Mark knofler was born in scotland and bought up in newcastle. His dad was from Hungary. Dont think hes from ireland.

I totally prefer bands over solo artists. For all the reasons you mentioned. (And I don't own anything by U2.)

One big challenge with a band is keeping a group of people together over a long haul. Especially if big success comes along, record companies, managers, and girlfriends start whispering in the ears of each band member, "You're the real reason this band is successful. Go Solo!". There's some video from Rick Beato where he suggested that the reason the jazz genre has been less successful than rock is that there were few long-term jazz *bands.* Notable jazz musicians will team up for an album or two, but then each of the members go off to do different music with a different set of musicians. That's a good idea for artist growth and for the goal of coming up with new music, but it means that they don't create a fan base which grows attached to a band over many years.

Nice :) I think part of it may be that we had loud Marshall/Vox amplifiers and the guitarists could finally make as much noise as the drummers.

The Brits definitely did more with the blues than we Americans did. But the original Allman Brothers Band was a highly innovative, virtuosic, jazzy, blues-based band, taking Blues and Country in a completely different direction than the Brits, spawning the massive area of Southern/Country Rock, which, like the huge American heartland itself, is largely unknown to the UK, Andy included.

I think there's something wrong with the data if The Who aren't in there.

i remember seeing Dire Straits at Bradford University on a cold wednesday night around 1978 It was before their debut single It cost 30 p in I watched them for about 30 mins then asked for my money back and went home

Another great video! As for bands, "The playing of the music is the music" -Fripp

Coldplay definitely is a band and a great one to see live.

Man, Andy, you really put a lot into your videos and much work as well. I appreciate it and your ability to make us actually 'think; as to what we really like! Thanks...

This is excellent, Andy; what you had to say was really interesting, and well put too. Thanks.

Fantastic video Andy, really interesting list. Kevin

I expect your channel explodes. Love your commentary on music and history of music.

Oh boy, if the Beatles could have taken a break and rejoined to do their individual songs as the Beatles… I can only dream …

Mark Knopfler is not irish ☘️Andy he was actually born in Glasgow, and spent a little time near where I live, as a reporter for the Yorkshire Post.

I am surprised that ABBA and the Bee Gees weren't on the list ahead of some of those included .

Every time I cite The Doors as one if the great American bands...friends of mine...scoff. :-) They typically say Aerosmith. I am only a couple of minutes into the video. The Brits ('60s) took American Blues, R&B, Soul...reinvented it, did their spin, etc...and it became something people liked. That's the way of the World, no? Prog? Yes, ELP? IMO, they were very eclectic musicians/people that had big ears, wide experiences with Classical, Jazz, & World beats. We should all be so fortunate. :-p

Very thought provoking!

You crack me up and I love it. I've not generally considered myself a big fan of prog. But I also agree with your much wider view of prog, which includes many of my favorite bands, so maybe I am after all? Hard to say. Anyway, loved this video and loved hearing your perspective. Your take on Coldplay and Linkin Park, in particular. I agree with wholeheartedly. When it comes to those two bands, I simply don't get it. Though I'd add The Eagles and much of The Doors' catalog to that list as well, frankly, though I can see how they have had their moments.

I really like your channel. I think you’re going to be growing really fast! Glad I Am here from the beginning.

And here's me thinking M & M was two people LOL Subscribed as soon as you started rhapsodizing about the Doors! (Not to mention the Bea'les)

Great video Andy - One of my favourite albums of all time is Nektar - Sounds Like This! This was recorded live in the studio and has more energy than any of their studio albums! Don't get me wrong, I love Nektar ...... and Man!

You’re so right about the chemistry making a band greater than the sum of its parts. We talk about classic line ups - Purple’s Gillan, Blackmore, Lord, Glover and Paice, as against Coverdale, Lord, Hughes, Bolin, Paice, for example. That would make a great discussion point - why do some lineups work better than others (or is that just subjective)? Did a lineup change make a band better, or worse?

