My opinion?
No body, it is like asking who is the American Pink Floyd? Or who is the English Elvis?
They were unique, too unique to pull off copying with out looking like a cheap knock off.
The Beach Boys were THE guitar based pop rock group in the USA until The Beatles knocked them off their throne and surpassed them. AT THE TIME, I guess The Byrds might have been the American Beatles musically, but there was never Byrdmania (well, wasn’t that an album?) like there was Beatlemania.
What makes The Beatles different is that although they started out here as a teeny bopper group, they managed to outgrow that label because their fans’ tastes matured also. As for the enthusiastic teen fans, I think you’re talking NSYNC or Michael Jackson. Musical innovation? Maybe Hendrix.
BTO would be the Canadian Beatles.
Of course the question is unanswerable unless we reduce it to measures that can be quantified, such as record sales. Everything else is subjective.
If you asked the Beatles themselves at the time, they would have said The Beach Boys. They had somewhat of a friendly rivalry going, and both bands highly respected each other. It’s been said that the Beatles were huge fans of the Beach Boys, and also that Brian Wilson almost went into a depression after hearing Sgt. Pepper because he thought it was such a work of genius he wouldn’t be able to match it.
There is one thing we can be sure of, however: it was NOT the freaking Monkees. Some of the individual members had some talent, but they were largely a novelty act put together for a TV show, singing and performing other people’s songs mostly. They were at best average musicians (Michael Nesmith maybe a little better than that), and if they didn’t have the marketing clout of Hollywood behind them you would never have heard of them.
Mind you, they weren’t as terrible as some snobs believed, but ‘not terrible’ is not the standard we are shooting for here. I have heard their new album is pretty good.
Here’s one to put you off the question forever:
The closest by far in album sales is Garth Brooks
To put some additional data on the table, I still remember the 70’s and I remember some of the bands being touted as the ‘Next Beatles’. Not all American, but it gives you an idea of the competition:
ELO
Badfinger
Cheap Trick
The Knack
The Bee Gees
I don’t agree with any of those, but I remember the buzz around them at the time.
In the 90’s, I heard REM and Oasis being called the next Beatles many times. But they never had enough sustained output and creativity to make it.
Of those. Cheap Trick, The Knack, and REM were American bands.
BTO? Ever hear of the Guess Who?
Uh, yeah. One of my favorite bands. I was just responding to the idea that BTO coild be the 'American ‘Beatles’. BTO and The Guess Who were both thoroughly Canadian.
Other candidates for the ‘Canadian Beatles’ would be April Wine, Lighthouse, The Band, the Tragically Hip, and Rush.
If Grateful Dead fans are called Deadheads, what do you call New Kids on the Block fans?
[SPOILER]Blockheads.
(passes up Enola Straight :D)[/SPOILER]
And Badfinger were spawned from the Beatles. McCartney actually wrote and produced If You Want It, Here It Is. they certainly had the Apple blessing, but they weren’t the same thing.
The Beatles’ chief accomplishment was getting millions of kids to start their own garage bands and write their own songs. Their songs, though enjoyable and popular, were not the stuff of musical virtuosos, and their main selling point was their working-class attitude and accents. So yeah, the Ramones.
You said “would” not “could” and I couldn’t help but reflect on the Guess Who and that long career of hits that led to BTO later on, who had way fewer hits over way fewer years as I remember.
My band mates and I have this discussion often and have also resolved…
Canadian Hank Williams = Stompin’ Tom Connors
The Canadian Eagles = Blue Rodeo
Canadian Bob Dylan = Gordon Lightfoot
Old thread on the subject of Who were the first successful AMERICAN rock band?
Hank Snow?
Guess Who?
Neil Freakin Young?
Once again, Joni Mitchell believes she was robbed.
She was raised on it.
(I knew what you meant.)
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I am thoroughly chastened as a sexist pig. But Joni is better than both of them. Maybe that’s my excuse? Yeah that’s it.
We’ve done *everything *on this board before.
Current Canadian band that is very reminiscent of the Beatles sense of fun, enthusiasm and musicianship: Walk Off the Earth. Check them out if you haven’t yet.
They’re a cover band. What could that possibly have to do the The Beatles once they became songwriters?