Which actually did an album without Carl Palmer (though apparently they had a prerequisite of finding a drummer whose surname started with P).
Re: The Who-- Pete has said many times that The Who became a brand instead of a band after John’s passing. (Pete wrote an eloquent essay about John on the anniversary of his death last month)
The thing about Keith wasn’t just that he was an amazing drummer, but he had a huge, oversized personality and a seemingly endless capacity for doing crazy shit. He was the sparkplug for the band in more ways than one.
Assemblage 23, given that “they” are Tom Shear and whoever he gets to tour with him when he plays live. Without Tom there is no A23.
Shirley, you can’t be serious. They’ve replaced Ian Stewart, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor. Everyone is the band is replaceable except Jagger & Richards. IMO, Jagger is replaceable too.
Simon And Garfunkle
The Bee Gees
The Carpenters
Godley & Creme
I’d say **The Police **is the only real one where they couldn’t go on, even as a joke.
Soda Stereo could not have continued without any of the three.
Hell, even **Queen **went on after Freddy died.
**Genesis **carried on without Peter Gabriel, and, for a while even without Phil Collins. **Yes ** goes on without Anderson.
In the end, one cannot know if the guy is irreplacable until they try to.
This is a slightly odd answer, but…
ABBA
Love them or hate them, they just wouldn’t be the same without all four of them.
Anything from 1980 or later?
Edit - Asking what bands from 1980 or later would qualify. Not saying that any band from 1980 onward is irreplaceable.
Come on, OP. I’m an early U2 fan, and I think it’s quite obvious that Adam Clayton is replaceable. In fact, I recall he got so shitfaced a few years back that they played a show with his bass tech in his spot. No one asked for their money back. Wonderful bloke, adequate bassist, but you could bring along a decent garage band bass player and U2 would probably sound the same. Now, the creative process and vibe of the band would change, but I don’t think you would pick up a U2 album and say “something’s missing!”
I’m not sure how you come up with Sting + 2 players = The Police. Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland are world class, recognizable talents. Sting played with Andy Summers on “Be Still My Beating Heart” and “The Lazarus Heart” - those songs do not sound like The Police. Sting sounds like Sting, whether he’s singing with Dire Straits or on his own. He does not sound like The Police.
Other comments:
The Clash: which version? Terry Chimes drummed with them for ages, then Topper Headon. I prefer Topper but I also love the early Clash stuff.
R.E.M., IMO, ended when Bill Berry left. I cannot listen to a R.E.M. record straight through post-Berry’s departure. They had good, if not great tracks and parts of albums but they never felt, sounded, or acted the same.
XTC lost Barry Andrews and Terry Chambers - and still did well. They weren’t as weird without Barry and as much as I loved Terry’s drumming, they got damn good session players to keep the beat. You might even argue that they did XTC reasonably well without Dave Gregory. (But losing him hurt the most, and in fact, more or less ended the band.)
INXS has tried to replace Michael Hutchence… I think it’s fair to say at this point it hasn’t worked. I think if they had continued with Terence Trent D’Arby that would have been interesting, though.
I love Blur and Graham Coxon - and I would have told you the band was not a band without Coxon - but the album they recorded without him, Think Tank, was fairly brilliant.
The Pixies. I don’t want to even think of how they’d sound without Dave’s drums, Kim’s bass, Joey’s guitar, or Frank’s vocals/songwriting.
I’d also submit Ween, but only the original act when they were just a duo. I was a bit disappointed when they expanded into a full band in the mid-90s, so in a sense they proved my point years ago by retiring their DAT machine. They’ve had some personnel changes that actually improved things since then, but there can be no Ween without Gene and Dean. Sadly, Aaron Freeman demonstrated that to be true just a few weeks ago.
Topper, of course. Terry played with the band, but Topper was necessary for the band to exist. He was not only the glue that held Jones and Strummer together, he was the keystone that kept the arch from falling down.