Great video Andy. Want to see you contribute more on SOT. I've suggested the same to Pete Pardo!!

Enjoyed the video 🤘🤘

As far as bands go. That is why the best music being made today will, more than likely, be found on bandcamp. Truly indie bands, doing all the work for the passion of the craft.

Love this!

U2 are an Irish band from Dublin but The Edge is Welsh and Adam Clayton is English.

That Wikipedia list may be a bit dodgy, though. The fact ABBA and the Bee Gees are not on the list (after the Beatles, these two acts have the most top singles in history) makes me suspicious. I'm no big fan of either, but the criterion is sales... It could be the criterion was album sales only (which creates an implicit genre bias), though even then, it's a bit strange.

I agree...BANDS! The Beatles, Stones, Led Zep, Deep Purple, Tull, Uriah Heep, Yes, ELP were "my" bands during my teens.

Love the esoteric!!!! 😊❤️😊

I'm Irish and am a huge dire straits fan , I'm amazed that someone could mistake mark knopfler fir being Irish, Mark is a geordie, he was born in Glasgow but his family moved to Newcastle when he was a kid , he has used both Irish and Scottish music since he went solo so maybe that is where the confusion is coming from

Thanks for another great one, Andy! The British have had one of the most important influences in music and culture and on history in general. It makes me sad what you note at the end here because it reminds me that the process of making music as a solo artist is really a pretty lonely experience. What we lose out on when we don't form bands is the importance of dialogue and good chemistry between mates. I'm wondering what you think of a band like Tame Impala. I consider Kevin Parker a solo artist since he writes and records the music, yet through his songwriting he is able to draw listeners into that world you talk about where fans will go places they normally wouldn't. Would you call Tame Impala a band or a musical act, or a solo artist hiding behind a name?

Have you ever heard Illinois (Sufjan Stevens) ? I think it's an underrated album...

I'm very confused as to how Guns & Roses or Linkin Park could have edged out Rush in total sales. That is baffling to me.

....and Jeremy Spencer is from my home town of Hartlepool!

my man! you're my new favourite youtuber. I am a huge prog fan and the best Queen fan since I was 13 ( 40 years ago)!

Video killed the radio star and Computer killed the bands ...it's always fun listening to your RnR ramblings. cheers Andy

I'm listening to this, and you mentioned the eagles and I lookup and a bald eagle is flying by

I think it's impossible to overestimate the importance of bands. The Beatles ushered in the band era. Of course all popular music is made with bands but what I'm talking about are bands as self-contained discrete musical units that are commercial artists vs single solo artists. I remember pop music before the Beatles. It was the domain of AM radio. I was an avid listener. The entire orientation was single artists. There were a few seminal bands Beach Boys, Ventures etc. The Beach Boys pretty much offered what the Beatles did before the Beatles. A self-contained unit of individuals with a group identity and image who wrote their own songs and recorded some covers. I used to go out and hear live music in the pre-Beatles era. I heard many bands in Northern California. They were typically 4 or 5 young males wearing "preacher coats" (like the later Beatles) playing Fender guitars and covering R & B hits. Members of the band provided the vocals rather than single solo professional singers. Vis a vis the later emergence of the Beatles It can be seen as a kind of a international model that had descended from the previous surf band craze. But the emergence of the Beatles was a very big deal! They added their "mop tops" to the preacher coats image. The Beatles slayed the market worldwide and other recording acts had to follow their example. What followed was the "British invasion" in America and the charts were inundated with English bands: Stones, Dave Clark Five, Kinks, Animals etc. The US bands followed suit and grew their hair and had their own successes. Almost everything that has come after has been bands.

Love the clip. Agree on your take. Chemistry has always been the crucial factor in a great band. drives me crazy when people slag someone like Bill Wyman, or Ringo as not a virtuoso. But they were the perfect guy in that slot. ( Besides being great at their craft anyway). However I do not agree that rock has disappeared from our radar. Not at all. The sales have gone down. Maybe that's a good thing. The machine has taken over how we find music, listen, acquire music, even play it. It stands to reason , if rock sales are down, and jazz too, most good music - that it is staying on course, and as a rebel continues to forge it's own path. There are so many very good bands out there. Live shows are still dominated by rock bands. I really dig your channel, and hope you keep putting up these clips.

