Which rock acts, whether a band or a solo artist, can make a legitimate claim to being the biggest in the world at some point (doesn’t even have to be during the lifetime of the band)? Use whatever criteria you want–album sales, concert attendance, hit singles, magazine covers, whatever–but I’m looking for some indication of widespread popularity, as opposed to influence.
The Beatles are the most obvious candidates, based purely on Beatlemania. The Rolling Stones probably fit in there during their run from Let It Bleed to Exile On Main Street.
On a shorter scale, the Police seemed to be hugely popular to me after the release of Synchronicity, as did U2 after the release of The Joshua Tree. Guns N’ Roses may qualify around the release of Use Your Illusion. At least, my recollection is that all three of those were everywhere in the media around those times.
I think that in the last decade or two it’s tended to be U2, Coldplay, and Radiohead, with The Beatles getting the top honor (but that’s going back a bit further).
I think; but that’s just from the impression I get from the media in general and I don’t know what statistics are used if any.
Interesting the proportion of British (and Irish) bands, which seems higher than it should be given the size difference between the UK and the US. But the US has a lot more of the individual artist superstars (I think the UK can only match the likes of Madonna and Jackson etc. with Elton John - I’m discounting McCartney because he’s big due to being in The Beatles not due to his own stuff).
Maybe there’s a cultural thing there? The tendency towards bands in the UK, and solo artists in the US (not that both don’t have both, but my impression is that their most famous tend to be that way). But that’s a WAG and based totally on media impression and no stats whatsoever.
Well, according to Behind the Music on VH-1, each artist in each episode has a climactic moment around 20-25 minutes in where they are “the biggest in the world” and then there is the lead in to commercial where you see just how far they fall…
No real way to measure - because everyone will have their way to measure.
I would argue that the Dead were never the “biggest” even if they had top tour receipts - they never had that shining moment where they captured mainstream buzz the way a Madonna, Michael Jackson, GnR, etc. has…
So I guess I am saying that “Biggest in the World” has a Pop Music/Crossover success component in my mind…but I am sure YMMV…
I have noticed that as well (though I think “Irish” is true only to the extent we include U2; otherwise it’s really just English bands). In terms of exposure in the US, I can’t think of any solo act from the UK or Ireland that even comes close to an Elvis, Madonna, or Michael Jackson. Apart from Elton John, Clapton, is the biggest one I can think of at the moment, but the list of bands is incredibly long. No idea how that holds up worldwide, though.
Well, there are those who are incredibly successful worldwide, with the US being an exception. The (Australian) Kylie Minogue strikes me as an example; I don’t know how the figures hold up under closer scrutiny, though. I’d guess at a level below the Madonnas/Michael Jacksons but above the vast majority of solo artists.
See? This is what I mean - I would not say Rush has been the “biggest rock act in the world” at all, with ONE possible exception: when Moving Pictures blew up. When it came out, that was their “big crossover moment.” To this day, if you ask your average non-music-following shmoe who Rush was, they would probably say “Tom Sawyer. Red Barchetta.” At the time, man they got play - I could talk to girls about Rush and they knew the band and maybe even had the album!
So, for me, I would want to dig in and remind myself who else was at the top of the charts at the time, and whether Rush had a legit claim to being the biggest for that few-month period…
To cite an awful counter-example, I would argue that **Vanilla Ice **was the biggest act in the world - pop music/hip hop, not pop/rock - for the 6+ months that his Ice Ice Baby single and CD was out and selling upwards of 10million copies. For that period of time, you could not go ANYWHERE without getting bombarded with Robbie fucking Van Winkle, aka Vanilla Ice.
Kiss has to be considered the biggest in the world at one point, if for no other reason than merchandising. They were on everything from their own face paint marketed to kids to pinball machines to puzzles to comic books and then some.
Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson all come to mind as the biggest acts at one time or another.
Different business models. Bands like The Stones or huge solo artists tour every couple of years and sometimes they’ll put out an album before they hit the road. The Dead toured all the time. They had, and have, a very devoted fanbase, and somewhere in the early or mid '70s they were probably one of the biggest bands in the country, but I don’t think there was ever a point where they had the recognition of a Beatles or U2 or Madonna where it seems like everybody at least knows some of the hits.
And that’s why it’s impossible. I bow to no one (as some may know) as a Rush partisan. But I wouldn’t even have considered them ‘the biggest thing in the world’. Even in the Permanent Waves/Moving Pictures/Signals period of time which featured these songs on radio: The Spirit of Radio, Free Will, Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, Limelight, Subdivisions, New World Man (and you have to admit that’s quite a string) there were other, more accessible bands that were on top of the world.
Yes, it’s true that for sustained success they might win. Ditto for touring and such. But for peak performance they lacked the overall pop consciousness to really take the throne.
How big are the biggest Chinese or Indian popular music acts? I’d imagine they don’t get much play outside of their country, but that’s a lot of people to be restricted to.
In the *Modern Love *era, maybe - that was Bowie’s biggest crossover moment - although using Bowie and crossover in the same sentence may not always mean the same thing…
Lots of Brits have had their one-off moments of being the Biggest Thing Evah. George Michael was HUGE during his run with Faith…
