We Are Never Getting Back Together

Unless one of us is going broke and you'll pay us a ton of money

It was recently announced that Noel and Liam Gallagher, the two brothers behind the famed band Oasis, had finally squashed their decades-long beef and were going to reunite. This news set my Twitter feed on fire, nearly ever person that I follow excited by the thought of seeing the two snarky Brits on stage again. “Who,” I began to ponder, “could send the internet into a bigger tizzy over a reunion tour?” Seemed like a question some data could answer. As always, this newsletter is also available as a podcast. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or click play at the top of this page.

I Said … Reunite Me

Have you always wanted to hear “Sweet Home Alabama” live? Well, you’re in luck. Lynyrd Skynyrd is on tour! Kind of. The version of Lynyrd Skynyrd that is currently touring contains none of the members who played on “Sweet Home Alabama”. Every one of those musicians is dead. Should you buy tickets to see this tour, you’d mostly be listening to musicians who joined the band after 1999, decades after Skynyrd released their last classic.

This Lynyrd Skynyrd situation isn’t that unique. Last year, I wrote about how the slow evolution of classic band lineups has led to glorified cover bands claiming they are the real thing. Because of this, I knew I needed some ground rules when trying to identify which theoretical reunions would lead to Oasis-level fervor.

1. No Solo Artists Allowed: Is it really a reunion if only one person is involved?

2. Only the Living can Reunite: I don’t care that creepy holograms of dead musicians can now “go on tour.” Every member of the group must still be alive to be considered for this hypothetical reunion. Sorry, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin!

3. Reunions Require Sufficient Passage of Time: Is it really a reunion if the group has put out a new album or toured in the last five years?

4. One Member Returning is Not a Reunion: If a group has been active for years but has only replaced one core member, that member returning would not constitute a reunion for this exercise. Sorry, Journey!

With those rules in mind, I used various lists of artists on Wikipedia to collate 1,928 groups founded between 1957 and 2010. I then paired each group with their follower count and popularity score as per Spotify. Sorting by the latter and then the former, here are the musical groups whose reunions would create the biggest buzz.