Of your epilogue, I couldn't agree more. Today's emphasis on solo artists and the advent of digital music have stripped today's music of the "grit" that makes it worthwhile. This was the genesis of the blues, R&B, early rock and all of the genres that were born out of them. Today music is sonically brilliant but often devoid of "soul". Just my $0.02...

It’s true what you say about bands. It would have been interesting if jazz artists had formed bands under a name like weather report did. Oh yeah Rule Britannia !

I saw Coldplay live before they had released a record and when hardly anyone had heard them. Everything they played was from the Parachutes album which was released a little while afterwards. I enjoyed them at the time and I still like some of the tracks on that album, but.... Christ, do they have a lot to answer for.

Guns 'N ' Roses were great on Appetite but I saw them at Donnington when two guys were crushed at the front of the stage and died! TBH apart from that I already thought they were losing it!

Thanks. My only comments are: 1) Yeah, plenty said about Cold Play, & 2) My fellow American Lindsay Buckingham has about the most British name you could get. When I was little, I assumed he *_was_* British. tavi.

Bon Scott and the Young bros were all born in Scotland I think

I enjoyed this - thanks! Re AC/DC - a hybrid band I would say (3 of the four being born in Scotland) - Australia meets Britain when it comes to the music. Thin Lizzy - Phil born at West Bromwich (but culturally Irish) - of the original three: two southern Irish (Phil and Brian) and Eric Bell from Belfast. Later the classic line-up adding a Glaswegian and a Californian. (Gary Moore is from Belfast I think?!) The band made it in England - but the Irishness of the sound was always there - with Phil's voice/lyrics and a lot of the guitar-work had Irish-type ornament. To get into trouble now - isn't Ireland part of the British Isles (geographically)? Cheers!

As well as U2 being a product of the British music industry, The Edge was born in England to Welsh parents.

I wonder if you can comment on Jimi’s influence on the early British bands. ✌️

U2 are a quarter Welsh (Edge) and a quarter English (Adam Clayton)

I always have to rethink what you are willing to classify as progressive rock. I loved Dire Straits as a kid and teenager, but I don't see anything progressive, even in the early albums (which I love). They may have some very long songs, and they definitely had their own style, and didn't seem to worry about having songs formatted for radio, they could have any 2 minutes guitar solo starting at any time, then everything stops and it's just piano, or organ, and another 4 minute guitar solo to finish it off... it's a lot of freedom, but I don't see anything progressive in the music, in the composition, and harmony.

I’m surprised Genesis aren’t on the list, I thought they sold around 150 million albums and Phil sold about the same on his own

I'm not a Coldplay fan either. It's just very ... easy listening. Not enough raw emotion I think. That's probably a reason they're so popular, they're easy listening and I won't deny the songs are well written and produced for the style. Linkin Park I remember and I wore out that first album of theirs. They just came at a time when nu-metal/post grunge and rap were just massive forces in American music. So wasn't it obvious to just merge them? And I think their rap came from a more authentic place than e.g. Limp Bizkit. I relistened to that first record recently, and there wasn't a bad track, nor was there an unnecessary part. I remember coming away thinking "damn, these guys are the most unselfish musicians." Sometimes Mike barely does anything in a song. Brad doesn't solo, and sometimes he's doing nothing for like half of the song or more. Joe sometimes features, but sometimes he barely does anything. Chester of all people is gone for half of the song a lot of the time too. They didn't put in parts to appease their own egos, they put in what was good for the song.

This channel has more adverts than any other.

