Greg wrote:
Who was responsible for putting Sugababes on that extras list, a group that changed line up completely and didn't even end up with an original member at one point.

If you can run off a list and put Sugababes on it while leaving off Status Quo and Slade then you screwed up and that's only with the groups beginning with an 'S'.



This sounds a bit like a discussion I had on Green Man's Legacy Bands thread about the group Foreigner!

Wasn't the thing about Sugababes that they completely changed the whole line up during the course of their hits run and main popularity period and not many years after their peak heyday.

Rich wrote:
Greg wrote:
Who was responsible for putting Sugababes on that extras list, a group that changed line up completely and didn't even end up with an original member at one point.

If you can run off a list and put Sugababes on it while leaving off Status Quo and Slade then you screwed up and that's only with the groups beginning with an 'S'.



This sounds a bit like a discussion I had on Green Man's Legacy Bands thread about the group Foreigner!

Wasn't the thing about Sugababes that they completely changed the whole line up during the course of their hits run and main popularity period and not many years after their peak heyday.

Plastic pop bands, can do what they want, the fan base is for those on raging hormones and low IQ's. Many boy and girl pop bands came and went very qucikly. McFly and Busted are still touring together, I find both cringey and they are about as punk as Cockerel Chorus.

Rich wrote:
Greg wrote:
Who was responsible for putting Sugababes on that extras list, a group that changed line up completely and didn't even end up with an original member at one point.

If you can run off a list and put Sugababes on it while leaving off Status Quo and Slade then you screwed up and that's only with the groups beginning with an 'S'.



This sounds a bit like a discussion I had on Green Man's Legacy Bands thread about the group Foreigner!

Wasn't the thing about Sugababes that they completely changed the whole line up during the course of their hits run and main popularity period and not many years after their peak heyday.

Why no mention of Siouxsie and the Banshees or Squeeze? Squeeze are still selling out big venues. I know Glenn Tilbrook
and Chris Difford make up Squeeze but they are a pair of talented song writers.

Think about it like this for a minute.

You've got the entire 70 years of the rock & roll popular music era to go back through all the way to the mid 1950's and all the exceptional British bands to pick from, so spoilt for choice as a nation and proving we are perhaps the very best country in the entire world at this and exporting many of these groups to all p[arts of the globe over those years but we are expected to believe that the Sugababes come into an "ultimate" as they described it, top 50 groups of all time. Permission to laugh like a drain.

Greg wrote:
Who was responsible for putting Sugababes on that extras list, a group that changed line up completely and didn't even end up with an original member at one point.

If you can run off a list and put Sugababes on it while leaving off Status Quo and Slade then you screwed up and that's only with the groups beginning with an 'S'.

The original sugababes are back together recently and appeared at "Radio 2 in the Park". Its amazing how many groups from that concert appeared in the list. PSB, Manics, Beautifull South, Sugababe. There is a recency bias in human psychology. If you've seen or heard them recently then you're more likely to think of them when coming up with this list. The Selectors are really just listing their favourite groups, rather than looking objectively at success, critical acclaim, influence, and popularity. I don't think anyone can argue with The Beatles, Stones, and Queen beein in the top 5, even if personally I don't like Queen.

Spot on Robbie. You didn't mention them but I saw Electric Light Orchestra back in 2014 at one of these Radio 2 events in Hyde Park and this kind of fits in with what you are saying when previous comments say E.L.O seemed higher up with that top ten placing than would be expected. Jeff Lynne and the guys sounded fabulous that night and I'd give them top ten status while still agreeing it seemed a touch inflated up that chart so high. Before the show I'd have guessed number 25 or thereabouts or even a complete miss of that top thirty and relegation to the extras list. It's fair to say I was pleasantly surprised by the position. I think they get a lot of airplay across BBC radio in general don't they with many of their tracks, some groups seem to attract favoured status.

I never got into ELO, when I hear Mr Blue Sky...I want to scream to the rafter's, like the rest of their back catalogue. I like things that has some crunch or ryhthm. People call Cheap Trick the American ELO. C.T. had some daft lyrics but they are melodic and catchy.

