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You are here: Home / Forum / If you could make someone a band break up or retire at a certain point and not be witnesses to their own artistic decline – who and when?

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  1. Steve Hackett leaving Genesis had a massive impact on the overall sound, much more than Gabriel’s departure…I reckon the trio should have quit after Wind and Wuthering.

  3. You got it one. Had the Stones packed it in with Exile they would probably be remembered as the seminal British group of the 60s, with or above the Beatles. Up to then it was dynamic, shape shifting with (virtually) no filler. Afterwards there has been an awful lot of dross between the odd diamond and the last 10-15 years has been plain embarrassing.

  4. We discussed Echo and the Bunnymen recently who absolutely should have gone out after Ocean Rain and stop issuing inessential after inessential album and New Order, who should have quit after track 1 of Get Ready. Waiting for the new album from the latter, Hooky-less, with as much trepidation as anticipation.

  5. The Residents last album should have been Freakshow in 1991. Their run of albums from 1972 up to that point were incredible pieces of art and Freakshow completed the circle. The album comments that The Residents themselves basically ARE the freaks and the fans were no better than gawkers at a sideshow. A great punchline.

    Everything album since (almost two every eighteen months) they’ve been repeating the same discordant musical ideas ad nauseum with some obscure concept bolted on.

    However, they cock up my system because they release Demons Dance Alone ten years later which is one of the best albums. I do deeply love the old hippies though.

  6. Floyd, after WYWH. Animals, fantastic as it was, was the transition to Waters’ takeover – the break up could have been either before or after, but The Wall and The Final Cut should both definitely have been Waters’ solo albums in name. Then history would have judged Waters as a bit bombastic, overreaching, introspective and grumpy etc, while Floyd would have been remembered purely as experimental and melodic. Sort of thing.

  7. It’s an easy one, but the Clash after they sacked Mick Jones. Then we would have been spared the embarrassment of a) Cut The Crap and b) the busking ‘tour”. Thanks, Bernie…

  10. Rod Stewart after Every Picture Tells A Story.
    Paul McCartney when he left The Beatles.
    Bob Dylan after Time Out Of Mind, and I’d give him the 80s off.
    The Byrds after Untitled.

  12. The Kinks – ‘Arthur’.
    The Stones – I need no product, especially with that truly dire tongue logo on it, after ‘Let It Bleed’.
    The Who – late ’68, pre-‘Tommy’, you heard it folks. Rock operas, my arse.
    Dylan – ‘Nashville Skyline’, possible exceptions being ‘Pat Garrett’ and ‘Blood on the Tracks’.

    To be honest, I call time on pretty much all the groups once the 60s are in their final knockings.

    The HJHs were right to split when they did and, tragic though both deaths were, Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix got out when the going was good.

    Oh, and David Bowie – after the ‘Memory from a Free Festival’ 45 in the summer of 1970.
    I’ll get me coat.

  13. The Stranglers
    Probably after Feline in 1983.
    Aural Sculpture in 1984 is OK, Dreamtime in 1986 was better, and 10 can stay just for the cover of “96 Tears”.

    Harshly: 1983
    Benefit Of The Doubt: 1990

    and The Stranglers aint The Stranglers without Hugh Cornwell
    (having said that, Suite XVI is a great listen)

    • Funnily enough I’ve been listening to a lot of the Stranglers recently (I should point out that JJBurnel inspired me to pick up the bass and that Black and White is my desert island disc) an have been marvelling at the immense change between the B + W era and the subsequent albums . No comparison at all between the sound ( the chunky clunking bass especially) and the attitude and the fury. Bit of a shame really.

  14. Don’t forget that Cropredy started out as Fairport’s Annual Reunion after they had split up (albeit not until a good few years after Thommo left).

  16. You know what going to say, DFB. R.E.M. after “The Great Beyond”.

    It would’ve said, “we tried something different, and while good and interesting, it’s not R.E.M. Here’s one last, fittingly-titled goodbye single. Goodnight.”

    The albums thereafter are only any good if you let your heart rule your ears, IMO.

  22. Depeche Mode went on a near-perfect upwards trajectory (sorry) with their first 8 albums in the 12 years all the way up to and including Songs of Faith and Devotion in 1993. Since then the standard has remained high but the albums became less confident (largely due to their most accomplished ‘musician’ leaving) and then introspection set in. Alan Wilder (for it was he) was the creator of the sound that they developed and was the only band member who would work long hours in the studio to get things just so, alongside Daniel Miller and Flood. It was his work that transformed Martin Gore’s demos. As Gore received the accolades and, let’s face it, the money for being the accredited songwriter – Wilder eventually felt unappreciated and unsupported. His main ally within the band was living the States and off his face half the time.

    They’ve gone into some interesting places and some of their very best work has been in this time but there hasn’t been a polished, consistent, 100% confident album from them since 1993.

    Truthfully, they can’t be relied on now to produce something that makes you marvel at their innovation and creativity. Not any more. Yet each album has moments, or sometimes entire songs, that convince me that the talent is still very much there. They just don’t know what to do with it. If they split up in 1993 there would have been a very impressive body of work to look back on and they would have still only been in their early thirties.

    The trouble with Depeche Mode was that after years and years of trying, they did actually make it. And once you do hit the big time – what next?

    This is not for everyone – but “Ghost” from 2009 was a bonus track. An absolute humdinger.

  26. Quick note:
    ‘Move It’ is always cited as Cliff’s only worthwhile record.
    I reckon he’s sitting on about 10 from ’58 through to ’60.
    That’s pretty much 10 more than any other Brit from the 50s.

  28. Because so many bands lurch on with replacements for deaths and complications, perhaps there should be a clause disallowing the same name after anyone leaves, even if the outcome is for the better, which might make another thread, thinking Floyd better after Syd, Manics after Richie, Chumbwamba after Nutter, Bruce, Nobacon etc.
    For the O.P., Lindisfarne after Dingley Dell.

  29. Madonna, after ‘Music’.

    That would leave some very, very good albums (and superb singles) without all this endless ‘reinvention ‘ and heralded ‘return to form’, which never really happens.

    I’m sure she’s still impressive live but the recorded output it very easy to ignore.

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