Also how can you say Shayne Ward is bad, he has only released the 1 tune, give him a chance. James Blunt happens to have 1 of the biggest selling albums of last year, good going for the first offering and also is on a sell out tour, also good considering a couple of years back he was in the armed forces. Plus he writes his own stuff, may not be to your taste but you go on about people are not talented just because they can sing, he writes as well.

I think you should count yourself very lucky that BeatleGod appears to have tootled off to another music forum in order to post more amazing facts about The Beatles (you can't fault his limitless enthusiasm), or your post may just have elicited a potentially libellous response, judging by his recent responses to people who mention the Bluntmeister. You really shouldn't have mentioned James Blunt in the great BGs presence, strange things happen. Especially if you were to remind him that Back To Bedlam has sold more copies in 7 months than EVERY studio Beatles album except Sgt Peppers has sold since release.

we await his return then. Its true that many of todays singer/songwriters are better than yesteryears, no matter what the "older generation" think

Genius songwriters? you must be having a laugh!! James Blunt.....Robbie Williams?!?! ahahahaha James Blunt has done one very dull album of similar repetitive tracks, and both he and Robbie Williams get a lot of help songwriting.

Coldplay, Oasis and the Foo Fighters are LAME compared to the likes of Cream, Beatles, Led Zeppelin and not fit to lick their boots clean!! All Coldplay and Oasis records sound the same, nothing ever changes, they are predictable.

Todays music IS better than the 1980s, certainly in terms of the good stuff, but its not a patch on the 60s.

Back thanks! haha.

Thanks for the amazing "fact" SGE, but not strictly true. You are speaking only of the UK (like the way you didn't mention that to suggest otherwise!), where album stats were a bit flakey during the 1960s and hard to come by. In worldwide terms (since we do live in a global community now), albums like "Abbey Road", "Let It Be", "White Album" easily outsold in 7 months what James Blunt has achieved. Plus you have to remember that albums were vastly more expensive back then, in fact even today, every Beatles album is MORE expensive in the shops than James Blunt ones, and at least you get good value for money!

Just to add to that point, that the Beatles have been disbanded since 1970, so making an issue out of Blunt outselling every STUDIO album merely hides the fact that the Beatles "1" and the Anthology series from 1996 outsold anything James Blunt could dream of. He is just another dull David Gray (which says a lot!).

By the way, these Beatles facts are a LOT more interesting than James Bland ones anyway! More people evidently prefer the Beatles to James Blunt, which is why the Beatles sell more records worldwide every year merely from their back catalogue than Blunt does with a new release!

LOL. Oasis - Lyla compared to Oasis - Let there be Love? Similar in what way? They change direction from song to song. Granted Coldplay are a bit repetitive but still, they do what they are expected, which is churn out hit after hit.

James Blunt only released his first single in June 2005, the Beatles have been around since 1962 - give the guy some time to make his mark. Dont really see how you can compare the 2 TBH

They've been doing "lyla's" and "let there be loves" for the past 10 years! Jeez. We're not talking a paradigm shift like "Please Please Me" to "Strawberry Fields Forever" here! They either do fast or slow songs, thats it. Nothing clever in what they write and how they perform it.

They have not changed their direction in 10 years. They are unimaginitive and as much as i like their first 2 albums and a selection of songs off the rest, including b-sides.....they are second rate compared to the bands of the past like Zep, Cream and the Beatles.

I'm not comparing them, SGE was. I was defending them from his/her post.

If i was to compare them within the first 7 months since their first single.....commercially anyway, the Beatles were light years ahead. Beatlemania was massive, everyone was talking about them. James Blunt is still very much restricted to being played in the background at dinner parties!!

Oh, and the Beatles singles and their first album "Please Please Me" absolutely rocks compared to "Back to Bedlam".

How can you say there is nothing clever in what they write and how they perform it? There are not many bands who have been around since 1994, write their own material, sell out worldwide tours within minutes and still turn out massive hits.

Why do you insist on comparing them to Cream, who in my opinion were dire? They never exactly set the charts alight when they were actually releasing tunes so why would they interest me now?

Todays music is much better than that of the 60s, thats only my opinion though.

This really could rumble on and on and we will still never ever agree. Beatlemania was massive, so was Spicegirls Mania and Take That mania and East 17 mania, so what? Does not mean that they are top quality just because they have a few hysterical girls chasing them into hotels.

Please Please Me only went to number 2 in the charts and Your Beautiful went number 1 of you want to compare manias by the way

I was referring to the album "Please Please Me" which topped the chart for 30 consecutive weeks only to be replaced by the Beatles second LP. The Beatles first single was Love Me Do (#17), not Please Please Me, and anyways PPM topped 4/5 UK singles charts including all the major charts at the time, and this was around a time when getting to #1 in the singles chart was both an achievement and respectable.

Beatlemania was far bigger, and was far more global than any of the acts you mentioned. Only Spice Girl mania has come close, and the difference between the Beatles and those bands is that their following was both male and female......most people who bought James Blunt are women anyway!

You are worse than me for basing "charts/stats/success" for bands with that Cream comment! Firstly, bands like the Beatles set the charts alight AND were absolutely the best at what they did. Cream were a completely different beast. They made superb music and never comprimised that with overly commercial singles. The Beatles in the main kept their singles and albums totally separate.