Originally there was a list of 100 groups that the panel whittled down to 54 which were then voted on. They used the word "group" as opposed to "band". So who chose this 100 in the first place that were then discussed, and I'd like to know who the 46 groups discarded were from that 100. Plus, why were they left with the very strange number of 54 anyway? It would also be very interesting to know some of the reasons for those very big and obvious groups that failed to make the grade according to these people who decided this. A couple of names aside, the panel didn't inspire much confidence did it.

They were some tremendous solo singers in 70s and 80s. One being Clifford T Ward, Sugarbabes were not a band but an act.


Clifford T Ward, played an instrument.

Green Man wrote:
I forgot about ABC but now people just call Martin Fry ABC these days.




You are quite right. They, or should I say he is doing a show near me in May 2025 at The Stables. Which reminds me, happy birthday Cleo Laine for Monday, she will be 97. Unsure if she still actually owns the venue.

The advertising simply shows Martin the individual rather than a group despite the prominent ABC billing.

stables.org/event/abc-an-intimate-evening-with-martin-fry

Rich wrote:
Green Man wrote:
I forgot about ABC but now people just call Martin Fry ABC these days.

You are quite right. They, or should I say he is doing a show near me in May 2025 at The Stables. Which reminds me, happy birthday Cleo Laine for Monday, she will be 97. Unsure if she still actually owns the venue.

The advertising simply shows Martin the individual rather than a group despite the prominent ABC billing.

stables.org/event/abc-an-intimate-evening-with-martin-fry

This reminds me of when a couple I know got duped into buying Paul Young tickets, they didn't know it would be a conversation and a sales pitch for his autobiography. They left at the interval. I have seen some intimate shows in the past where the frontman of a famous band plays an electro-acoustic or keyboard and tells their stories these were once cheap gigs, not to push book sales though. £35 is not worth it for what it is.

Save your money Rich, and go see Colosseum or Colin Blunstone.

ABC has just been Martin Fry since the early 90s, the same as Clare Grogan has been Altered Images since the early 2000s and the start of those 80s "Here and Now" concerts which she has been on for 20+ years

robbiex wrote:
ABC has just been Martin Fry since the early 90s, the same as Clare Grogan has been Altered Images since the early 2000s and the start of those 80s "Here and Now" concerts which she has been on for 20+ years

It's good for the casuals but not for die-hard fans who want to hear hits. I did laugh when I saw an advert in the post yesterday for Herman Hermits, it's just the drummer using the name, Peter Noone also has his Herman Hermits in the States.

I saw Altered Images seven years ago and thought they were more than just Clare from the original band. I should have paid more attention but it doesn't matter, Clare was the reason I went to the show, and that was a bill she was sharing with Midge Ure and The Christians! How can you not feel good with a smile on your face listening to I Could Be Happy. Infact she had two consecutive top ten singles with the word "happy" in the title, not forgetting Happy Birthday of course.


Green Man, want a good laugh. I've got a good one for you regards Herman's Hermits and their lead singer Peter Noone. A couple of years ago Herman's Hermits appeared for a gig at the Milton Keynes Theatre. I checked to see if it was the original line up only to discover that the lead singer, Noone, was not a part of this show with his old group. For anyone around at the time in the sixties you might think that was important. I was not around but checked it out for someone who was. Not very many weeks later at the same theatre, on the same stage Peter Noone himself turned up and did a solo show in just his name only, literally weeks after his old group Herman's Hermits had been there. Something about that just seemed absolutely bloody crazy to me, you couldn't make such things up could you.

Rich wrote:
I saw Altered Images seven years ago and thought they were more than just Clare from the original band. I should have paid more attention but it doesn't matter, Clare was the reason I went to the show, and that was a bill she was sharing with Midge Ure and The Christians! How can you not feel good with a smile on your face listening to I Could Be Happy. Infact she had two consecutive top ten singles with the word "happy" in the title, not forgetting Happy Birthday of course.


