Most influential band post-Beatles ?

Yep, Sabbath takes it because OP used the term "influential."

 

Wings?

 

Zeppelin. Definitely the most successful. Most influential? They were unique, but most influential is up for debate.

 

A Mr Eddie Rabbit would like to have a word with you.

...and Sabbath is the answer.

If we are talking influence, they have a decade on any Punk or hip/hop candidate listed.

Anyone else :
Did they start / define / bequeath us with an entire Genre?

If not, than likely not as influential as Sabbath.

As for VU...probably a real close second.
Though they mostly inspired people with bad haircuts to gather and call themselves bands.

 

This is the correct answer.

 

I'd argue that The Stooges were a more significant influence, leading directly to Ramones, Sex Pistols, Radio Birdman and The Saints., with a little MC5 thrown in.

 

Influential? I just took a look at the 2019 sales charts. Of all the bands mentioned so far on this thread, I would have to say only Run-DMC and (maybe) Madonna have any influence on what I saw on the charts.

The Stones? Nope. Eagles? What? Bowie? Not bloody likely. Marley? Dream on.

 

Absolutely agree, but they aren't a post-Beatles band per the constraints of this thread. A mere technicality

 

I'm not sure why people confuse 'influence' and 'popularity'. If this thread was 'Most popular band post-Beatles', there wouldn't be any room for discussion. Sales figures alone would provide the facts, whereas 'influence' is a much more nebulous concept. So far, I think the best case has been made for Kraftwerk (a minor German one-hit wonder).

 

There’s a lot more than that. If you’re only looking for bands that overtly sound like Zep, not so many mainly because Zep themselves covered such a broad range that’s almost impossible to pin them down and replicate what they did. But just about any loud riffy or bluesy type of rock band that came along since the mid 70s will have been influenced by Zep to some degree.

 

Yip you’re right (again), absolutely no one on earth heard Kraftwerk’s groundbreaking world wide 1974 hit single and album Autobahn.......

 

Kraftwerk is the band other musicians say they were listening to (inspired by). Donna Summer is who they were actually listening to (inspired by).

 

I'm kind of lost on the first post. The Stones were not post-Beatles. I think the question should assume artists who started, who at least hit it big, after 1970 or so.

However, we're seven pages in, and only one other person (after skimming) mentioned anything along these lines, so I guess it's mostly just me.

I can sort of, begrudgingly, accept Pink Floyd if you ignore their work before 1970 and argue for their later work as influential, though I don't necessarily agree that they'd be #1 in that respect.

But the first sentence says influential and successful, which are two very different criteria. Most successful is measurable though I'm not going to do the research, and there are other threads (yes, Queen-related) with debate on how that should be measured. Influential, while not entirely subjective, is nonetheless hard to justify.

 

Most influential band post-Beatles ?



The Ramones, no contest in the WORLD.

 

Good point.
She got girls into a female artist instead of just being into the guys. They dressed like her and impersonated the videos. All the pop females such as Janet, Paula, Britney, Christina, Jennifer, Beyonce, Katy, GaGa etc who came after with choreography and unique style owe it to her for breaking the mold.

 

Led Zeppelin.
No mega hard rock to heavy metal band is ever embraced as normal or mainstream without Zeppelin making the genre acceptable.
They turned Rock and Roll into Rock.

 

The case has been made for Kraftwerk? To be the most influential you have to identify specific and many cases of influence. In looking at the music of the past 2 decades that people actually listen to I fail to detect much of an influence at all.

 

Really?

Rush ( first album is total Zep worship )
Whitesnake
Diamond Head
Aerosmith
Heart
Kingdome Come
The Tea Party
Soundgarden
Pearl Jam
The Cult
Rival Sons
The Quill
Wolfmother
White Stripes
Queens Of The Stone Age
Lenny Kravitz
Greta van Fleet

and let's not forget Dread Zeppelin

 

Yes, I was reflecting yesterday on how big an influence they were (instrumental sound) on two of my other favorite electro-pop bands: Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (OMD) and Depeche Mode. They are English bands and have a different approach with vocals (emotionally hot, instead of cold like Kraftwerk) and lyrics (more complex and personal) but both groups have confessed to a huge debt to Kraftwerk. And that's just synth-based pop. We also have Detroit Techno - black dance music from the Detroit musical scene heavily influenced - some even say given birth - by these Germans. Talk about cross-cultural! And the influence came back the other direction to Kraftwerk from Detroit as well, which, believe it or not, induced Kraftwerk to add a little funk into their live performances of some of their material (The Robots being a prime example). So when people demur that a band has to create a new genre to claim the crown of most influential, well, Kraftwerk has done it, perhaps even twice.

 

So what you're saying is that you've never heard Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" and also aren't aware that it's up there with "Rapper's Delight" and "The Message" as one if the most influential early hip-hop tracks ever. And that's before you even get to the literally hundreds of synth pop acts directly inspired by Kraftwerk.

 

Sabbath invented a whole new genre.
They don't have the sales numbers, but the influence is huge.

 

Some bands are influential and successful while others are just influential. The Beatles for example was very influential and very successful. Pink Floyd was also influential and successful. Black Sabbath was influential but not successful, Ramones was influential but not successful. Hendrix was very influential and was also successful but here he does not enter because he was not as successful as Beatles and Pink Floyd.

 

You really think "Autobahn" outsold "I Feel Love"?

I know for a fact six people bought Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" -- The four band members, me, and me again because I lost my first copy.
I know for a fact that 2.7 million people bought Donna Summer's "I Feel Love". And four of those copies were bought by the guys in Karftwerk.

Look, once again, the influence is greater when the audience is larger. Seven people in Leipzig attending a Kraftwerk concert is no match for 120 million people buying Donna Summer records. I know Kraftwerk were brilliant....but if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it really influence anybody?

 

The thing is, I agree with your basic premise, but you sound so utterly ludicrous with your pointless exaggerations that I'm forced to disagree with you just on principle.

 

Black Sabbath are overrated as an influence in my opinion. There’s this revisionist thing that they invented metal but there were heaps of other loud guitar bands that played equally if not greater part in the evolution of the genre in my opinion.