial as it gets, whereas the others were political radicals with the goal to change the system by playing ultra-loud hardrock and proto-punk, as anti-establishment as it gets. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2019, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-and-artists-that-were-contemporaries-but-dont-seem-like-it/843185/16 "2019-11-09T18:00:37Z")
Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Barbara Walters, Bob Newhart, Berry Gordy and Max von Sydow were all born in 1929. It just feels to me that the first two are historic figures who wouldn’t necessarily have contemporaries alive today.