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When did groups stop being groups and become bands?


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Old 13-04-2016, 19:09
SepangBlue
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In the sixties when popular music became pop music and we all followed our favourite groups, many of us wanted to 'be in a group', so we cobbled together a couple of guitarists, a bass player (that was me - I reckoned with only four strings how hard could it be .. big mistake!) and a drummer and formed a group .. and a lot of fun we had with it.

In latter years all groups of musicians seem to be referred to as bands, which to my older ears makes them sound like they should be like Billy Cotton or Count Basie or something like that.

Does anyone know when the word 'group' was replaced by the word 'band'? Was it at the same time as the emergence of so-called boy bands and girl bands .. i.e. only singing, no playing of instruments?
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Old 13-04-2016, 19:16
Deep Purple
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Much earlier than that. It developed as the 60's did. By the end of that decade we were talking about bands and not groups.
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Old 13-04-2016, 19:28
Doghouse Riley
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I've mentioned this before and got shot down.

Bands in the 20th Century, were mostly, "Brass," "Dance," or "Jazz." Though some of the latter two attempted "gentrification," by calling themselves "Orchestras." But then they often also included a few strings, so the term was correct.

My personal opinion is that if a collection of musicians doesn't include "some of those brass shiny things where you blow in the small end and when you wiggle your fingers the sound comes out of the big end," you can't call it a band.

Even small groups of jazz musicians which include instruments in this category, aren't usually so pretentious as to call themselves a "band," they're usually, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets etc. Though Artie Shaw had "The Gramercy Five," as a section of his band/orchestra.
In the pop world it was always "group" or numerals, Spencer Davis Group, Dave Clark Five, etc.,

However "group" these days sounds old fashioned to some.

The worst offenders tend to be "boy/girl singing groups" who call themselves "a band." They aren't. Nor are four guitar thrashing 'erberts who also sing.
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Old 13-04-2016, 19:30
BatmanLaBatman
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I've always thought of those that only have singers as groups and those that have instrument playing members too as bands.
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Old 13-04-2016, 20:23
Thorney
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For me it was the late 70s -80s you had Abba and Boney M and even Duran Duran and you called them groups then when I started getting into rock I called them bands so pop groups and rock bands yeh?
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Old 13-04-2016, 20:54
swingaleg
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I think I've always said 'group'........to me a 'band' denotes a larger collection of musicians than your regular 4 or 5 man group........somewhere between a group and an orchestra

Similarly ......when did a 'mike' become a 'mic' ?
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Old 13-04-2016, 23:01
mgvsmith
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I think I've always said 'group'........to me a 'band' denotes a larger collection of musicians than your regular 4 or 5 man group........somewhere between a group and an orchestra

Similarly ......when did a 'mike' become a 'mic' ?
The difference between a band and an orchestra is the string section in an orchestra.

Mike is how it is said, Mic is how it is written.
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Old 13-04-2016, 23:21
Doghouse Riley
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The difference between a band and an orchestra is the string section in an orchestra.

Mike is how it is said, Mic is how it is written.
Correct, as I mentioned it in my first post. Though as I also mentioned, some bands without strings ('cept a double bass) called themselves "orchestras" too,

There you go.

Artie Shaw

http://www.artieshaworchestra.com/

Glen Miller occasionally had strings, mostly not, but was always called "The Glen Miller Orchestra."

http://glennmillerorchestra.com/

Orchestras with just their names, since they're both dead, still tour.
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Old 14-04-2016, 00:10
JohnnyForget
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Doghouse Riley has it spot on, well up until the late sixties anyway.

In the 1950's the collection of musicians who backed Little Richard were called a rock 'n' roll band because that collection of musicians included a horn section, while Buddy Holly and the Crickets were called a rock 'n' roll group because they were guitar, bass and drums only.

A few years later, in the early sixties, the Beatles were referred to usually as a pop group, often as a beat group and sometimes as a rock 'n' roll group - three different terms, but always featuring the word "group", never "band". Also, pop and rock 'n' roll were (rightly or wrongly) thought of as being more or less the same thing.

In the late sixties as rock evolved and rock musicians wanted to distance themselves from pop (which they now considered an inferior form of music) they replaced the word "group" with "band", so you now had pop groups and rock bands.

Over the ensuing decades, pop groups (even those that entirely consisted of singers) started referring to themselves as bands too. Not many people tend to use the word "group" anymore. A pity really.
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Old 14-04-2016, 00:34
mgvsmith
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Well you hear boy band but it is nearly always girl group. That's what you get when you check 1D and Little Mix on Wikipedia. A degree of sexism but maybe girl group is more accurate?
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Old 14-04-2016, 00:47
Doghouse Riley
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Well you hear boy band but it is nearly always girl group. That's what you get when you check 1D and Little Mix on Wikipedia. A degree of sexism but maybe girl group is more accurate?
But that's really just the use of a bit of alliteration, "B B" and "G G." Probably initiated by recording company PR departments,
I've always considered dignifying pubescent singers, who formally sang in front of their bathroom mirror singing into a hairbrush (you know what I mean) by calling them a band, who probably "wouldn't know a Crochet, or a Quaver, from a Pringle," an insult to trained professional musicians.
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Old 14-04-2016, 09:12
Glawster2002
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I've always thought of those that only have singers as groups and those that have instrument playing members too as bands.
I would go with that as a good 21st Century description.
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Old 14-04-2016, 09:46
RikScot
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It's just a word surely? 😉

If you're really pretentious, you could always call it a "collective"
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Old 14-04-2016, 10:12
Doghouse Riley
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It's just a word surely? 😉

If you're really pretentious, you could always call it a "collective"
Of course it's just a "word," that's the whole point of the discussion.
The OP asked a question and some have given their opinions.

