I think part of the issue with the argument, at least for me, is the volume of singles and the somewhat arbitrary timeframe. This is kind of like arguing that Adam Vinatieri is the most enduringly good football player because he played the most years and had some exceptional moments. Maybe technically true, but much like Aerosmith, Adam Vinatieri can take a nap for much of the game and it doesn't matter. It's an interesting discussion for sure.
So, let's look into Aerosmith using the metric of hit singles (which I would probably argue isn't nearly as relevant to popularity of an artist in America, especially today)*. Here are the years in which they had Top 20 singles (I'll use Top 20, eye test wise it feels like the songs that made it 11-20 for them were generally bonafide hits) with Top 10 bolded
75, 76, 87, 88, 88, 89, 89, 90, 93, 93, 94, 98, 01
They had, as is said, Top 10 hits in four decades, but they had over a decade where they just weren't popularly relevant that just happens to fall between the decade divides, and while the 90-98 gap did have a lot of smaller hits, they still had small gaps between these numbers where they just weren't relevant. I think that, combined with that they conveniently fell right into the area where rock had a foothold in the Top 40 radio scene, makes them particularly suited to this particular challenge. They also were the beneficiary of the quasi-random soundtrack mega hit otherwise they'd have another 11 year gap between Top 10 songs.
Comparing to another band you mentioned, the Rolling Stones:
64, 64, 65, 65, 65, 65, 66, 66, 67, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 73, 74, 74, 76, 78, 78, 80, 81, 81, 82, 83, 86, 89
So technically three decades but roughly the same number of years but much more consistent output and more big singles to keep them in the ears of listeners. The argument that Aerosmith edges them out because of Jaded is a lot to ask that particular song to carry. It helps it win the trivia question most likely. Like, I'm ok if you want to rule out Kokomo for the Beach Boys given how bizarre of a single that was, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch in that case for someone to rule out a soundtrack hit (as huge as it was) and Jaded which put grandpa on TRL for a hot second in that case either, and Aerosmith is down to 15 years.
*On this point, I am thinking of a band like Green Day. Purely in U.S. Top 40, their range is probably five years. However, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't heard a lot of Green Day's 1990s output and once you go into the sub-genre charts like U.S. Alternative (which I think especially for rock is important now that rock music really doesn't hit the Billboard charts like it used to), they've been putting out Top 5 singles consistently for the last 26 years. Like, Good Riddance wasn't a Top 100 song but it's more relevant in the American psyche than a slew of chart toppers. This also would help Aerosmith's longevity argument - if you include the U.S. Rock charts for them it gives them a much more robust discography). I'd probably say if we want to center the argument around "enduringly popular band", I think we'd need to move away from chart performance and use a variety of measures to really gauge that especially as listening methods are so much more spread out now and different mediums will provide different popular artists, and that popularity is much more of a fleeting and subjective concept now.
Edit: If you want an answer everyone will really hate, we're getting to the point where Maroon 5 might be getting into this conversation based purely on amount of time with high level singles as a band though we can have hope here that people are giving up on that dream.
So, let's look into Aerosmith using the metric of hit singles (which I would probably argue isn't nearly as relevant to popularity of an artist in America, especially today)*. Here are the years in which they had Top 20 singles (I'll use Top 20, eye test wise it feels like the songs that made it 11-20 for them were generally bonafide hits) with Top 10 bolded
75, 76, 87, 88, 88, 89, 89, 90, 93, 93, 94, 98, 01
They had, as is said, Top 10 hits in four decades, but they had over a decade where they just weren't popularly relevant that just happens to fall between the decade divides, and while the 90-98 gap did have a lot of smaller hits, they still had small gaps between these numbers where they just weren't relevant. I think that, combined with that they conveniently fell right into the area where rock had a foothold in the Top 40 radio scene, makes them particularly suited to this particular challenge. They also were the beneficiary of the quasi-random soundtrack mega hit otherwise they'd have another 11 year gap between Top 10 songs.
Comparing to another band you mentioned, the Rolling Stones:
64, 64, 65, 65, 65, 65, 66, 66, 67, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 73, 74, 74, 76, 78, 78, 80, 81, 81, 82, 83, 86, 89
So technically three decades but roughly the same number of years but much more consistent output and more big singles to keep them in the ears of listeners. The argument that Aerosmith edges them out because of Jaded is a lot to ask that particular song to carry. It helps it win the trivia question most likely. Like, I'm ok if you want to rule out Kokomo for the Beach Boys given how bizarre of a single that was, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch in that case for someone to rule out a soundtrack hit (as huge as it was) and Jaded which put grandpa on TRL for a hot second in that case either, and Aerosmith is down to 15 years.
*On this point, I am thinking of a band like Green Day. Purely in U.S. Top 40, their range is probably five years. However, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't heard a lot of Green Day's 1990s output and once you go into the sub-genre charts like U.S. Alternative (which I think especially for rock is important now that rock music really doesn't hit the Billboard charts like it used to), they've been putting out Top 5 singles consistently for the last 26 years. Like, Good Riddance wasn't a Top 100 song but it's more relevant in the American psyche than a slew of chart toppers. This also would help Aerosmith's longevity argument - if you include the U.S. Rock charts for them it gives them a much more robust discography). I'd probably say if we want to center the argument around "enduringly popular band", I think we'd need to move away from chart performance and use a variety of measures to really gauge that especially as listening methods are so much more spread out now and different mediums will provide different popular artists, and that popularity is much more of a fleeting and subjective concept now.
Edit: If you want an answer everyone will really hate, we're getting to the point where Maroon 5 might be getting into this conversation based purely on amount of time with high level singles as a band though we can have hope here that people are giving up on that dream.
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you Lee!
