ABBA for me.

Bee Gees, Beach Boys close by.

Savage Garden qualify because, Daniel Jones played keyboards and guitar, so ner.

For a manufactured boyband they were one of the better groups, but they had zero impact in places like America, so they can hardly be called the Beatles of the 90's.
Really, Take That are a glorified caberet act who churn out drippy ballads and some camp, chessy uptemp songs.
Better than the Boyzone's and West Life of this world, but not in the same league as the really great groups.

I did specifically say in SOME respects.
That kind of implies there are clearly areas that they can not be compared.

Even though they are women and arn't as talented as them, Spice Girls are clearly The Beatles of the 90s if your talking successwise

Sugababes eclipsed their success, from what I've read.

Sugababes - 10 million records sold

Spice Girls - 75 million records sold


I think that sums it up

I misread, it said currently most successful..not ..what I thought it said.

Still, they've done pretty good considering they're not really well known outside of the U.K.

If anything they are more like The Three Degrees of the 90s as they were a girl group who didn't write their own material or play any instruments.

They co-wrote all their songs

but obviously your just being stereotypical

Actually I was just being silly and was joking around.
Seeing as you use smilies yourself you should be able to understand the jesting in my post with the helpful addition of the 'pokey tongue' smiley.

Just getting a bit defensive

But it looked more like you were making out the point I was making was a joke, more than you making a joke

but who cares ...

The Beatles and.......The Monkees Seriously, I used to run home from school when The Monkees TV show was on the BBC and their songs still sound great on the radio.They were manufactured, sure, but their show was just fun to watch.I didn't know the difference between a real pop band and a manufactured one then so I just enjoyed the music and the crazy goings on with the band

I find this sort of thing really bizarre and annoying. Why is a pop band any less 'real' because it's manufactured? Why is it different for a manager to put together a band than for the lead singer to find/advertise for a band?

We don't apply this to other areas of the arts. We don't sneer at Judi Dench because 'she doesn't even write her own scripts', or expect orchestras to be groups of friends, so why the obsession with it in popular music?

I agree

It is really annoying, at the end of the day does it really matter if they were put together or not, isn't it more about the music they release?

what?....

utter nonsense.... the beatles sold far more, had more #1s of their own musically created material whos influenced everybody since, theres NO comparison on any level with the spice puppets.

I agree.

And just to save the elitists the bother of clicking reply and then clicking the rolleyes smiley in disapproval -

I don't think my post was bizarre as I was talking about The Monkees in general not all manufactured bands.Did I say that manufactured bands were less 'real' than other bands? No, I didn't. Read my post again and you will see that I specifically mentioned The Monkees.I was very young when the TV show was the BBC and I thought that they were a real band, I had no idea that they had auditioned for their roles, that they were being paid to act or that their songs were written by others or that every band didn't come together organically and did you notice that I said that their songs still sound great on the radio? No where in my post did I say manufactured bands were bad, but I know from being a Monkees fan for over 30yrs that the fact that they were manufactured meant that their songs somehow didn't mean as much as those songs written by other artistes themselves.

Their songs still mean something to me whether they were manufactured or not and that was the whole point of mentioning them in the first place.Not bizarre at all

To join in personally i think its the

Backstreet Boys and they was way bigger than the Spice girls in the 90's , they was huge all over the world.

Also sold over 100m Albums world wide.

they may have auditioned for the roles but all became competant musicians ... i saw them in 86 and they were bloody fantastic!

i dont think it matters that they didnt write their own material, many pop groups didnt, and after their attempt at doing so (head....lol) its just as well!

In terms of a British group, popular all over the world, aswell as having influence on the music industry and becoming iconic, the Spice Girls are the most succesful group to achieve this in the 90s

And as for the Backstreet Boys, 1. they wern't british, so just don't have that same 'a British group dominating the world', and Backstreet Boys had nothing else to them apart from their songs, The Beatles and Spice Girls were more than their music

Definitely ABBA, in my opinion. Their songs are just pure pop, often with surprisingly good lyrics (once you look past the unashamed pop ) and the fact that people - and not just their original fans! - still listen to their music now really says it all.

Of course, then there's the fact that all the members were very talented - the girls were amazing singers while the guys were excellent songwriters. They were just an amazing band all-round, in my opinion.

Although I would also agree with The Beatles (for obvious reasons) and the BeeGees as they are also great songwriters.

Manufactured bands can and have been brilliant.

Lots of the Motown acts were 'manufactured' as were the Monkees and many girl groups like the Ronettes and the Shangri-Las.

The greatest Pop Band IMO was T. Rex.

I'd say Duran Duran circa 1981/'82. Their first two albums - 'Duran Duran' and 'Rio' were fantastic.

If anyone out there hasn't heard those albums then you should listen to the tracks that WEREN'T released as singles. They sound so dark and different from the songs that WERE singles.
Here's four examples of songs from those albums that weren't singles - Nightboat and Friends Of Mine from 'Duran Duran' and New Religion and The Chauffeur from 'Rio'. Listen to the dark sounding synths on these records. You can't help but like them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAlvxeCL7_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeaRC...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GplgfugYfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktXDQ...eature=related

Because with manufactured groups a lot of the time what you're hearing was not composed by them, the lyrics weren't written by them either. It was done by people behind the scenes. They're just puppets with the strings being pulled by the record company.

When your listening to bands like The Beatles, Roxy Music, Duran Duran, ELO etc you know that what your hearing was created by the members of the band. Obviously there's people behind the scenes doing a bit of fine tuning to the records but these bands are not told by the record companys that you WILL sing this record and you WILL sing it how we tell you and you WILL look the way we want you to look. That's why manufactured groups are less real.
Having said that there are a lot of songs that manufactured groups have sung that I love but it wasn't created by them.
Listen to those four Duran records on my post above. You'll never get manufactured groups singing records like that.