(Not) the New Beatles!

Stumbling thru a dusty old box of 45s, I came across one of my alltime faves by The Raspberries - which made me start thinking about all the bands that were blessed/cursed with the tag of becoming the New Beatles...

Imagine the record industry / rock scene / music fans, circa early 1970s... who would fill the void created by the breakup of The Beatles? Sure - now instead of one great band, we had four great solo artists (well, 3.5 perhaps - RINGO!) though none of them individually would ever equal the power and impact of the biggest band in history. Not unlike the "New Dylan" tag that was used to hype many young folk-ish male singer songwriters thru the '70s (Bruce Springsteen, John Prine, Steve Forbert, Willie Nile, Loudon Wainright, etc), imagine the honor / pressure that went with being labelled the New Beatles by your label / press / fans? While none of these artists could hope to replace the Beatles, all had at least a few weeks (or years) at the top of the charts. And all made some pretty good music - which we celebrate today on the Top 5@5.

Badfinger


The Raspberries


ELO


Klaatu


The Knack


and how could I nearly forget - Bay City Rollers


Some classic pop music... none of these bands would be the New Beatles - although Jeff Lynne didn't do too poorly for himself, and did become George Harrison's bandmate in the Travellin' Wilburys!