Call it a lack of imagination:
But saddling an up-and -coming act with the moniker ‘The New (insert name of critically / commercially acclaimed band here)’ is a time honoured tradition for media and marketing departments.
Possibly the most popular name with which to hype / weigh down a band has been to declare them “The New Beatles.” Which hasn’t always turned out well.
Let’s have a look at some notable hits and misses:
Gerry And The Pacemakers
The case for:
A route one pick. They were from Liverpool, managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin.
Their first three singles were UK #1s. Which made them “even better than The Beatles.”
The case against:
It quickly turned out that they weren’t as charismatic, good looking or talented.
They had a solid run. But the moptop shaking hysteria generated by The Beatles was missing.
The Monkees
“Hey Hey We’re The Monkees – people say we’re a thinly veiled marketing ploy to cash in on the success of The Beatles.”
We do also Monkee around though it is within the confines of a scripted TV show.
The case for:
There were four of them. All with a distinct likeable personality.
The songs had energy, there was youthful exuberance, one of them was from Manchester, which is near Liverpool. The TV show was like an extension of The Beatles home in Help!
They got more interesting as time went on.
They went weird, and headed off in different directions just like The Beatles White Album.
Rounding things off with a film that saw the rambling freewheeling of Magical Mystery Tour and raised it by a power of 10.
The case against:
It didn’t matter to some how good the records were. They were the pre-fab four.
A manufactured, inorganic version of the real thing who didn’t even play on the early records.
Whereas Magical Mystery Tour was at the time a minor blip in The Beatles critical acclaim, Head was a career stopping disaster. Even if they’ve both been reassessed since.
Badfinger
The case for:
They were signed to Apple. Paul wrote and produced their debut hit, “Come And Get It.” And with admirable control-freakery, instructed them to play it exactly like the demo.
They were pretty much a Beatles cover band on their first hit. They played on the All Things Must Pass and Imagine albums, as well as Ringo’s single; “It Don’t Come Easy.” They were variously produced by George Harrison, Geoff Emerick (engineer on later Beatles records) and Mal Evans.
There’s also the band name. They were ‘The Iveys’ when Mal discovered them. Badfinger came from the working title of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends; Bad Finger Boogie.’
The case against:
Not so much a case against, but while being in The Beatles orbit gave them an initial boost it also worked against them.
Apple wasn’t the best run record company, and they weren’t given the support they needed. They were screwed over by their management. And with Allan Klein in charge, Apple wasn’t exactly looking out for their best interests. By the time Apple folded and they moved on to Warner Bros they’d lost momentum.
They were beset by legal and financial issues that would result in the suicides of Pete Ham in 1975 and Tom Evans in 1983.
They managed a handful of hits. But such was their failure to grasp the zeitgeist their best known song:
“Without You” was left as an album track allowing Harry Nilsson to score a worldwide smash with it.
Electric Light Orchestra
The case for:
They came highly commended. By John Lennon.
In 1974 he was quoted as saying: “I call them Son of Beatles, although they’re doing things that we never did, obviously.” Plus; “I remember the statement they made when they first formed was to carry on from where The Beatles left off with ‘[I Am the] Walrus,’ and they certainly did.”
Jeff Lynne went onto produce Cloud Nine and Brainwashed for George, some of Ringo’s Time Takes Time and Paul’s Flaming Pie.
The case against:
There are some people that really don’t like Jeff’s work on “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love.” Go on Beatles message boards and you’ll find disparaging comments about that and ELO.
I don’t recall who said it but there was a quote from around the time of Anthology that Jeff Lynne has spent his entire career wishing he had been in the Beatles. With “Free As A Bird,” it had finally come true. It was intended more in disparagement that he made The Beatles sound like ELO.
Pilot
The case for:
A case of poisoned chalice right from the start. The fledgling Scottish band were likened to The Beatles on the strength of “Magic” and “January.”
