Captain Kirk doing Black Sabbath’s classic Iron Man ! ? ! ? That is as awesome as it gets ! I want that album ! Warp factor 9 Mr. Osborne !
Who is the most popular of them all (Music artist)
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Captain Kirk doing Black Sabbath’s classic Iron Man ! ? ! ? That is as awesome as it gets ! I want that album ! Warp factor 9 Mr. Osborne !
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seangee
Fish Connoisseur
Of course there is no way of knowing. I asked ChatGPT multiple ways and asked to include bootlegs but they only know about sales or downloads. No way to measure stream ripping today or CDs and magnetic tapes distributed in the past. And all that still assumes sales - you can like a track without ever having had your own copy, legally or otherwise.
FWIW we both chose Bob Marley, pretty much for the reasons @GaryE posted. I have seen that response in places as unexpected as Russia, China, Poland and even Iceland. Many others, but they weren't a surpise to me (including India).
Taylor Swift may top the download charts - but I bet the two old dears in their 80s I met in an ice cream parlour midwinter in Reykjavík just as the sun was rising (at noon
) wouldn't budge a muscle if someone played her latest track (sorry I can't name any 
). But they burst into full song when Three little birds came up on the Jukebox, despite the fact that we really struggled to hold a conversation in English.
FWIW we both chose Bob Marley, pretty much for the reasons @GaryE posted. I have seen that response in places as unexpected as Russia, China, Poland and even Iceland. Many others, but they weren't a surpise to me (including India).
Taylor Swift may top the download charts - but I bet the two old dears in their 80s I met in an ice cream parlour midwinter in Reykjavík just as the sun was rising (at noon
) wouldn't budge a muscle if someone played her latest track (sorry I can't name any ). But they burst into full song when Three little birds came up on the Jukebox, despite the fact that we really struggled to hold a conversation in English.Rusty_Shackleford
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Taylor Swift, or Bad Bunny right now. I picked Marley because he seems to have staying power. You still hear him in weird places, so it kind of adds up. I heard Marley out of a stall in the Czech Republic not long ago, and coming from a Gabonese nightclub.
The Beach Boys or the Grateful Dead didn't get radio play here . For that singalong thing, people need to know the songs. Grateful Dead songs? The Dead were supposedly a great live band with an entertaining following. I had to go looking to hear them - no one I knew listened to them. I heard them on radio (that tech before streaming) once, ever. I don't think they went anywhere out of the west. The Beach Boys were straight American stuff.
The Beatles were a long time ago, though they were singalong stuff, and the Stones were done by the 70s. They are one of my personal favourite bands, but they're now a tribute band to themselves, and have been for a long time. Queen, a band I can't stand, have made a bit of a comeback, but again, they aren't going to float outside of the west.
It's the singalong, familiar to people outside of the west, or outside our English bubble that makes it hard. Ask me my favourite bands and Marley won't make the top 10, but I know the stuff I love wasn't worldwide.
Shatner? Local boy made good - he grew up 3 blocks from my favourite aquarium store and straight up the same .... street from where I ....lived for a short .... time. Okay, there were railroad tracks where I was, and he'd already left for Hollywood, but hey.
The Beach Boys or the Grateful Dead didn't get radio play here . For that singalong thing, people need to know the songs. Grateful Dead songs? The Dead were supposedly a great live band with an entertaining following. I had to go looking to hear them - no one I knew listened to them. I heard them on radio (that tech before streaming) once, ever. I don't think they went anywhere out of the west. The Beach Boys were straight American stuff.
The Beatles were a long time ago, though they were singalong stuff, and the Stones were done by the 70s. They are one of my personal favourite bands, but they're now a tribute band to themselves, and have been for a long time. Queen, a band I can't stand, have made a bit of a comeback, but again, they aren't going to float outside of the west.
It's the singalong, familiar to people outside of the west, or outside our English bubble that makes it hard. Ask me my favourite bands and Marley won't make the top 10, but I know the stuff I love wasn't worldwide.