You don't need to be successful to be good anyway, it can just sometimes be an indicator, just not always, Cream DID sell a fair amount of albums anyway, but besides that, they were a great band and people respected them and still do.
You don;t like Cream because their music has depth, and you like middle of the road bland pop stuff, thats fine, that is your choice.

You going to knock Led Zeppelin now, even though they never had a top 20 UK single!?? Oooooh what failures!!

Look, i really don't mind Oasis, but i know their limitations. Each album since "Morning Glory" has been average at best (and predictable as well). They still write half decent songs, and they still sell reasonably well, but they are not the force they once were. If they had split up after Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory, they'd be one of the most respected bands in the world.....but now they got this stigma attached to them as "has beens", which is sad, but they no longer had create songs like "Masterplan" or "Live Forever", simple as that.

Cream are a great band in your eyes and no doubt many others, not in mine though. I have had to endure listening to them at my mothers when i was a wee lad and that was quite enough for me. Thats just my opinon and we are both entitled to differ, bit boring if we all liked the same things.

The original question was is the music of today better or worse and im saying better. The talent around now cannot be surpassed by a few bands who were not even commercially succesful back in the day.

And as for bands being failures if they do not do well in the charts, of course that is not the whole case but it does go a long way. The business they are in is gauged by how well they do in the charts. The same as in football it is gauged by the Premiership table. The team at the bottom of the league are not better than Chelsea are they?

Your obsession with the fab four seems worse than even I thought, BG.


Question: How many albums have The Beatles sold worldwide in the last 7 months, BG? And exactly how many (separate) albums would that figure be from? As if you didn't know already, Blunt is just selling the one album, my friend. Talk about 'spin', you're not Alistair Campbell, perchance??

WHAT A RIDICULOUS COMMENT!!!!

Comparing football to music is completely different!! You can't BUY musical genius or talent. No matter how much money Simon Cowell throws at Shayne Ward, he'll never be as good as dozens of other acts.

You are basing commercial success purely on how well they do in the singles chart in Britain. Bands like Cream and Jefferson Airplane didn't do a thing over here, and neither did Led Zeppelin, but they are all brilliant artists, far superior to most stuff in the charts today and stormed the rest of the world! Many acts used to not even bother releasing stuff in the singles chart back in the early 1970s anyway. Its fair to say that altough Britain produces superb artists.....our buying public are not as appreciative as in other countries, we end up buying rubbish like Cliff Richard, Shayne Ward and Westlife instead!

This is simple: COMMERCIAL SUCCESS DOES NOT GUARANTEE QUALITY MUSIC. Never has done, and never will do.

And most of the people screamimg at Beatles concerts were female. Relevance?

I would say your "spin" is just as impressive on flogging James Blunt - condensing it down to 7 months for example, when clearly the James Blunt album was released over a year ago. FACT.

Oh, as for the Beatles sales, its not clear, but estimates are that their back catalogue sells approximately 15m per annum worldwide according to EMI, and yes its over their 11 studio albums greatest hits packages. But the Beatles split up in 1970, and not promoting themselves to death like James Blunt is.

Oh, and who has the biggest selling album this century?? and in this years Virgin Radio Poll, who had 33 entries in the top 500, easily more than anyone else!

have quite a lot of 90's music, but there are also bands of today that are worthy of praise.

Portishead, Radiohead, Blur, Oasis, PJ Harvey, Sleeper, Massive Attack were all decent bands to come out of the 90s.

As are Green Day, The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs, Coldplay and varying others that are decent and come from the 00s.

Alex -

Todays music is better, i dont care how many obscure bands from abroad you can name and how many Beatles album figures you can throw at me, todays music is better and none of the artists you have mentioned are a patch on our finest at this time.

Shayne Ward will be a big artist, true it will be off the back of the TV show but so what. He can sing and that is what a singer is expected to do. Why does everybody think music of yesteryear was so amazing, it wasnt. Band after band are so over-rated from back then just because people think it is the cool thing to say.

I didnt say COMMERICIAL SUCCESS equals good music, but if bands did not even scratch their way into the charts then surely that reflects slightly on the strength of their porfolio of tunes

None, because blokes don't scream....or do they SGE???

If you look at concert footage, there were loads of blokes in the audience. Plus whatever "pop" image they had in their first year or two, they managed to shed with classic songs and albums like "Rubber Soul". No band in history has gone through so many transformations as the Beatles, even though they didn't need to, as they were brilliant in EVERY era.

James Blunt did not release his album over a year ago, it was released in May was it not?

You're beginning to lose that ring of confidence you previously exhibited, BG. Your indisputable facts are getting a little 'hazy' all of a sudden. It's quite amusing to witness.

Got any links to these amazing facts you spout regarding Beatles sales, BG? Not that I don't trust you, of course. Blunt has sold 6 million albums in LESS than 7 months worldwide (the album only really started selling in any numbers from May/June 2005). That's from the ONE album, btw.

Cream and Led Zeppelin are BRITISH, oh the shame of your ignorance.

Jefferson Airplane are hardly obscure, they've sold 20m records over in America.

As for Shayne Ward....and X-Factor as a whole....many of the songs they sing are covers of "yesteryear". Pop music today is far lazier than pop music of the 1960s, and none of the more "serious" artists today like Oasis and Coldplay can match the genius and depth of the Beatles, Zep, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones etc etc etc.....the only half decent original bands around today are Radiohead, Manics, Prodigy and Blur/Gorillaz.