A single member. Band name remains.
Doesn’t have to be a band - could be a long-time guitarist of a solo artist.
The first name that comes to my mind is Roger Waters, but I’m sure I’ll think of others.
Blood, Sweat & Tears after Al Kooper left.
Well, when Dave lombardo left slayer, that first album without him was meh, and this was coming off one of their best albums ever. However, I’m not sure how much its mehness was due to him leaving. They’ve been kinda meh since then even though he has come back.
Really? I would have thought more Pink Floyd fans preferred the first post-Waters Pink Floyd album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, to the last album pre-Waters’ exit, The Final Cut, which was essentially a Roger Waters solo album. A Momentary Lapse of Reason was a fairly mixed album, but it did have a few brilliant moments. I’m not sure The Final Cut had any.
Apparently, I see these bands way too often.
Had tickets for the Doors, Jim Morrison died, and they toured without him. I thought, hey, I love Ray Manzarek’s organ work, Robby Kreiger can play guitar, I’ll still go. If they’d just done a jazzy instrumental set, I’d’ve been happy. But they had some bloated no-name trying to sound like Morrison. Painful.
Then I saw Blood, Sweat & Tears… well, David Clayton-Thomas wasn’t there (turns out he’d quit). Again, somebody tried to sound like him. Unsuccessfully, natch.
I’m assuming it was the last tour for both bands.
(Now, if only BS&T had re-hired Al Kooper and Steve Katz and gone back to the jazz-rock fusion of that first lineup…)
Evanescence kinda tanked after the guy that wrote all the songs left/got kicked out by Amy Lee. They went from world tour to tumbleweeds.
The James Gang without Joe Walsh.
The Attractions (better known as “Elvis Costello’s Band”) minus Bruce Thomas, who put the “power” in “power pop” and whose bass parts were in many cases the definitive hook of EC’s songs. There isn’t a single thing Costello recorded after that which even remotely approaches the level of musical engagement that The Attractions had. He did, at least, do the honorable thing by not billing the group as The Attractions after Thomas was out - acknowledging that he could not be replaced.
Genesis lost their unique sound after Steve Hackett left in 1977. They had already made two good Genesis albums without Peter Gabriel: A Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering, both from 1976. Everyone has always made a big deal of Gabriel’s split from Genesis, but they came back strong without Gabriel; it was the loss of Hackett that precipitated their sudden drop-off in quality.
The Final Cut was fine for what it was: The Wall, part 2, with more Roger Waters whinging about how bad war is.
A Momentary Lapse of Reason was (to me at least) a breath of fresh air. Less edgy, more introspective and thoughtful.
Weird. The Final Cut remains one of my favourite albums, above Dark Side. A Momentary Lapse of Reason one of my least favourite, basically a David Gilmour solo album (someone who’s not very productive). And its the opinion of most of the PF fans I know.
The lack of just David Gilmour did make The Division Bell a much better one. Almost a Floyd tribute act, made with contributions from Floyd fans.
Let’s face it Animals, Wish You Were Here and The Wall were pretty much Roger Water’s solo albums.
Final Cut brilliant moments? Southampton dock? The gunners dream? Paranoid eyes? Two suns in the sunset has dated though.
AMLOR? A bunch of Floyd B sides with lyrics written by a child? Some stuff on a boat for about five minutes? Learning to fly?
I’d say Cliff Burton from Metallica to me is the one who is most striking once pointed out.
He brought the proggy elements to Metallica, and not just him, I think he inspired the rest to do more with their talents.
His contribution to And Justice For All was clearly there, so still kind of one of his albums, though I’d love to heard the remixed version where they actually mixed in Newsteads bass playing to make it like the album it should have been, rather than the tinny half album it was.
After that, they put out an almost Metallica tribute album without the “love” in the black album, and that was that.
This is my personal opinion and will get controversial.
While Rainbow had Ronnie James Dio I felt every album got better and better. Once Dio left Ritchie Blackmore took the band through pop-metal, AOR and empty classical rock work outs with some highlights along the way but… The end was a mercy killing.
The controversial bit comes with I have never appreciated Ozzy Osbourne’s talents. As such I always felt Black Sabbath were musically and lyrically a largely talent free zone - and I DON’T expect many, if any, will agree with that. However I thought the two studio albums Dio did with Black Sabbath were absolutely fantastic. A perfect mix of muscle and melody. Black Sabbath then sunk back without a trace when Dio left. That’s my opinion anyway.
It was disappointing for me that as a solo artist Dio never quite seemed to hit the spot again. I was happy for the ‘Dragons and Kings’ lyrics to stay. He could still sing great, had an ear for melody. Even had decent guitarists on board but… Dio albums sound too amateur for me. Parts are good but there isn’t a whole.
TCMF-2L
I like TFC as well - it’s tied for my second favorite musically with Obscured By Clouds and The Wall.
But the opening three tracks to AMLoR is one of the better Floyd sequential tracks around. They just blend together. Of course The Wall and DSotM have better sequences but compared to every non-Floyd band, the flow is quite excellent.
Maybe 10000 Maniacs after Natalie Merchant left. A band (such as it is these days) with the same name still tours and releases stuff, but I don’t know anyone who actually cares.
<thumbs up>
I’ll also add
Peter Green leaving Fleetwood Mac
Peter Gabriel leaving Genesis
Roger Hodgson leaving Supertramp
The Doors after Jim Morrison quit this life, hence the band as well.
ETA: I see digs beat me to it.
Van Halen after Dave Lee Roth left.
Might as have called it Eddie Bought A Keyboard. And it fully being his band now, he completed full tribute to Montrose, the band he wanted to be, by hiring Sammy Hagar, the lead singer of Montrose.
Then strived to be nothing like Montrose anymore, and just write sappy keyboard based songs about love and naming albums after Hilarious acroynms (sarcasm).
Ninjaed. I find it humorous that he switched to calling his band “The Imposters,” but it’s accurate.
Costello has never been a guitar whiz, so Steve Nieve’s keyboards and Thomas’ bass were the main sound of the band. The bass part on “This Year’s Girl” depresses me whenever I try to play it myself.