# It's been 40 years... why hasn't there been another Beatles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904 "2011-03-24T23:06:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [March 25, 2011, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/21 "2011-03-25T11:30:36Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > I’d argue that Garth Brooks was pretty popular. You’ve got to regard the global impact the Beatles had and still have. I’m from Germany, and my parents (born in the thirties) don’t care shit for rock/pop music. Ask them about this Garth Brooks guy (and, for that matter, about U2, Justin Timberlake, Bruce Springsteen or almost any other name mentioned in this thread), and they’ll draw blank. But of course they’ve heard of the Beatles, as well as of Elvis or Michael Jackson. These were not mere mega-successful artists, they were global pop phenomena. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/22 "2011-03-25T11:49:43Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > Just for curiosity, who did you think was as big as the Beatles in 1931? That’s about 4 or 5 years early for Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman… Louis Armstrong, maybe? > > Music doesn’t go in nice, convenient cycles, however much we’d like it to. Bing Crosby was big in the early 30’s. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/23 "2011-03-25T11:57:24Z")
The Beatles? BAH! At their pinnacle, in 1969, with arguably their best album – Sgt Pepper – fresh for the taking, and changing music, the freakin’ Archies Rick Rolled the USA with “Sugar”. SUGAR! 1969’s biggest hit. 🙂 I’m still waiting for another Italian Renaissance. What? We only need some of the most incredibly talented people in a very specific field to converge at the right place during the right time in a vast expanse of history. Should I stop waiting? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/24 "2011-03-25T12:31:06Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > The answer to the OP is “Because it isn’t the 1960s any more”. > > The Beatles were hugely talented, but they also existed in a time and place that allowed them to become what they became. Things were different within a few years. Times changed. > > There will never be another Beatles because there will never be another World War Two, there will never be another 1950s, and so on. Times changed. Culture changed. The Beatles were hugely talented, but they didn’t come out of a vacuum. Culture is dynamic. You can’t separate the art from the times. I agree. I would frame the OP another way: what are the big vectors of cultural change and who are the Beatles’ equivalent within that context? As I do on all of these threads, I come back to the same thing: what rock music was back then, the internet has been for the past 15 years. The web is the thing that parents usually don’t understand as well as their kids and that parents are afraid of when they see the change impact it is having on them. The kids just see it as a way to express themselves and come together. So The Beatles are, I dunno, perhaps Steve Jobs, with Bill Gates as Elvis. Jobs started in his old-school pop phase, building on Elvis’ success with straight-up rock tunes, like Apple did with personal computers. But then he completely changed the game, designing not just new categories, but full ecosystems around them… ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/25 "2011-03-25T12:43:55Z")
I remember seeing a “SD” type book in the mid1980s with questions like this and “Why is the Mona Lisa so famous”. The authors point was media was more concentrated. three networks and all that. Plus with radios being dial, many people would set the dial on one station and leave it there. “Yesterday” was a huge hit and all kinds of “good music” artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Andy Williams recorded it, as well as non singers like David McCallum to try to get the teenyboppers to listen to them. But later, with music fragmentation, if someone had come out with an acoustic song with a violin, it would only be a mild hit on some MOR station. I guess you also had two songwriters with talent that complement (John more the lyricist, Paul more the musical although both could overlap), George who had some talent and Ringo was kind of the sad face that American kids love (like Dopey of the Seven Dwarves, according to Albert Goldman in his negative book on Lennon). I also wonder if the demands of the industry (four singles and two albums a year) forced them to innovate (or allowed all their ideas to come out). Nowadays an artist releases maybe one album every three years. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/26 "2011-03-25T12:50:35Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > I’d argue that Garth Brooks was pretty popular. Wha…? Should we be waiting for a punchline… or a whooshing sound? ---
