# Good bands whose solo spinoff sucks **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2014, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638 "2014-12-31T19:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/41 "2015-01-01T17:39:56Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I don’t think either Simon or Garfunkel have produced a solo work as ethereally awesome as S&G did on a regular basis. I strongly disagree with this. Simon has done his best and most creative work as a solo. S&G had great harmonies and the songs sounded nice, but they were, other than the Bookends album, ordinary pop-folk songs. I don’t think Freddy Mercury’s solo efforts were as good as his work with Queen. Much as I like Eric Knopfler, I really wish he’d stayed with Dire Straits. He went too far into the country genre for my liking. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/42 "2015-01-01T19:37:17Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > The Rolling Stones. Keith and Mick’s solo work is awful. Agreed, and Bill’s projects don’t do anything for me either. BUT…Charlie’s “solo” albums aren’t bad at all. > [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > I was afraid I’d be castigated here if I was the first to say that. I think before the breakup, while he was writing he kept in the back of his mind what Lennon might have to say about something. Which tended to dial down the sap content of his work. > [@PlainJain](#): > > Very true. But I’d take it over Lennon’s sellout crap. John and Paul complimented each other perfectly, and when together became a two-headed supergenius which greatly exceeded the sum of the parts. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/43 "2015-01-01T19:41:08Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I strongly disagree with this. Simon has done his best and most creative work as a solo. S&G had great harmonies and the songs sounded nice, but they were, other than the Bookends album, ordinary pop-folk songs. Really? Sounds of Silence? The Boxer? I am a Rock? Not what I’d consider ordinary songs or ordinary themes. But I agree that Paul Simon at least matched and possibly exceeded S&G’s output in terms of quality. Garfunkle never really found the material he needed to overcome his voice’s essential sweetness – so a lot of what he recorded, while technically excellent, just hasn’t aged well (e.g Disney Girls). From the progressive rock/folk side of the music world, I never was that impressed by Annie Haslam’s solo albums apart from Renaissance. I think if you have that big voice, you also need the bombastic overblown music and lyrics so you can really cut loose. Same thing with Mary Fahl from the October Project. (I’m not sure either of these singers efforts actually “sucked”, they were more like “meh”, at least if you were expected them to belt out vocals like they did when they were in the band.) ---
**Author:** ![dream-scraper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@dream-scraper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dream-scraper)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/44 "2015-01-01T20:48:07Z")
Morrissey had a few solid solo songs early on but it was the song-writing with Marr that made The Smiths one of the most influential bands to emerge in the 80’s. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/45 "2015-01-01T21:26:40Z")
ABBA’s individual members had varying degrees of success after breakup, mostly in Sweden, but none had the sort of worldwide success that the group had. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/46 "2015-01-02T00:15:17Z")
I think we need a clear meaning for “sucks” in this thread. Is it a) Commercially unsuccessful + I don’t like it b) Commercially unsuccessful + I like it c) Commercially successful + I don’t like it? Because, for me, Sting is a “c”, but I could not say he sucks. > [@Stratocaster](#): > > jovan, good post. McCartney has certainly released some weak material. But IMO, his best solo work has been excellent and on par with the writing skills we saw of him in the Beatles. His chords, his harmonies, his song’s structures–he can still to this day write amazing stuff. He is such a clever composer. > > I don’t like it when he phones stuff in, but that has not been the signature of his solo career. “Paul’s solo career is sappy pop songs” is one of those statements that seems clueless to me. Amen. Apparently dissing McCartney’s post-Beatles career is like a right of passage. ---