There was a connection through Alan Parsons (he of The Project). Having been sound engineer on Abbey Road and Let It Be, he was producer of three of Pilot’s 1970s albums.
They recorded at Abbey Road and according to Davie Paton they even got to use the mellotron that appears on Strawberry Fields.
Paton and Billy Lyall were in early incarnations of The Bay City Rollers. Swapping future Beatles comparisons with one band for another.
It started well. “Magic” was a worldwide smash.
The follow up “January” undid any of that momentum Stateside, but it outdid “Magic” at home, topping the UK charts.
The case against:
The comparisons didn’t do them much good. After “Magic” and “January,” there were another two minor hits.
And that was it. Within a year, their chart career was over.
The New Beatles is only 25% accurate. Really, they should have been The New Wings. Their pop / soft rock sound has far more in common with Paul’s post Beatle adventures.
Bay City Rollers
The case for:
The comparison appears to be entirely based on the fact they were screamed at and chased by teenage girls, inspiring the term ‘Rollermania’ in homage to ‘Beatlemania.’
The case against:
Everything else.
Most of their early singles were written for them. Les McKeown said that they didn’t even play on the first four singles. It’s The Monkees all over again. Even had their own TV show.
From Wouldn’t You Like It in 1975, they were writing the majority of their own material. Which is the point that their UK success started to slip but their brief period of US success commenced.
They did try and evolve, by the end of the 70s their chart days were behind them and they tried a new wave sound. Unlike The Beatles the evolution was not a success.
The end was more Badfinger than Beatles. There were court cases against their label and between former members. Manager Tam Paton would spend time in prison in the 80s for Gross Indecency but had made more far more money from their success than the band. Then came allegations by band members of rape and sexual abuse against him.
Klaatu
The case for:
There were people who really believed this wasn’t just the New Beatles. This was the actual old Beatles. Minus Paul. He was dead.
Or John’s supposed cousin Goose Graham was leader of the band with John producing.
There’s a website laying out the many contortions in logic and suspension of disbelief required:
But the basic facts are these:
- They were on Capitol Records. As were The Beatles.
- Debut album 3:47 EST contained no band pictures or mention of the band member names.
The cover of Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna in 1974 had him replacing Klaatu in an image from The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The music does admittedly adhere to Beatlesque. At times, like “Doctor Marvello,” it could be a Sgt Pepper offcut. That one even references Sentimental Journey. There’s Ringo again.
There were apparently backward messages, morse code, references within the lyrics to their identities and the word Beatles hidden on the sleeve. Those are amongst the more sane of the clues. For a few months no one noticed the debut album.
Then it went old-world viral.
The Providence Journal in Rhode Island printed an article by Steve Smith titled: ‘Could Klaatu be The Beatles? Mystery is a Magical Mystery Tour.’
In which he concluded Klaatu were The Beatles. Or some of them at least. Where Rhode Island goes, the world follows.
Capitol leaned into it by keeping things ambiguous. The band were supposedly unaware as they were in Britain recording the follow up.
The mythology evolved that 3:47 EST was a lost album recorded between Revolver and Sgt. Pepper and was somehow connected to that other popular rumour that Paul died so the album was junked while they got his replacement upto speed.
The case against:
One of the songs on 3:47 EST had a song called “Anus Of Uranus” on it. The Beatles would never stoop so low surely.
Is that Fozzie Bear singing “Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III?” If this was “The Beatles,” it really stiffed.
Their best known song is “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft:” And that’s due to The Carpenters version.
In their own name, they barely scraped the top 40 of album or singles charts anywhere.
Maybe that’s part of the conspiracy. It couldn’t be seen that The Beatles had failed so badly. That’s why the ‘real’ identities of Klaatu were later revealed.
Not everyone bought into it.
The NME ran an article ‘Deaf Idiot Journalist Starts Beatle Rumour’.