**Author:** ![Sakuma\_Drops](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sakuma\_Drops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sakuma_Drops)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/27 "2011-03-25T13:00:41Z")
I’d agree with the notion that the only artist since '71 to reach the sort of worldwide recognition on par with that of The Beatles was Michael Jackson. The key to Jackson’s success was that he appealed to such a broad range of people; he enjoyed huge success among both Black AND White audiences, and he did so without the taboos that were associated with Elvis (we love Elvis now, but his early material was considered somewhat risque in its time, at least as far as the idea of impressionable White teens listening to him was concerned). _Thriller_ is still the top-selling album of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/28 "2011-03-25T13:07:04Z")
> [@antonio107](#): > > Al Jolson! And whoever wrote “Lady of Spain!” > > (My research in the Hockey Organ compels me to mention “Lady of Spain,” lol) [Ian Whitcomb’s uncle](http://www.picklehead.com/ian/uncle.html) wrote “Lady of Spain.” > [@](#): > > Even today most people know of “Lady Of Spain”, especially in America where it has a rotten reputation. There it’s associated with the conformity of the 1950s when kids were forced to wear bow ties and learn accordion. The song was the “Horst Wessell” of the squeeze-box which, in turn, was emblematic of all that was fusty old-fashioned. Rock & Roll came along to liberate the youngsters from their cultural prison. > > My uncle, not Spanish in any way, was one of no less than three lyricists who, in 1931, contributed the words that nobody ever seems to get right. In its period, despite initial resistance from jazz-loving bandleaders who didn’t care for paso dobles that could double as waltzes, the song became a world-wide smash. I believe the best version, readily available on CD, is Ray Noble’s version with a vocal by Al Bowlly. Uncle also had a hand in “Let’s All Sing Like The Birdies Sing–Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!” which can be heard every day at Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room attraction. It’s also on the soundtrack of a Woody Allen film, “Radio Days”. And in the Balkans they’re partial to “Butterflies In The Rain” and “Fairy On The Clock”. I know these facts because I receive royalty cheques four times a year for these and other works of my uncle, Stanley J. Damerell – not his real name but only one of many. Typical of his time. And therein lies my tale. > > I want to tell you about my uncle – and his vanished London of smoke, false teeth, and napkin scribbling in pubs. In order to do so you have to hear about my family… Some of us remember Ian as a one hit wonder with “You Turn Me On.” But he’s had a long & varied career in music & writing. His [After The Ball](http://www.amazon.com/After-Ball-Music-Rock-Limelight/dp/087910063X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301058262&sr=8-1) is a well-regarded history of American pop music & would be of interest to most people interested in this thread… ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/29 "2011-03-25T13:21:13Z")
Of course there’s been another Beatles. Its Oasis, silly. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/30 "2011-03-25T13:36:58Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Of course there’s been another Beatles. Its Oasis, silly. Hey - Liam’s new band Beady Eye has a new CD coming out called \*Different Gear, Still Speeding \* - some of the stuff I have heard is really good! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/31 "2011-03-25T13:40:28Z")
It’s been 400 years. Why hasn’t there been aother Shakespeare? Some events just happen once, when the time, culture, and talent manage to conjoin. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/32 "2011-03-25T13:44:33Z")
I feel like we’ve discussed this recently. As the others have said, there won’t be another Elvis or Beatles because we no longer have a mass pop culture. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/33 "2011-03-25T13:49:07Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Hey - Liam’s new band Beady Eye has a new CD coming out called \*Different Gear, Still Speeding \* - some of the stuff I have heard is really good! 😉 I think I read in an interview that the band name was partially chosen because it would show up right next to The Beatles in a catalog. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/34 "2011-03-25T13:53:07Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > It’s been 400 years. Why hasn’t there been aother Shakespeare? Show a little patience, please. It takes a bit longer than 400 years to get an infinite number of monkeys seated at their typewriters. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/35 "2011-03-25T13:56:14Z")