Mark Freuder Knopfler is Scottish-English-Hungarian-Jewish. He does like to play Irish-influenced music at times though. So maybe he is honorary Irish ;-) Not sure I would call Santana a jazz musician - although in 1970s boundaries between jazz and rock were quite fluid. Santana is a great musician - very tasty soloist but without enough tools to play jazz - if you listen to recordings he did with true blue jazzers like e.g. John McLaughlin (or even Gato Barbieri) that disparity is rather obvious. Still - the world would be poorer without Carlos - we owe the man great debt of gratitude. PS. Queen was amazing band and their music will be played 100 years from now. Sir Brian May Phd is easily one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time. PS2. Sales figures are hardly indicator of quality and cultural influence - the absence of Grateful Dead on this list speaks volumes.

Skirted the Coldplay topic nicely 😂 Funny that Joe Satriani filed a lawsuit against their Vida La Vida ripping off his “If I Could Fly”. I’ve since noticed it’s a direct lift of Babik Reindhart’s “Une Histoire Simple” from 1992

I'm curious if there is some metric of saying how big band are in terms of the size of the industry during their day. Doors were bigger in their day as compared with how much they dominated the industry of the time. Beatles are bigger in terms of how much of the market they were.

Mark Knopfler isn't from Ireland. He was born in Scotland but brought up in north east England.

Very surprised that the brilliant Beach Boys didn't make the list.... Very interesting nevertheless....

Coldplay, they got the first part of their name right, cold. That’s about it.

A lot of this list is very surprising.

Mark Knopler is Scottish but was raised in Newcatle

Surprised the Who are not in the top 20.

The US industry prizes a product, the UK musicianship. Most of my favorites are British. Even TOOL has a British bassist. I think their cohesion as a band is a spot on claim. Now do best drummers by nationality… We’re a lot more competitive there. 🇺🇸🇬🇧

I don't trust the official sales numbers, when I was buying music before the internet, the 70's albums were not available in my country and most rock listeners would buy cassettes copied from records or cd's from a small number of people who had a record or cd collection. Also in my country, the most popular music genre is and was folk music, yet it doesn't reflect in the official sales because it was so common to buy pirate copied cassettes and cd's on the street.

Where are the Stones on the list? Fleetwood mack after 1977 became a California band. The sound tells the story. Their rhythm section, of course (base & drums) are UK exports to the sunny coast, power white with champaign & cocaine. Love the idea that the UK is 'Band Land'. Bohemian Rhapsody? All Prog. Of course, the Eagles had their first hit with Glyn Johns. Now, The Beatles, is that a count of group & solo efforts, or just group? I'm guessing the latter, which makes them that much more of a force. Zeppelin is just an incredible story art #2. They had 9 (or 10) studio albums; the Eagles 9; the Beatles 12; Queen 15; Rolling Stones 26. Count it anyway you like, and UK bands are punching above their weight class (say, in terms of population base) compared to N American bands.

how did the clash miss the list???

No Beach Boys? Odd.

I think the UK can just about claim any of these US and Australian bands because guess what... that's where the people came from to start with.

To me a solo artest can be a brand and many of them it is more a matter of luck and production values. The success of bands is more on the members of the group. Some like Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger I almost thing of them with their bans.

Interesting list and video! I have long thought 3 bands bestride rock 'n roll at the very top of the mountain: the Stones, Led Zep and the Who. All 3 are British. Nobody else comes close to these three. (I don't count The Beatles as a rock n' roll band, not since about 1965 anyway. They were at times a good little rock 'n roll band, as Lennon once said, but that wasn't their genius.)

Was going to say what, no Allman Bros? My bad, but stoner Dead? Put Traffic there.

The two biggest live bands in the world in 2022 (and before) are British: your "fave" Coldplay and, of course the Stones. Coldplay have sold out 10 nights at Argentina's River Plate Stadium later this year.

Marl Knopfler is mainly from Newcastle but was born in Glasgow - not Ireland!

well . in the biggest solo artists , you could put in there Celine Dion

Gentle Giant are not on the list ?

Can’t believe The Police weren’t on this list.

