It's A Family Affair

Ongoing History of New Music

Music is one of those things that can bring families together…and sometimes, that togetherness grows into a business…

The BeeGees had the three Gibb brothers…baby brother Andy Gibb was also part of that universe for a while…

Then there’s The Beach Boys…the original lineup included Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson and their cousin Mike Love…Murray Wilson—the father of Brian, Dennis, and carl—was their manager…he was terrible at it (in fact, Murray was an all-round disasters for his sons), but at least they were all together…or something like that…three brothers, their father and a cousin…

We have The Cowsills…this was a 60s pop group from Rhode island who had a series of hits…six siblings: Bob, Bill, Barry, John, Paul and Susan…they ranged from 8 to 18…and then there was mother Barbra…this arrangement was the inspiration for the TV show “the partridge family”…that’s seven people, which later became eight when Bob’s twin brother Richard joined up for a bit…

And we have to talk about the Jackson 5: Michael, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon…when the group left Motown, Jermaine was replaced by randy…

So that’s six members of the Jackson 5… then we have Janet, LaToya and Rebbie…that’s nine and everything was run by father Joe Jackson—another abusive disaster…so the count is up to 10…

All this got me thinking: are their equivalents in the world of alt-rock?...what are the biggest family affairs the genre has ever seen?...let’s take a look…

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