Shatner? Local boy made good - he grew up 3 blocks from my favourite aquarium store and straight up the same .... street from where I ....lived for a short .... time. Okay, there were railroad tracks where I was, and he'd already left for Hollywood, but hey.
Leonard Cohen and William Shatner. Amazing neighborhood. I lived next door to Tony “the rat” Salvatore.
Rusty_Shackleford
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Yeah Taylor is pretty popular globally these days. I guess that makes sense.
Hearing Bob Marley in Africa isn't that surprising given Rastafari's African connection.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Elvis. Yes he's an older artist, but I thought everyone in the world knew who Elvis was.
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seangee
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From a different cultural perspective.
Grateful Dead never really did it outside the US.
Beach boys, probably fun if you were part of the vibe at the time but middle of the road bubblegum pop and totally forgettable.
Beatles and Stones - pretty much exclusively western orientated. Both did lots of amazing stuff, but they did lots of stuff period, and both included a lot of stuff that is pretty obscure and forgotten. Individual tracks would probably get them up nearly anywhere. Hey Jude woud do it but who even remembers There's a Place or Wait? I suspect the same goes for Queen.
Elvis - my dad was a fan, I wasn't, although I know a lot of the songs. IMO his appeal was quite generational.
No offence to anyone who has different tastes - I said it wasn't about personal preference and Marley isn't a personal favourite. But play a track (any track) and I will know it and will probably sing along.
I've listened to, and enjoyed, some pretty ordinary stuff over the years. Some I go back to and some I can't believe I ever went out and paid for it - fails the test of time.
But for global, cross generational appeal my vote stays with da man from Jamaica.
Grateful Dead never really did it outside the US.
Beach boys, probably fun if you were part of the vibe at the time but middle of the road bubblegum pop and totally forgettable.
Beatles and Stones - pretty much exclusively western orientated. Both did lots of amazing stuff, but they did lots of stuff period, and both included a lot of stuff that is pretty obscure and forgotten. Individual tracks would probably get them up nearly anywhere. Hey Jude woud do it but who even remembers There's a Place or Wait? I suspect the same goes for Queen.
Elvis - my dad was a fan, I wasn't, although I know a lot of the songs. IMO his appeal was quite generational.
No offence to anyone who has different tastes - I said it wasn't about personal preference and Marley isn't a personal favourite. But play a track (any track) and I will know it and will probably sing along.
I've listened to, and enjoyed, some pretty ordinary stuff over the years. Some I go back to and some I can't believe I ever went out and paid for it - fails the test of time.
But for global, cross generational appeal my vote stays with da man from Jamaica.
I think The Elvis name is out there, but his music isn't anymore. I love the early rockabilly stuff, but he was western. How many people here listen to Fela Kuti or Burna Boy? I think last year was the first where English artists no longer dominated global sales, and Latin America, Korea and Nigeria had the lead.
K-pop doesn't work for me, but I'll wager it's very sung along to.
K-pop doesn't work for me, but I'll wager it's very sung along to.
Mr Limpet
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Another vote for Shatner. In all seriousness, this track is better than it has any right to be.
Jimmy Buffet, though not the biggest, had a big following. He founded the phrase Parrotheads.
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@Rusty_Shackleford I’ve heard Leonard Nimoy’s albums . Not too shabby but Shatner has him beat just by doing Iron Man . That’s my favorite Black Sabbath song besides Fairies Wear Boots . I have them both memorized .
I've been overthinking as usual, musing about worlds within worlds because of the fish scene - the "big names" of the hobby and how they are only big names to a circle of people even among serious aquarists. This thread reinforces that - we don't know who is big in music outside of a bubble we're in. K-pop? I know of it. That's all. I listen, and it doesn't grab. Jimmy Buffet? A one hit wonder to me where I am, with zero following.