I think some of your information may be wrong here queen selling more than the eagles? From what I understand the eagles have out sold even Michael Jackson's thriller in the USA with their greatest hits being the number one selling album in America and hotel California number three also a few weeks ago on the news it was reported that queen's greatest hits was the biggest selling album in Britain with eight million sales but the eagles sold twenty nine million copies in the USA alone I think it's closer to forty million worldwide and that's just one album also in classic rock magazine a few years ago they said that the eagles were the fourth biggest selling act in music history after the Beatles led Zeppelin Elvis and Garth brooks no mention of queen though

My wife likes Linkin Park...'nuff said.

Lars Ulrich, son of Danish pro tennis player Torben Ulrich, who lived and played in UK.

British invasion..Rolling Stones and Beatles. great deal of good musiic. US had and has good music but the pop stars tend to get the commercial push...Black bluesman and the old country music influenced rock and roll. thats the USA.

The charts are based on wholesale distribution, not retail sales. The people who count the nonselling records returned from shops are the same people playing this manipulative game.

100 percent

Coldplay, same as the last song !

No Beatles?

Am I glad Fleetwood Mac made it before Cold Play and Stinkin Park

The easiest way to see the difference between bands and solo artists is to look at bands that have split and their members gone on to have solo careers. The solo careers are almost always less creative than the band's work. Even in cases like 10cc that went from a four piece to the two duos of Wax/Godley & Creme, neither duo showed anything like the diversity and creatvity of the band. I will add a caveat here in that most of the examples that come to mind were bands before being solo artists and I have also noticed a trend that creativity seems higher at a younger age. Even the bands that stay as bands will often settle into somewhat dull, uninspired music as time goes by.

I'm surprised that Black Sabbath and ELO aren't in there.

Interesting list and opinions. Floyd certainly not from working class background, nor the Stones or Led Zep really, so not sure I agree that makes much difference. Nor Coldplay of course (BTW why did Leicester people think they were local?) and Genesis must have been close to the Top 20 too. As for the British (Isles) bias, it's mysterious. I know you're a prog fan (as am I - saw you with Rain at Summer's End and Fusion) and prog is a British invention and there's the English language but maybe it all stemmed from the Beatles (who arguably invented prog...discuss). Before them, there was very little. Cliff and the Shads were massive in Europe but never America. And why no European bands I wonder? Abba are the only really big selling band I can think of, though they're not your traditional band. Many excellent European bands now and always have been, mostly singing in English but not in the top 20 or 50 even? An all male list too I think but why? Plenty of successful female artists in the solo list - I'm sure Adele will be there now too - but not bands. All the best Andy with the music and these podcasts (not really videos are they 🙂).

Speaking only about the biggest = bestselling Rockbands (minus ABBA, Bee Gees as Popbands)(minus Elvis as Rock n Roll) in my list the ratio GB vs US ist 2:1. And it is logical Rockmusic is the Domain of England and the Rockguitar too England much smaller as the USA has also a better soccerteam And The Jimi Hendrix Experience is a Rockband from England (with an american guitarplayer by passport)

i know they are not a rock band but i m surprised ABBA is not on the list. linkin park selling more than them?

Weather Report by far

ColdPlay!!😂😂😂😂😂😂

The best group that came out of Britain from a musicianship standpoint at least were Emerson Lake and Palmer. I remember in the early 70s they were considered the standard of musicianship excellence by which all other rock bands were measured at the time.

👍 Interesting review! I like most of these bands but I don't care much for some, and a couple I haven't heard enough to say anything about. However in terms of musical quality, musicianship and innovation, I am sort of glad that the top three bands are where they are though my favourite prog band is King Crimson. Queen? I like their first three albums but gradually lost interest after that, too theatrical? too pompous?

In my humble opinion Dire straits have heavily influenced by J.J.Cale

I’m shocked you didn’t say The Scorpions, the Wikipedia source notwithstanding. They’ve been around a long time, had many hits, and are easily the biggest selling German rock band (not as influential as Kraftwerk, but…..)

didnt many of the artists move to the USA to get away from thr taxes?

My guitar playing is what Eric Clapton would sound like had he kept on growin'. So mean.