There’s a couple of heartbreaking interviews with him and with Joe Strummer in Westway To The World, where they both describe (in individual interviews) the remarkable time the band spent in New York City recording the bulk of Combat Rock. They talk about the dizzying amount of new musical and cultural experiences they all had in NYC. One of those things was the easy availability of smack, which Topper took advantage of and led to his departure from the band (the other guys kicked him out). In the last bit, Topper is nearly sobbing as he admits his addiction and his failure to control it led to the destruction of the band, and Strummer, in his segments expresses similar sentiments.
In that film, you can hear Mick Jones describe Topper as simply the most amazing drummer he had ever heard, and he talks at length about how Topper’s skills and amazing musical dexterity and breadth of musical knowledge (Headon is also an accomplished pianist, singer, bass player and guitarist, with an extensive background in jazz, pop, rock and prog rock) enabled the band to do damn near anything it wanted, because Topper was always there to provide a solid foundation for the song structure they were building.
Strummer also echoes that Topper’s skills were a vital and necessary part of the band. “Finding someone who not only had the chops, but the strength and the stamina to do it was just the breakthrough for us.”
And sure enough, without him, they just couldn’t approach the same level of songwriting or playing and the band soon withered and died.
I second Rush and I’ll add Foo Fighters. The Foos are essentially Dave Grohl and a back up band that has been with him for about 20 years. If Dave leaves, then no more Foos.
But if any of the others get replaced no one would care.
I think you are missing the point of the thread. It is about bands where no-one can be replaced. Of course, The Doors did carry on without Jim, but it was not at all the same…
Actually, though, The Doors did cross my mind as possibilities here, because it wasn’t just Jim who was essential. Certainly Ray was - love it or hate it (personally I love it), his organ sound was unique - and arguably Robbie too. I don’t think it really mattered much who was on the drums, though.
Well, you can’t replace the singer in Iron Maiden.
I was never able to see all of the Band members as a band, but I know I would have loved them without Robbie also. So in this context, I agree with you. I reread the OP and think this was the idea.
I originally responded in the context of whether or not a band could be basically the same, if it had started with different people. Obviously the less distinct musical or singing abilities one has, the easier they could be replaced down the road. I’d guess that the majority of bands have one or more people like this. In the case of the Band, even though I like Richard Manuel’s piano for instance, if that were all he did, he could probably be replaced. But his singing is absolutely indispensable, as is that of Rick Danko and Levon Helm. Ditto for the guitar and songwriting of Robbie and the idiosyncratic and wonderful keyboards, horns, wah-wah clavinets, etc. of the amazing Garth Hudson. And while I’m at it, I would mention the southern perspective that Levon brought. These and other things for me make the Band the quintessential example of a group where all members are indispensable.
Aww hell no. I know “Queen” still play gigs but they may as well just be a tribute band for all the relevance they hold to the Queen that existed with Freddie Mercury. Brian May doing his guitar thing while some stand-in pretends to be Freddie Mercury is not Queen in any meaningful sense of the word, regardless that they have the legal right to call themselves that.
Queen died with Freddie Mercury, I think their musical output since then shows that.
Eta: That just addresses the statement that Queen continued without Freddie. I agree they don’t fit the OP, in that Roger Taylor or John Deacon could be seen as replaceable.
Erasure. Two guys - both have done solo stuff here and there (Vince has been in several other bands), but it’s only Erasure when the two of them come together to make music.
The White Stripes requires both Jack and Meg. Jack wisely put out all of his other stuff under other band names.
Wilco is an example of a band where anybody other than Jeff Tweedy can be replaced (and in most cases have been). Jay Bennett thought he was irreplaceable, but he was (at least partially) wrong.
Green Day might have an all-irreplaceable cast. I guess they could go on without Dirnt, but I think Billy Joe and Tre Cool are essential.
They replaced John Rutsey fairly successfully.