Unfortunately for Klaatu, they’re remembered more for this than their actual music. Which is a shame.
As 3:47 EST… is pretty good.
Cheap Trick
The case for:
They definitely loved The Beatles.
They’ve recorded “Day Tripper,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Cold Turkey” and “Gimme Some Truth. Upping the ante, from 2007 they started playing Sgt. Pepper in full with an orchestra, going on to release it as a live album.
George Martin produced the All Shook Up album. Then, there’s all of the The Beatles referencing tracks, as this link attests to.
It certainly seems that they wanted to be The Beatles.
As per their best known album, they went down a storm in Japan, gaining a reputation there as The American Beatles.
They also had a song called “ELO Kiddies,” which I’m going to take as a beef with ELO accusing them being kids compared to the superiority of Cheap Trick’s Beatles influences.
(I wrote that before looking it up on Wikipedia, which cites a number of possible interpretations, one of which is that its an acknowledgement they borrowed elements from ELO. I prefer my take.)
The case against:
They had a long career but they were the archetypal rollercoaster as their fortunes rose and fell from album to album.
When they’re good, they’re a lot of fun. But there isn’t the consistency and inventiveness of The Beatles.
And their only #1 was “The Flame.” Which can’t be anyone’s idea of their best song.
The Knack
The case for:
Perhaps learning from the Klaatu experience, Capitol really leaned into it with The Knack.
- Their debut album Get The Knack had elements of Meet The Beatles! and A Hard Day’s Night in its packaging. It was the fastest selling debut album on Capitol since Meet The Beatles!
- “My Sharona” was the biggest selling debut single in Capitol since “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Frontman Doug Fieger said their sound was harking back to the British Invasion.
The case against:
The marketing may have overdone it.
That; the bands refusal to do interviews, and the fact the lyrics could be pretty skeezy.
It didn’t work out well for The Knack.
The backlash led to a call to “Knuke The Knack.”
There was no need for such extremes. They followed the traditional career trajectory of the overhyped: A smash hit debut and diminishing returns to the point of obscurity, as the backlash and the rush to release a follow up, rather than concentrate on quality, took hold.
Oasis
The case for:
They were always banging on about The Beatles. In interviews and in lyrics;
- “Supersonic” – “You can sail with me in my Yellow Submarine”
- “Morning Glory” – “Another sunny afternoon, walking to the sound of my favorite tune, Tomorrow Never Knows, but it doesn’t know too soon”
- “Be Here Now” – “Play a song for me, one from Let It Be”
- There’s the “I Am The Walrus” cover they closed all of their shows with for years.
- Liam called his first son Lennon.
- The video to “Around The World” that owes a lot to Yellow Submarine.
They copied The Beatles in firing the drummer for not being good enough. They split up acrimoniously and then had years of rumours about whether they’d get back together.
The case against:
When The Beatles got into drugs, it enhanced their creativity. When Oasis got into drugs it enhanced their already inflated ego’s and resulted in the overblown Be Here Now.
In Noel’s own words; “All the songs are really long and all the lyrics are shit and for every millisecond Liam is not saying a word, there’s a f*ckin’ guitar riff in there in a Wayne’s World style”.
No doubt there are plenty of others that I’ve missed. Anyone have any contenders to put the case for or against?
Or others acts that have notably been referred to as The New ________?
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I found this clip of the Bay City Rollers when I was writing this. It doesn’t fit with the article but is so glorious it has to be shared. Performing with Ann Margaret to an audience of pensioners who are loving it. Most of them.
There’s so much to love about it, from the pre song chat that’s ever so slightly awkward and stilted and the fact Ann Margaret doesn’t seem to know all the words but it’s the audience that are the stars.
The lady with an ear trumpet, the ones up and dancing; especially the one at the front and the lady that gets up at the end seemingly egged on by her neighbour. Then there’s the two that are totally above it all, one doing her knitting oblivious to everything and the haughty looking black hatted lady who looks like she doesn’t necessarily approve of such frivolity.
https://youtu.be/mHgME-U-9wU?feature=shared
That’s hilarious.
