For the exposure they had available for those days, some of those groups were probably on a par with the beatles in popularity.

You have to remember that for that time, you had American Bandstand and 45's. The push behind them was no where near like it is today.

At the height of their popularity, Dion and the Belmonts, the 4 Seasons, Roy Orbison, probably could have filled a stadium with their fans had it been offered.

The people I mentioned were big stars at the time, but, I doubt if all of them together made in their whole careers what Beyonce made last year.

He's good but he's no Mike Portnoy, which he doesn't have to be, all he really needs to do is keep the time for the rest of the band and make it sound good at the same time, which he isn't bad at.

I'm not sure why you quoted my post, then jumped all over the place with yours.

Almost every musician has a person or group, that, to them, is the absolute best, and that is their right.

Don't think that the beatles or Madonna started the "pop star" thing. When I was a kid, we would go to Palisades Park and the people (mainly the young girls) would go nuts for Dion and the Belmonts, the 4 Seasons, and various others. Back then, few people could pull more emotion out of a song than Roy Orbison, Timi Yuro, or Gene Pitney, and Jay and the Americans would make the crowd nuts. Martha and the Vandellas singing "Dancing in the Streets" could rock the place, and I'm leaving out the Drifters,(whose song "On Broadway, was our opening song for decades), the Platters, the Exciters. They were all "pop stars" in their day.

At the same time, if you were at my place, you would probably be listening to Segovia or Laura Branigan, or Brubeck.

People like who they like and nothing will change them.

This is one of those topics that should die a peaceful death because it's going nowhere.