Bands where all the members are good musicians, and even more to the point, “bands that are better than the sum of their parts, better musically than each musician”.
I’ll start with an obvious one: The Beatles.
Now, I think John Lennon was brilliant, and love Paul McCartney’s innovations (and his voice), am amazed at George’s wide-ranging guitar styles, and think Ringo’s drumming was perfect for each song. But they were so much better playing off each other.
Even in their songwriting, I have to quote myself: “Every Lennon needs a McCartney.”
(Came up with that in middle school when my best friend and I were a perfect balance of cynicism and optimism. Not bad, huh?)
I’ve been thinking of other bands, but I’ll bet others here can articulate this better. And come up with more modern examples.
Good example, especially because the rest of the band weren’t slouches, but were also better as Talking Heads (even though I loved Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz and their side band Tom Tom Club).
Sure Pete wrote the songs, but Roger interpreted them made them his own. “Yeeeaahhhhh!!!”
Keith Moon was a fantastic drummer. I’m no percussionist but Keith always seemed to add extra fill-ins or whatever you call them. The difference between Keith and Kenny Jones as a replacement is very noticeable, and I don’t know of any other band where the drumming made such a difference.
John Entwistle is regarded as a great bass player, but I think most decent bass players could fill the roll.
Overall, The Who wouldn’t be The Who without Pete, Roger and Keith. And neither of those guys would have made a significant impact on rock music without the other.
Simply not true. Entwistle was seminal in terms of rock bass playing, and had a huge role in the Who. Even his chops, the easy part compared to originality, are beyond the reach of " most decent bass players".
Each member talks about how great it was playing together and Clapton even said in 2017:
“It’s never complete. But I remember one night in Philadelphia with Cream. It was near the end of our touring together. We knew it was over. We were just having a good time playing. And I remember thinking, ‘This is as great as it will ever be.’ Have I ever been satisfied? Definitely for one night, yeah.”
Pink Floyd
Legendary in their two (true) band formations (including Waters, Barrett/Gilmore, Wright, Mason). Take anyone of them away and they can rightfully play Pink Floyd songs, but they’re not Pink Floyd.
The Kinks. Ray Davies is a fantastic songwriter and singer, and Dave is a good lead guitarist with a knack for good riffs, but they were better as a unit than separate.
Speaking for myself I’ve always thought that a great showcase for both bass and drum virtuosity in The Who is “The Real Me”. Driving bass, borderline drum chaos. They *make *the track and compliment each other perfectly.
I’ve not given it much thought until now, but I think Yes fits this thread.
I must own at least 50 solo albums by the various members, and only one comes close the real thing: Squire’s Fish Out of Water, easily the best of all the solo output, and an excellent album. Anderson’s stuff gets way out there in its spaciness (Olias isn’t bad, though). Wakeman’s first few albums are pretty good, but later ones become an exercise is playing scales and other noodling. Howe is a grandmaster player, but I’ve always found this solo albums hard to take in one sitting - more endless noodling.
I used to actually not be much of a fan of Keith Moon until I really started listening through the Who discography and post-Keith Moon Who. It almost sounded like a different band to me. I think I didn’t initially like Moon because I tended more towards “groove” drummers at the time, and Moon was wild and chaotic and overplayed (as I thought at the time) his fills, and never really settled completely into a predictable repeatable groove. Only years later did I realize all those qualities are what made him great with the Who. I’m not sure how he would sound with any other band, but the Who needed him and he needed the Who. I remember a post made here, sometime in the early 2000s, that described the Who as not a band who played with each other so much as a band who played against each other. Now, that’s an exaggeration, but that really made me appreciate them, and in particular Keith Moon, so much more. But once they lost Moon and replaced him with Kenney Jones – while Jones was an excellent drummer – the more groove-based and traditional rock stylings of his just left me flat in the context of the Who.
I’ve seen Roger Waters twice (sorry, Gilmore is going to have to lower his ticket price) and it was absolutely amazing both times. IIRC, Andy Fairweather Low, played at one of the shows and that may very well have made up for Gilmore not being there.
I’d argue that most of the really great rock bands over the years would fit this. At least the ones that lasted. In a fledgling band where one guy is clearly the driving force it tends to distort that band dynamic and eventually it becomes X and the Y.
Seriously, Queen, Rush, Kiss and so forth. All great bands. But the solo projects - while sometimes fun - lacked the special something that made them famous in the first place.
Ferry - fine singer and better keyboard player than he is ever given credit for
Graham Simpson - good bass player - it’s his notes that begin Virginia Plain
Eno - splendidly weird
Phil Manzanera - cracking guitarist
Andy Mackay - fine sax player
Phil Thompson - take a listen to him playing on 2HB. Wow.
And I think the test proposed by GESancMan is key: check out the records. Separately, they never produced anything to match what they did together.
Agreed. In my experience, every band has been better than its individual members. Even if a band had only one great musician, those other guys/girls still had influence over the final product. There’s something fuller and richer that comes out of the creative process when the ideas are thrown around and massaged from different angles. IMO, every artist who’s stepped away from a band to “do my own thing” has come up short of what they had as part of a group. A great musician may not be a great songwriter, arranger or producer.
Further agreement. That’s what makes it a band instead of one musician with some accompaniment. If the backup players could be replaced with any studio musicians it’s really just a solo act.
That’s the first band I thought of, as well. They all did some nice work solo-wise (I begrudgingly will admit that Sting was very successful as a solo artist and knew how to write a radio-friendly pop song), and Copeland has worked on some fun projects [including his play-everything-on-the-album work under the name Klark Kent], Summers had his albums with Fripp and has done soundtrack work, etc. All excellent musicians in their own right with excellent post-Police work. But, man, as good as each individual musician was, all three of them together was still better.