HuffPo article [here](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-pollack/10-bands-shaping-the-post_b_838771.html): 10 Bands Shaping the Post-Nirvana Era. by Jeff Pollack, some music guy. The list in alphabetical order: - Arcade Fire - Coldplay - The Dave Matthews Band - Death Cab for Cutie - Green Day - Linkin Park - Muse - Pearl Jam - Radiohead - The White Stripes First observation - other than Radiohead’s evolution into avant-garde-colored music and The White Stripe’s post-modern, Primitivist take on primitive blues/rock, oh, and maybe Linkin Park’s innovation of nu-metal, which has already come and gone, thank Og :rolleyes: - not a lot is going on here. Green Day takes punk to an evolutionary gigantism point with the rock opera structure - no place to go there. AF, Coldplay, DMB, Death Cab, Muse and PJ are merely examples of existing genres…some of which I would like to stomp out of existence, but that’s my problem. I mean this in the nicest possible way as a huge, huge music fan - but who cares? I hate the fact that I don’t have to pay much attention to the music scene right now…I mean, the Arcade fuckin’ Fire is my new hope? Don’t get me wrong, they’re just fine - but no new ground is being broken. Second observation - sigh, so little love for “The” these days… ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/36 "2011-03-25T14:10:50Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > I’d argue that Garth Brooks was pretty popular. > [@digs](#): > > Wha…? > > Should we be waiting for a punchline… or a whooshing sound? I don’t think it’s a whoosh. [Brooks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Brooks#Setting_records) is the second-best selling solo artist in U.S. history (behind Elvis by a narrow margin). He was far and away the hottest musical act of the 1990s and grew Country Music’s audience with his crossover appeal. While I think there’s a valid argument to be made, my gut says no, Garth Brooks is no Beatles. He was hugely popular, yes, and might still be if he hadn’t stepped out of the spotlight. He clearly influenced and inspired a generation of performers to follow. But I don’t see the same level of pioneering, innovation, and staying power that sets the Fab Four apart. (Oh, and Chris Gaines ≠Sgt. Pepper.) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/37 "2011-03-25T14:18:43Z")
Garth who?! He’s to country what Arthur Godfrey was to the ukulele\* \*yes that is a meaningful reference. [Godfrey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Godfrey)was the most freakin’ popular guy on radio for over a decade in the 40’s - 50’s and his playing of the uke ushered in a huge wave of popularity at the time. Is he discussed now? ---
**Author:** ![gregorio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@gregorio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gregorio)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/38 "2011-03-25T14:24:53Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Second observation - sigh, so little love for “The” these days… I blame Matt Johnson for that. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/39 "2011-03-25T14:32:50Z")
With the number of important news stories from Japan to Wisconsin to Libya going on across the world, there’s only one singer consistently on the top of everyone’s minds. With the sheer number of multi-media options available today, there’s only one person who can gather 47 million people together in the space of a week to hear her music. While everyone is downloading bit torrents for free across the interwebs, there’s only one singer with a consistent record of having every produced song cracking the iTunes 100 top downloads. There is another Beatle. Her name is Rebecca Black. ---
**Author:** ![fjs1fs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9e8a1a/32.png) [@fjs1fs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fjs1fs)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904/40 "2011-03-25T14:44:02Z")
> [@krokodil](#): > > let’s put the beatles into perspective: Prior to **sgt. Pepper** (or perhaps **rubber soul** ), they were of very little interest to anybody but teen-aged girls, and they broke up three or four years later. They are remembered as being a lot more important than they actually were, and they benefited from a cultural vacuum in american music that existed for several years after elvis got drafted. (the top-selling album before the beatles went on the **ed sullivan show** was probably made by mitch miller or skitch henderson.) whatever their undeniable merits, the beatles were very lucky to be in the right place at the right time; if they had broken after the rolling stones instead of before, i doubt they’d be as fondly remembered. > > Comparisons with michael jackson and even justin timberlake are quite fair, at least for the early part of their career. Yeah, justin hasn’t had a **sgt. Pepper** or **white album** yet, but give him time. The beatles were never in a movie as good as **the social network**. justin timberlake – lol lol lol! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-been-40-years-why-hasnt-there-been-another-beatles/575904.md?page=3)