**Author:** ![Lobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@Lobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobot)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/47 "2015-01-02T00:25:08Z")
I’d say that Roger Waters’ solo material fits the "commercially unsuccessful + I don’t like it"category (although I do sometimes find it a guilty pleasure). He resented Gilmour, Mason and Wright for trading off the PF name, feeling that his solo material suffered commercially because he couldn’t do the same. But the truth is that, had his three solo rock albums been released under the PF name, _Radio KAOS_ would still flop and _Amused to Death_ would be seen as an anachronism in a post-Nirvana world. ---
**Author:** ![Boudicca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce73a5/32.png) [@Boudicca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boudicca)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/48 "2015-01-02T01:21:25Z")
> [@bunyupp](#): > > I found “Bankstatement” in a cutout bin years ago. It’s an awesome album! I also liked the solo albums by members of Genesis: Banks, Steve Hackett (most excellent!), and of course Peter Gabriel. HATE anything by Phil Collins - the first two Genesis albums after Gabriel left were very good, then it went quite downhill after that. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/49 "2015-01-02T03:30:01Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > So another way to say that would be she sold out or went pop. Of course, it would have been hard to keep No Doubt together, as they were in the 90’s, as the Ska movement went away and Gwen/Tony broke up. > > FTR, I can’t stand Gwen’s solo career, but I really did like No Doubt. I never did think about her ‘selling out’ until just now. The band broke up, she moved on (as did the rest of them, but you don’t usually hear about the other band mates, just the front man). One man’s sold out is another man’s success story. What 90s bands like No Doubt survived from that era? The closest I can think of are REM and maybe Green Day (although I wouldn’t put GD and ND in the same musical category) Like you said, Ska died out and she continued to make music that’s better and more culturally relevant than No Doubt would have done by itself, and I think if they were still together today, they’d be doing pop songs themselves ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/50 "2015-01-02T03:53:25Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > The Rolling Stones. Keith and Mick’s solo work is awful. Not to mention Bill Wyman. “Je suis un rock star” might have been a pleasant little ditty which sold quite well (I think that’s the kindest way I can phrase it), but it doesn’t really stack up against the band’s output. Edited to add: Sorry **TreacherousCretin** , I didn’t see that you had already mentioned him. I should have searched for “Bill” rather than “Wyman.” ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/51 "2015-01-02T04:23:39Z")
IMO, Simon and Garfunkel isn’t the greatest example for this thread, simply because I’ve always seen Garfunkel as a bit . . . useless. Simon wrote the songs, sang half of each song, and played the guitar. Of course, the fact the Garfunkel’s voice has always made me cringe a little adds to this, as singing was all he really contributed, but still. I actually prefer the early versions of S&G songs that are just Paul Simon and his guitar, with no Garfunkel or processing. For instance, try this version of [“The Sound of Silence”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzsaE68IfXI) and [“April Come She Will”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlXlytdJUgo). They’re both from _The Paul Simon Songbook_, a solo album recorded in 1965. To me, they sound far more genuine and personal than the official, more sterile S&G stuff - the words have _emotion_. Granted, it’s a matter of personal taste, but it’s hard to deny that Paul Simon did at least 90% of the work in that duo. And pieces like “The Boxer” or “Bridge Over Troubled Water” are on the same level as “Graceland” or “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”. There’s more to Paul Simon’s solo career than “50 Ways”. 😛 > [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > Agreed. As much as I loved the Beatles, I never much cared for any of their individual post-Beatles projects. Yeah, the solo Beatles work are a real mystery to me. I mean, both Lennon and McCartney on their own were perfectly good, but they never came close to the mind-blowing majesty of the Beatles. The more you think about it, the more incredible it is - two boys in Liverpool who became friends due to a set of extremely specific circumstances _just happened_ to each have a set of innate talents that blended perfectly. But even in the later years of the Beatles, when they weren’t collaborating on songs, their work was still better than the solo stuff. Sure, if you compare the best solo McCartney with some lukewarm songs he wrote for the Beatles,they seem about equal, but I don’t think he ever wrote anything close to “Hey Jude” or “Blackbird” ever again. The only explanation I have is either that even in the last years, they acted as a filter for each other’s weaker songs (and George Martin played a much bigger role in producing/editing their music than he cares to admit); or they both just peaked in their 20s and went downhill, and had the band stuck together, it’d have become worse as well. But the second one isn’t as fun to believe. 😉 Or maybe Ringo secretly wrote all the songs. ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/52 "2015-01-02T04:43:33Z")