Hasn’t Tom been saying that XTC are Beatles wannabes? I can kind of see that, but Tears For Fears definitely spent hours listening to Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour before writing Songs From The Big Chair and The Hurting.
The Raspberries were sort of in the Badfinger mold, too. I’m sure I’ll think of more as the day goes on. Nice list, JJ!
A lot of those American 80s jangle pop acts took heavy inspiration from the Beatles (and of course Byrds to a lesser extent).
The Smithereens, the dB’s, the Three O’Clock, Marshall Crenshaw, Michael Penn to name a few.
The British and Australian jangle pop groups like Orange Juice and the Go-Betweens seem to have been way less Beatles-inspired.
Although I think of Robyn Hitchcock as Lizard Lennon and Steven Kilby of the Church as Dark Harrison.
I’ve never connected The Hurting and Songs From The Big Chair with The Beatles but single, Sowing The Seeds Of Love couldn’t be anymore blatant. Not that that was a problem for me. The Seeds Of Love album was very patchy but I still love that song.
With XTC it may be that any band that goes through a number of phases and like they did is bound to have a bit of crossover at some point just because theirs and The Beatles sounds were so wide ranging.
Blatant is the word for it.
I remember exactly where I was when I first heard Tears for Fears sowing their seeds. I liked the trickiness of it and was caught off guard at around the three minute 56 second mark.
“If that’s not John Lennon,” I remember thinking,, I
“I will eat my hat,”
https://youtu.be/VAtGOESO7W8?si=pTTtZqTp1oKLbTuo
Great write-up. As far as the quality of the early competition, no one else really brought it like the Kinks and the Stones did. So they were in some sense the best contenders for the next Beatles, even though they were getting big just a few months or so later.
In recent years I lean towards thinking the Kinks are actually better, though clearly they weren’t nearly as successful commercially. Still, damn impressive songwriting, mostly from one person.
When Nirvana got big, the band played with the idea of them being the next pop phenom in their “In Bloom” video, which makes some sense. And the Beatles were clearly a huge influence on Kurt’s songwriting. I’m sure part of him wanted the recognition of his talent, and the ability to reach people everywhere–but despised everything else that came along with it.
Similarly, the last band I’ve heard seriously considered as “the next Beatles” in terms of balancing popular appeal with creative ambition was Radiohead. And like Nirvana, they were very conflicted about their mainstream success, and ultimately retreated from the spotlight. If Kid A had been a one-off and they had returned to their roots in ballads and anthems, maybe they could have completed the narrative of being the next Beatles. As it turned out, they preferred being the next CAN.
In UK terms the Kinks are a good shout for taking third spot behind The Beatles then the Stones for 60s singles success. 3 #1s – 13 top 10 – 21 top 40 hits.
Despite the reputation of Village Green they were more of a singles band commercially. It’s their most highly regarded album but spent a grand total of one week on the album chart and that was in 2018.
Their best is on a par with The Beatles for me as well but they suffer from longevity. By the mid 70s there isn’t much that I’d consider essential listening. The tempestuous relationship between brothers Ray and Dave makes Oasis more like them than The Beatles.
Radiohead are The Beatles in that they did what they want and were prepared to experiment, head off in new directions and took their fans with them. Enough of them to sustain a career. Remember reading the lament of a fan after Kid A / Amnesiac that it would all be ok if only Johnny Greenwood could make Thom listen to reason, drop all that nonsense and go back to guitars. Someone who plainly misunderstood the group dynamics and that Johnny was just as much a driving part of it.
Listen to Jonny’s guitar’s now, kiddos!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ4lG5Szr50
Wasn’t Frankie Goes to Hollywood christened by some of its fans as “our generation’s Beatles”?
LOL!