It's the Robbie Williams effect. Apparently, this guy was huge in the UK. So they say. Him, Blur, Oasis - they never successfully crossed the Atlantic. I couldn't name a tune beyond Wonderwall from the whole scene. They're no one here. I had a student once who was a multi-millionaire entertainer, a star of TV in French. We would wander around and French speakers would want autographs, point at him, etc. He loved it and needed it. English speakers from the same city didn't even look at him, or know who he was. He was learning English in my class because being anonymous drove him crazy and he wanted to be a name in both languages. But even in one city, he was a superstar in one culture and a middle aged guy in another. When we apply that to the world...
Anywhere I travel, I keep an ear out for local music. In my most exotic fish paradise trip, to Gabon, we went to two rough night clubs and sat in the corner with cold beers listening. I heard one Marley tune, and not one other song I recognized. But people jumped up the way they do when the first notes of something they love are heard, and they hit the dance floor knowing what was coming. It was fantastic. I love Star Trek, and all their not very convincing aliens, but travel to the right places and you don't need stage makeup to feel you're in someone else's world. It's brilliant.
But what are they listening to in China?
It's the Robbie Williams effect. Apparently, this guy was huge in the UK. So they say. Him, Blur, Oasis - they never successfully crossed the Atlantic. I couldn't name a tune beyond Wonderwall from the whole scene. They're no one here. I had a student once who was a multi-millionaire entertainer, a star of TV in French. We would wander around and French speakers would want autographs, point at him, etc. He loved it and needed it. English speakers from the same city didn't even look at him, or know who he was. He was learning English in my class because being anonymous drove him crazy and he wanted to be a name in both languages. But even in one city, he was a superstar in one culture and a middle aged guy in another. When we apply that to the world...
Anywhere I travel, I keep an ear out for local music. In my most exotic fish paradise trip, to Gabon, we went to two rough night clubs and sat in the corner with cold beers listening. I heard one Marley tune, and not one other song I recognized. But people jumped up the way they do when the first notes of something they love are heard, and they hit the dance floor knowing what was coming. It was fantastic. I love Star Trek, and all their not very convincing aliens, but travel to the right places and you don't need stage makeup to feel you're in someone else's world. It's brilliant.
But what are they listening to in China?
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seangee
Fish Connoisseur
Daughter was a massive fan in the 90s (pre teen years). Play them now and she will probably leave the room.
But she'll happily sing along if it was the Stones or Beatles - and she is way to young to remember either from her youth.
Edit: But she is a Brit. Would a 30 something American know who the Stones or Beatles were? (I don't know
)
My 30s-ish daughters, nieces and nephews know the Beatles, but don't like them. They know the Stones, and 2 of them went to see them for the spectacle, but other than that, the sixties are just music on their grandmother's clock radio or at the dentist's. There's that thing with spotify and streaming making all music "new", but I find it generally only goes one way. Old people listen to the music of their times, young people prefer the music of their own times, and while young people explore back, old people tend to reject the new.
The really poppy bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys etc are advertising jingles to the young crowd here, but they often like the guitar hero bands like Led Zeppelin and early metal, and a lot of old soul and funk have a following. Younger members here would know better, and depending on what country they're in, may have a better perspective.
All of that is just one corner of one culture.
When I used to go to the US, I'd listen to the radio on purpose (I never use radio in Canada) and the country music and pop all sounded the same to me. My grandfather used to say all modern music sounded the same to him, so I'm wary of falling into that trap. Never trust anyone over 30, especially if that person is you talking music.
There's brain research saying most people's musical tastes are set by their late teens. I'm neurodivergent on that front as most of what I like I found after I was 18 and onwards.
The really poppy bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys etc are advertising jingles to the young crowd here, but they often like the guitar hero bands like Led Zeppelin and early metal, and a lot of old soul and funk have a following. Younger members here would know better, and depending on what country they're in, may have a better perspective.
All of that is just one corner of one culture.
When I used to go to the US, I'd listen to the radio on purpose (I never use radio in Canada) and the country music and pop all sounded the same to me. My grandfather used to say all modern music sounded the same to him, so I'm wary of falling into that trap. Never trust anyone over 30, especially if that person is you talking music.
There's brain research saying most people's musical tastes are set by their late teens. I'm neurodivergent on that front as most of what I like I found after I was 18 and onwards.
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