# Bands For Which You Can Rattle Off the Entire Line-up **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 27, 2018, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579 "2018-01-27T13:36:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/1 "2018-01-27T13:36:10Z")
Not sure that’s 100% clear, what bands can you recite the entire line-up for (this includes the bass player \*and \*the drummer) without having to stop and ponder? For me, immediately coming to mind are: The Beatles Rolling Stones Who Led Zeppelin Fleetwood Mac KISS (original line-up) Van Halen Rush The Police The Doors and I think that’s about it. Genesis, Queen, Aerosmith and I have and stop and think for a moment. My list is somewhat devoid of modern influences. And I guess by “modern” I’m thinking anything after 1985. Also don’t bother listing groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash, Hall and Oates, Loggins and Messina. Also we’ll go with the original line-up for groups that have gone through many transmutations. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/2 "2018-01-27T14:00:53Z")
Bonzo Dog Band The White Stripes Spirit Beatles Stone’s The Who Jefferson Airplane Grateful Dead The Doors Traffic. (all incarnations) ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/3 "2018-01-27T15:33:46Z")
Not many, actually. The Beatles The Who Queen Rush Led Zepplin The Stones (maybe, I might leave someone out) Pink Floyd ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/4 "2018-01-27T16:22:27Z")
The Beatles The Traveling Wilburys ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/5 "2018-01-27T17:42:34Z")
It never seemed important to me, so very few: Beatles Brubeck Quartet (the 60s version) Fleetwood Mac The Supremes ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/6 "2018-01-27T18:34:24Z")
The Beatles Fleetwood Mac Styx ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/7 "2018-01-27T18:36:08Z")
I’m pretty sure the Beatles are the only one for me. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/8 "2018-01-27T18:37:34Z")
Simon and Garfunkel The Beatles ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/9 "2018-01-27T18:37:41Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > The Traveling Wilburys Ha. I guess I know that one, too! ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/10 "2018-01-27T19:06:15Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > I’m pretty sure the Beatles are the only one for me. I can also name all five Spice Girls (including their nicknames), but they’re not really a band. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/11 "2018-01-27T19:19:29Z")
I have to think of the hamsters’ welfare and so will not list every band I can name all the members of just off the top of my head. At the very least it’s several dozen, more likely it’s well over a hundred. Many of them I can even name who played on which album, as lineup changes happen frequently to bands. If these iterations are all separate bands, then my list is easily over one hundred. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/12 "2018-01-28T05:06:45Z")
The Beatles. That’s it. There are other bands for whom I own practically the whole catalogue, but damned if I could name the members. Sometimes I’m lucky to know the lead singer. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/13 "2018-01-28T05:14:23Z")
Ramones Sex Pistols Kiss Beatles The Who Nirvana Led Zeppelin The Monkees Pink Floyd ---
**Author:** ![Claude\_Remains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@Claude\_Remains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claude_Remains)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/14 "2018-01-28T06:44:05Z")
I can play a version of “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” with musicians credits. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/15 "2018-01-28T08:01:02Z")
The Beatles The Monkees ABBA (but just their first names) ---
**Author:** ![BobBitchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ea924/32.png) [@BobBitchin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobBitchin)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/16 "2018-01-28T08:25:21Z")
Too many to list, but I’m a guitar player and some of us obsess over stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/17 "2018-01-28T12:14:17Z")
Rattling them off without a pause: Beatles, Monkees, Wilburys, Steely Dan. That’s it. Oh, and the Rutles, though they weren’t a real band. If I think about it, I can dredge their names from memory inside of a minute: The Who The Doors Young Rascals Moody Blues The Police U2 Bands I once knew all the members of by heart, and you might be able to drag them out of me under hypnosis: Rolling Stones Led Zeppelin Talking Heads Cars Association Turtles Go-Go’s Eagles Fleetwood Mac (mid-70s lineup, of course) When you’re in your teens, and in college if you went there as most of us did, you’re listening to a lot of music, sharing it with your friends, arguing about which artists/bands are better and which ones suck and why, you look at the CD booklets (back in the day) or album jackets (back in an even more distant day), and absorb a lot of details about the bands without really trying. That stops happening after awhile. You get into your 30s, and nobody you know is even listening to new stuff anymore. Even if you still are, there’s nobody to talk about it with anymore. So you don’t even bother to learn the names of the two guys in They Might Be Giants, let alone more normal-sized new bands. And it’s all downhill from there. Moving into the current decade, I love Cage the Elephant, but I can’t tell you the name of a single member of the band. I know who Florence Welch is only because her first name is part of the band name, Florence and the Machine. But when you’re in your early to mid 60s, you _really_ don’t have anyone to shoot the breeze with about new music anymore, because even friends 20 years younger than you aren’t listening to it. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/18 "2018-01-28T12:48:25Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I have to think of the hamsters’ welfare and so will not list every band I can name all the members of just off the top of my head. At the very least it’s several dozen, more likely it’s well over a hundred. Many of them I can even name who played on which album, as lineup changes happen frequently to bands. If these iterations are all separate bands, then my list is easily over one hundred. Yeah. My first thought was “all of them?” A stupid exaggeration - I have no clue about whole genres and more modern stuff - but yeah, when music was more central, I geeked on stuff like this. ---
**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:** [January 28, 2018, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/19 "2018-01-28T13:06:59Z")
Probably over a hundred, but I’ve been a music geek all my life, read hundreds of books about it, even music dictionaries and extensive discographies cover to cover and have a good, but very selective memory that remembers who played bass on album X and who produced album Y, but in real life I’m very bad with names and don’t even know all the names of my coworkers. I only memorize things that interest me, it has always been that way, and my greatest interest is music. ETA: I also study liner notes religiously. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2018, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579/20 "2018-01-28T16:03:05Z")
> [@Claude\_Remains](#): > > I can play a version of “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” with musicians credits. My roommate in college and I used to do this all the time. I blame the back of the “Best of Uriah Heep” album for getting us started down that road. (See if [this link](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2144/4235/products/IMG_9851_1024x1024@2x.JPG?v=1507911385) works…) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bands-for-which-you-can-rattle-off-the-entire-line-up/807579.md?page=2)