They were from Liverpool, their first three singles were UK #1s, they covered Ferry Cross The Mersey.
Turns out they were “our generation’s Gerry & The Pacemakers”.
http://www.keyofz.com/vvoice.htm
Bear with me. I have to admit I’m struggling with this. I think comparing any band to the Beatles is a losing proposition, so I’m not sure it’s fair to do so, even if they seem to be asking for it. For the majority of the bands here that I know, I don’t measure them up against the Beatles, and I don’t think of them as trying to be the “new Beatles” despite how the media painted them and how they may have been marketed. Every band has influences and it helps define their sound, but ultimately, unless they are a complete carbon copy, they ultimately are a thing unto themselves and the more success they have, the more they get a chance to show that. Jeff Lynne’s Beatles’ obsession may be the one that sticks out the most, but their sound goes so far beyond just a Beatles’ pastiche that I only think of the Beatles in passing here and there when I listen.. They got big enough, at least here in U.S. to earn that. Badfinger may not have had a lot of hits, but they had four songs in the top 20 here and their songwriting prowess deserves more than the criticism they received for being very much in the Beatles mold. They brought much of that on themselves for associating so closely with the them, but a deeper dive into their music reveals so much more that the initial impression.
From what I know of their hits, the Knack and Oasis do not sound at all like the Beatles to me and I just don’t make the connection in the music, which is mostly all I care about.
Now that it’s mentioned, I can hear the Beatles’ influence a lot more prominently with Cheap Trick, but growing up with Live at Budokan being bigger than life and a cultural touchstone, again, they were a band unto themselves and had an identity well beyond their influences. To this day, here, they are known as a profound influence on the many power pop bands that have followed them and many bands look up to them. Any power pop is likely to trace back to the Beatles, so the lineage is there, but Cheap Trick most certainly put their own stamp on it for generations to come.
This has nothing to do with the topic itself, but The Bay City Rollers put out an album in 1981 called Ricochet that featured a new lead singer and principal songwriter. It sounds nothing like the prior version of the band. It went virtually unheard, but I checked it out when Tom covered “Saturday Night” and I love a number of the songs on it. I’ve been touting it as a hidden gem every chance I get and encouraged people to take a listen, but so far I don’t think anyone has taken me up on it.
Thanks, JJ for the thought provoking topic.
I agree totally that defining anyone as The New Beatles or The New Dylan (another popular one) is essentially pointless and fails to appreciate the finer points of those new bands.
Unfortunately marketing and music press (and some fans to be honest) find it easiest to to describe acts in terms of what came before. It can be helpful to say if you like these then you’ll also love these but often it’s a lack of imagination and just a marketing tool.
It’s the same as any form of culture. As soon as something new or different is a success the film studios, TV networks, publishers will jump on it and try to replicate it.
I’m closest to Oasis of these bands due to my age and I also think that musically they aren’t overt in copying the Beatles sound but there are some songs where it’s very apparent like She’s Electric or Don’t Look Back In Anger. It was even more obvious in their interviews though that they were obsessed with and wanted to be The Beatles. They’re probably the band that most leant into it and encouraged it themselves rather than it being a record label / music press construct.
As a side note, there is a Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher named Landon Knack. I always think when he enters a game as a reliever does the manager call the bullpen and say, “Get the Knack”?
If he’s having a bad game does the cry go up to “nuke the Knack”?
I can’t believe that I’m the first one here to comment on this, but weren’t The Bee Gees pegged initially as a new Beatles Group (note the initials)? And weren’t their Hot 100 domination in the late 1970s bringing up comparisons with the accomplishments of John, Paul, George and Ringo? Or am I remembering things wrong?
I do recall a readers poll in Dynamite magazine in the late 70s asking who was the bigger band, Beatles or Bee Gees. 13-year-old me was infuriated.
I loved Dynamite magazine! I would order it each month in upper elementary school on my Scholastic book order form.