Fleetwood Mac --\> solo Lindsey Buckingham ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/53 "2015-01-02T06:08:34Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > But even in the later years of the Beatles, when they weren’t collaborating on songs, their work was still better than the solo stuff. Sure, if you compare the best solo McCartney with some lukewarm songs he wrote for the Beatles,they seem about equal, but I don’t think he ever wrote anything close to “Hey Jude” or “Blackbird” ever again. Well, _de gustibus_ and all that, but I don’t think there’s a _significant_ gap between McCartney’s best with and without the Beatles. Like I wrote, a major factor in what made the Beatles mind-blowing is that they were doing stuff that had hardly been done before. You just can’t keep on doing that. When Paul gave [electronica](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6996vK1OTk) a try in the 90s, there was no way he could blow our minds. It’s still a surprisingly solid album, that was borne of the same aw-what-the-hell-let’s-give-this-a-try attitude that made the Beatles great. Take the best of solo McCartney, Lennon and Harrison and you get something that’s _close_ to the Beatles at their best and certainly better (IMO) than Let it Be. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/54 "2015-01-02T13:07:48Z")
Pink Floyd defined my teenage years. I’m thus a huge Roger Waters fan. If Amused to Death had been done as a Floyd album I think it would have be better. Same applies to the Division Bell, could have used Roger. Sum of the parts. Gilmore solo, utter crap. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/55 "2015-01-02T13:33:12Z")
> [@jovan](#): > > Well, _de gustibus_ and all that, but I don’t think there’s a _significant_ gap between McCartney’s best with and without the Beatles. Like I wrote, a major factor in what made the Beatles mind-blowing is that they were doing stuff that had hardly been done before. You just can’t keep on doing that. A resounding NO to this. If what made the Beatles’ work good was mostly that they were leading the pack into new territory, their work would not hold up well. They’d be like Iron Butterfly, something you dust off for nostalgia’s sake every now and then, but you’d realize how dated it was, and how it doesn’t hold up all that well, now that others have done similar stuff much better. No, as a group, they were very, very good, pretty much whatever they did. Out of all their work as a group, I could put together maybe one album’s worth of stuff that I’d rather not hear very often. (Let’s see: about four tracks each from _Let It Be_ and the White Album, the “Eight Days A Week” single\*, and…? - no, not even a solid album’s worth.) But aside from _All Things Must Pass_, you could take the worthwhile post-breakup solo stuff from all four Beatles, and put it on one double album. Maybe McCartney’s best solo stuff is up there with his best stuff with the Beatles (I’d disagree, but that’s JMHO), but what’s inarguable is that _there just isn’t that much_ of that best stuff that compares well with his Beatles work. A few songs from _McCartney_, a couple songs from _Ram_, the “Jet” and “Band on the Run” singles, and…? Not that it was just Paul. George had that one amazing album, _All Things Must Pass_, and then turned mediocre fast. “Give Me Love,” “Crackerbox Palace,” “Six Words Long\*\*,” etc. - _really?_ His contributions to the first Wilburys album are more worthwhile than his entire post-\*ATMP \*solo career. Lennon had a few decent moments, but have I mentioned that “Imagine” is a boring piece of drivel that should have stopped getting airplay 30 years ago, and that’s supposedly one of his better solo moments? > [@](#): > > When Paul gave [electronica](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6996vK1OTk) a try in the 90s, there was no way he could blow our minds. It’s still a surprisingly solid album, that was borne of the same aw-what-the-hell-let’s-give-this-a-try attitude that made the Beatles great. > > Take the best of solo McCartney, Lennon and Harrison and you get something that’s _close_ to the Beatles at their best and certainly better (IMO) than Let it Be. So you’re comparing the best of their solo work with what is generally regarded as one of their weaker albums, if not their worst? The one