Green Man, want a good laugh. I've got a good one for you regards Herman's Hermits and their lead singer Peter Noone. A couple of years ago Herman's Hermits appeared for a gig at the Milton Keynes Theatre. I checked to see if it was the original line up only to discover that the lead singer, Noone, was not a part of this show with his old group. For anyone around at the time in the sixties you might think that was important. I was not around but checked it out for someone who was. Not very many weeks later at the same theatre, on the same stage Peter Noone himself turned up and did a solo show in just his name only, literally weeks after his old group Herman's Hermits had been there. Something about that just seemed absolutely bloody crazy to me, you couldn't make such things up could you.


I saw Herman Hermits at a package gig. It was like a care home, and there were one or two original members. I can't remember the singer. The following year came, and another package gig came to town. It was Peter Noone and his Hermits. There was a different energy, and people were up dancing.

I saw Bill Hurd Rubettes in a club years ago, then another Rubettes came to town a month later with Alan Williams. People were a bit confused, until Alan, mentioned what was happening.

I think Alan has retired, but Bill Hurd still tours around Germany and Belgium.

I was going to one of the Barclay James Harvest bands but then there was the fucking lockdown and they didn't rebook the venue or any other venue near me. Thank's Boris!

I think there needs to be some kind of trades description rule covering some of these groups passing themselves off as something less than you'd expect. So many people must have felt conned and not checked first. These vintage acts are not what they say on the tin in so many cases.

Don wrote:
I think there needs to be some kind of trades description rule covering some of these groups passing themselves off as something less than you'd expect. So many people must have felt conned and not checked first. These vintage acts are not what they say on the tin in so many cases.

Don't get me started on Swinging Blue Jeans, I saw a poster for them in Bournemouth, last year I think, outside of a hotel. The members look like they were born in the in the 60s or very very mid 70s. I have no idea who the members are or what bands they were in or what connections they have to S.B.J.


The Searchers are now pretty much over, Spencer James from The Searchers who has been with the band for about 40 years, has formed his own Searchers called Searchers Experience. If he called them The Searchers then that would be cheeky. Just who are these Tremeloes?

These 2 are something to go to Rich,

Still 2 original members of Focus, please note that Thijs van Leer is Focus. Being a prog-rock fan I will be biased.

£27.50 is a flipping bargain.



stables.org/event/focus-2

I remember The Watch, do they seem to be a Genesis tribute band these days. which is a good thing. The more of Genesis the better.

stables.org/event/the-watch-plays-genesis

Again how are these Swinging Blue Jeans?

swingingbluejeans.co.uk/about

Green Man wrote:
Again how are these Swinging Blue Jeans?

swingingbluejeans.co.uk/about










Well they are definitely blue jeans anyway.

I've seen it a number of times with line ups of groups from the sixties where it's blatantly obvious that members of said group were not even conceived at the time the group they are in had any actual hits and proper fame. I think it can be ligitimate say in the case of Manfred Mann where they switched lead singers from Paul Jones to Mike D'Abo halfway through the sixties but carried on having major memorable big hits with the replacement lead singer, or with any line up changes that occurred while any said group was having actual hit records or albums. But many of these line up changes, especially with sixties groups are far from that.

You mentioned Focus. About a month ago I was looking through the album chart from early 1973 and noticed that Focus actually managed to score two top ten albums in the very same week for a while during February and March 1973 with Focus III at No6 and Moving Waves at No3 in their best combined chart week, the latter album peaking No2 the next. Although I know the couple of big singles I don't know the albums so may check them out further. Not many groups, even the biggest of the time were planting two studio albums in the album top ten at the time, was surprised to see that for Focus, and I'm even more surprised to see they are still about and coming near me too.

Apparently just this last July Focus released a new single called Fjord Focus. Always love a good pun! It comes from their latest album Focus 12 released at the same time.

youtu.be/MMU1nur8e_M?si=zcPYSKEjLj-5iAzu

It does not appear to have charted here in the UK, nothing of theirs seems to have done since the 1970's. you might have thought such a group would have sustained some more durable long term album sales.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_discography