My point is that to the extent - however you’d weight it - that they were great because they led the pack, 45-50 years later that really only matters as music history, and *whatever *extra value their music has from leading the pack has long ago ceased mattering in terms of the extent to which you like their stuff when you listen to it now.
An analogy from movies: in 1933, the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup got a terrible reception both from the critics and from moviegoers. It had been preceded in 1931 and 1932 by Monkey Business and Horsefeathers, which had gotten great reviews (Time magazine even put Horsefeathers on the cover) and done well at the box office.
Back in the 1930s, Monkey Business and Horsefeathers were ahead of the pack, but Duck Soup was, as far as reviewers and the public were concerned, more of the same. But for four or five decades now, fans have regarded Duck Soup as the best of that group. Even in the 1970s, nobody gave a damn which movie broke new ground, and which one didn’t - just which one was best.
Similarly if you’re listening to music from the 1960s in 2015, either it’s good on its merits and has stood the test of time, or not. “A Day in the Life” is a good song because it’s a good song, not because the Beatles were the first group to bring drug-influenced music to AM radio. (Assuming they were.)
But they also largely stopped being brilliant. It wasn’t just the ratio of signal to noise; the actual quantity of signal took a dive in their solo careers, which resulted in a sucky signal-to-noise ratio.
Deborah Harry did a decent chunk of the songwriting for the group, but almost always in collaboration with bandmates (mostly Chris Stein, of course, but also Nigel Harrison and occasionally the others). Also, Blondie was a good band - it had talented guys like Clem Burke on drums and James Destri on keyboards.
For Harry to have had a good solo career other than just as a legacy act, she’d have had to re-create all that - especially to find another songwriter she could work with to create good new material.
QFT. For every Neil Young or Paul Simon who has a good or great career without his original band(s), there have to be ten artists who everyone expected would be great when freed from the shackles of their bands, but were solo disappointments.
Huh? Perry left the music industry of his own volition following Journey’s successful (#3) “Trial by Fire” album (1996) because he couldn’t or wouldn’t tour again, not because he wasn’t cutting it as a solo artist. He actually enjoyed a respectable solo career. “Street Talk” (1985) went double platinum and “For the Love of Strange Medicine” (1994) went gold.
I’m a big fan of the Moody Blues, but when John Lodge and Justin Hayward (the two most talented members of the band) did an outside project, calling themselves the Blue Jays, the results were pretty lame.
When John Fogerty left CCR, he put out a solo album under the name of a non-existent band: The Blue Ridge Rangers. Even though Fogerty had 98% of the talent in CCR, his first solo album was pretty awful, in my opinion.
I loved the Cars, but Ric Ocasek made two solo albums (why??? He was the undisputed leader of the Cars, and it’s not as if he had to fight to get his songs on Cars albums!). Neither album was much good.
Does anybody know what this is all about? I see this a lot. For example, Son Volt is pretty much “The Jay Farrar Band”, but Jay still releases solo stuff without them. It sounds just like Son Volt but maybe a little mellower? And it’s not like he doesn’t have a backing band on the solo ablum – it might make sense if he went from a frontman to an actual solo act, just accompanying himself on guitar.
I could see somebody like Dave Grohl (back when he was in Nirvana) putting out a solo album separate from Nirvana. But now that he’s the founder/main songwriter/undisputed leader of the Foo Fighters, why would he put out a solo record?? (Which to my knowledge he hasn’t, though Wiki says he has some songs on film soundtracks credited to just him.)
And guys, I know Ozzy and Gwen Stefani are successful. I just don’t like them.
But they are different scenarios.
Tony Banks’ making a solo album makes him the central piece instead of (at best) equal amongst peers ot (at worst) overshadowed by Gabriel or Collins.
When the frontman/leader/face of the group does it, it sounds more of an “I can shine without then”. Sting had two other world-class musicians to spar against.
But in cases where the band is really “Johnn and his backing band” it makes Little sense. It’s like Mark Knopfler (who worte, played lead guitar, sang, and produced avery song in Dire Straits) had decided to make a solo album while DS still existed.
R.E.M. sure wasn’t the same after Bill Berry left, either. Peter Buck has put out some limited-edition solo albums, on which he allegedly plays all the instruments and even sings, but from what little I’ve heard of them, they’re largely vanity projects. He and Mike Mills have done some spinoff projects for many years, which don’t interest me much either.
I have been thinking about Sting these few days, for me he was successful and I like plenty of his stuff, though not all. He has shown to want to get out of his comfort zone. Solo Sting is very different than The Police, unlike some who sound the same solo and in a band. Most notable is Sting’s contemporary, Phil Collins.
How about Andrew Ridgeley of Wham, though that was a given?
Sucked would be incorrect, but judging by his 1985 solo album “Mr. Bad Guy”, Freddie Mercury was far better with Queen. But I bet he never pretended otherwise and would have admitted it himself. His album had good songs, but not surprisingly it paled with Queen’s output.
Ian Anderson made at least one solo album while with, or being really, Jethro Tull. And Jon Anderson made Olias of Sunhillow while with Yes, IIRC. Something about Andersons, perhaps?
When I was in college, the mere idea that I would ever not completely adore anything that Paul Westerberg put out seemed completely crazy. Not only was he a fantastic lyricist, but he didn’t have to use speed or volume as a crutch, so it seemed very likely that the transition from punky defiance to the adult world would be reasonably smooth for him. But it was right around the time when he put out Folker that my enthusiasm for new music from him really started to wane. Oh, well … I’ll always have Pleased To Meet Me.
To say that I don’t know the music business would be an understatement, but could it be about money?
My WAG is that when a band gets together as a bunch of unknowns and starts doing gigs, the members likely share and share alike on what the band gets paid. Then if they get noticed and signed to a record contract, the same arrangement may well get carried through.
If someone who actually knows anything about the business can tell me if my WAG is more or less on target, I’d appreciate it. But if it is, what you may have is someone like Sting or Ric Ocasek getting 1/3 or 1/5 of the band’s income, but if they go solo, they can hire backup musicians on a contract basis, and get maybe 80% or 90% of their solo income, by the time they’ve finished paying off their backup band. And doing something like that is probably emotionally easier than renegotiating how you split things up with your original bandmates that you may want to stay friends with.
In the 70s National Lampoon asked the question, “When did Paul McCartney write Silly Little Love Songs?” The answer was, of course, “From 1962 to the present,” and that “present” is still going on. But I’ve long contended that, based on their solo work, Harrison would be a trivia answer today for his trippy, Hare Krishna Lite (and HK is pretty Lite to begin with), one-hit-wonder (and single disk) All Things Must Pass, McCartney would be Cliff Richard and similarly unknown over here, Starr would have a long career of studio backup work, and Lennon could not even get a record contract.
Actually, they didn’t. What they did was take what was happening and make it commercially successful. They didn’t invent Psychedelic, the Music Hall revival had already begun before Sgt Pepper’s, and Rockabilly had a long life before they picked up on it. Some talent, a brilliant producer, and a finger to the wind made the Beatles.
My wife’s theory is that they were written by Cynthia Lennon and her mother, and uses the decline of song quality after she and John broke up as evidence.