where the Rutles version was “_Let It Rot_ was released as a film, an album, and a lawsuit. It showed the Rutles as never before; tired, unhappy, cross, and just like the rest of the world”? The one the Beatles themselves looked at and decided they had to go out on a better note than that, resulting in _Abbey Road_? The one [described by their sound engineer just the other day](http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-let-it-be-glyn-johns/) as “a bunch of garbage”? While I don’t think it’s _that_ bad, comparing the best of the Beatles’ solo efforts to the weakest of their collaborations really doesn’t tell you much. Again excluding _ATMP_, sure, the best dozen tracks of the the Beatles’ solo stuff compares well with the dozen tracks of _Let It Be_, but really if that’s the best you can say for their solo careers, I believe the term is ‘damning with faint praise.’ \*Like I said, “stuff that **I’d** rather not hear very often.” Most people like “Eight Days A Week” better than I do. \*\*Oops, that’s the Weird Al parody, which is better than the actual song, “(I’ve got my mind) Set on You.” ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/56 "2015-01-02T14:29:05Z")
I love “Crackerbox Palace” and “All Those Years Ago” and I adore “Fab” and “This Song” ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/57 "2015-01-02T14:47:38Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > A resounding NO to this. > > If what made the Beatles’ work good was mostly that they were leading the pack into new territory, their work would not hold up well. Not mostly, _importantly_. However, you can’t move from “very good” to “great” without leading the pack in some way. My argument is that you can stop being great without a significant drop in quality of output. No one can argue that as solo artists they weren’t as prolific and without the internal competition, support and feedback, the signal-to-noise ratio took a dive. All geniuses produce a fair amount of crap, if they’re lucky they can recognise and filter it out. That’s where John and Paul failed on their own. It doesn’t mean they stopped being brilliant, it’s just we were subjected to their bad ideas as well as their good ones. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/58 "2015-01-02T15:09:00Z")
Regarding Simon & Garfunkel v. Paul Simon solo: 1. They clearly had a lot of great songs together - both the hits and the rest of their albums. Here’s one of those no-airplay tracks, “[A Most Peculiar Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YTgwY1Ld5s),” which follows “Richard Cory” on their _Sounds of Silence_ album. The interplay between their vocals is wonderful: in their harmonies, each dominates at just the right time, especially with the bite of Paul Simon’s vocals dominating the last verse. Just how much Art Garfunkel contributed to the duo’s success can be debated. But they certainly had plenty of success as a duo. 1. Paul Simon has had a very good solo career. It was OK before _Graceland_ - one might compare it to Paul McCartney concluding that that stretch of his career was a nice string of pop hits, kinda like McCartney, but fortunately never descending into McCartneyish terminal sappiness. Or anything close, for that matter. And then there was _Graceland,_ which is just one of those great albums that can justify a career all by itself. (And incidentally, it’s way better by itself than everything McCartney did post-Beatles, put together.) After that, there was _The Rhythm of the Saints_, which has some good songs, but it’s hard not to compare it to Graceland, and a lot of albums would suffer for that comparison. (Simon’s done some new stuff since, according to his Wikipedia discography, but I confess I haven’t heard any of it.) ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/59 "2015-01-02T15:24:13Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > An extreme example IMO would be **Dee Dee Ramone**. He was arguably the best song writer in the Ramones, yet his solo career was a [huge](http://www.allmusic.com/album/standing-in-the-spotlight-mw0000199527) [disaster](http://www.markprindle.com/ramone.htm#funky). This was my first thought. I believe that I was overseas when Dee Dee King hit the stores and it was gone fast. Not that I actually put any effort into finding it. I like The Crusher but it sounded better when the Ramones did it. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2015, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638/60 "2015-01-02T15:27:24Z")
Ozzy SHOULD have flopped without Sabbath , but he’s thrived. He has had the luck or the smarts to surround himself with talented musicians and has made more good records without Iommi than vice versa. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-bands-whose-solo-spinoff-sucks/708638.md?page=4)