How many top 10 hits did the Grateful Dead have?
Way before the term “disruption” was supposed to apply to tech companies coming up with boring new apps, the Grateful Dead were disrupting the music business.
They basically invented the entire concept of a jam band, allowed fans to record and exchange live recordings of their music freely, and the core group of the band recorded and toured together for the vast majority of their 30-year career.
Their following became so loyal, they even got their own name, Deadheads, and fans would often tour along with the band, following them from show to show. For the time they were active, the Grateful Dead were consistently among the highest-grossing touring bands in the world. Following founding member Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, the band called it quits, although multiple iterations continued on with different names, often with the same touring success.
But how much did that touring success translate into success on the music charts?