Actually the term "The Collective," has already been used.

Musician, producer and former Yes member Billy Sherwood has put together what he’s dubbed “the biggest super group of progressive rock players ever assembled,” to form The Prog Collective.

http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/ima...ollective-1jpg
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Old 14-04-2016, 10:26
RikScot
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[quote=Doghouse Riley;82123686]Of course it's just a "word," that's the whole point of the discussion.
The OP asked a question and some have given their opinions.

Actually the term "The Collective," has already been used.

/QUOTE]

I know, I was giving my opinion as well

The 'collective' you refer to is an example of an entirely different beast I'd say.. i.e.t he 'supergroup'

This can be made up of musicians from either 'bands' or 'groups' just to add to the confusion...though there is no strict definition as far as I know
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Old 14-04-2016, 10:33
Inkblot
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I don't think there's any logic to it.

The Beatles were a group. Led Zeppelin were a band. The Beach Boys were a group. Cream were a band.

The other thing that I find increasingly illogical is that in the USA, a group or a band is always singular but here we tend to treat it/them as plural: Foo Fighters is my favourite band (USA) vs Foo Fighters are my favourite band(UK).
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Old 14-04-2016, 10:37
RikScot
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I don't think there's any logic to it.

The Beatles were a group. Led Zeppelin were a band. The Beach Boys were a group. Cream were a band.

The other thing that I find increasingly illogical is that in the USA, a group or a band is always singular but here we tend to treat it/them as plural: Foo Fighters is my favourite band (USA) vs Foo Fighters are my favourite band(UK).
I hear you on that one...that's a grammar thing I guess. A band is singular so 'is' would be correct, but to my ears it doesn't sound right.

Foo Fighters is on tour...?? Nah
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Old 14-04-2016, 10:40
Inkblot
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And there's a famous line from the Woodstock film: "Blind Faith is a groovy group".
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Old 14-04-2016, 10:53
RikScot
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And there's a famous line from the Woodstock film: "Blind Faith is a groovy group".
They were pretty groovy man.....
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Old 14-04-2016, 19:20
SepangBlue
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I don't think there's any logic to it.

The Beatles were a group. Led Zeppelin were a band. The Beach Boys were a group. Cream were a band.

The other thing that I find increasingly illogical is that in the USA, a group or a band is always singular but here we tend to treat it/them as plural: Foo Fighters is my favourite band (USA) vs Foo Fighters are my favourite band(UK).
At the time that Led Zeppelin emerged, they were among a batch of musicians to whom we used to refer as 'Underground', meaning, I suppose, that they were not at that time mainstream, didn't have hit singles and certainly never would have appeared on Top of the Pops.

As far as I can remember, the sort of outfit that my friends and I might have called Underground, would be the likes of Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Genesis, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, Hendrix, Cream, Zeppelin, etc. Take your pick and add others as you think of them. The point was, we wanted to demonstrate that our listening taste had got more serious .. we now eschewed the pop groups with whom we'd grown up! If you were into Underground man, you were a serious muso ... whatever the hell that meant!

One thing's for certain though, we would never have referred to the Pink Floyd group!
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Old 15-04-2016, 23:24
mrkite77
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By the late 60s, early 70s, they were bands.

At least according to the Moody Blues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_J-hmyAS6c

and Wings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBX2dySWGew

and of course, The Band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFqb1I-hiHE
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Old 16-04-2016, 00:21
mgvsmith
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From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

Henry V, Act 4.3
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Old 16-04-2016, 01:02
Gigi4
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I've always thought of those that only have singers as groups and those that have instrument playing members too as bands.
Yes I always thought that was the difference too!
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Old 16-04-2016, 01:21
bspace
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By the late 60s, early 70s, they were bands.

At least according to the Moody Blues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_J-hmyAS6c

and Wings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBX2dySWGew

and of course, The Band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFqb1I-hiHE
And Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
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Old 16-04-2016, 08:52
mushymanrob
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Much earlier than that. It developed as the 60's did. By the end of that decade we were talking about bands and not groups.
disagree, sorry.

ive always regarded pop groups as pop groups.... well into the 80's at least.

the jam, sex pistols, buzzcocks, siouxsie, etc werent 'bands' they were 'groups'. we even had a board game in the early 70's called 'pop groups' (where we had imaginary groups who rose up and down the charts).

although i dont think theres a definitive answer, id suggest maybe its as a result of some snobbery. perhaps the term 'band' came in to describe prog rockers or rock groups in general as they didnt want to be associated with the 'pop group'..

obviously the term 'group' was dropped, although i insisted busted and mcfly were 'good old fashioned pop groups - NOT boybands)

edit...i see johnny forget has mentioned this... my bad ...
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