I’ve been going through a few bands I liked from high school, some of which even have new music. I’m curious how bands you all liked from high school are doing today. Here is my list:
Nirvana - inactive. Lead singer dead and the band did not continue.
Stone Temple Pilots - Lead singer died, then the second lead singer also died. Have a new lead singer and the rest of the band is the same. Their new music is not great, though.
Pearl Jam - still active, same band. They are more rock now than they used to be. I’m not really into their newer music, but very happy they have continued.
Alice in Chains - lead singer also died. They reformed with all other members and a new lead singer who is, honestly, really great. They have three full length new albums with the new singer and while not as good as they were in the 90’s, they are really great still. A happyish ending in many ways.
Sepultura - lead singer left the band my senior year of high school. The band then essentially split into two separate bands. The current Sepultura have been around longer with a new singer than the original and are actually quite good. The original singer(Cavalera) spilt off into his own Sepultura-like band called Soulfly and they are excellent. Honest, Soulfly is a lot closer to Sepultura than the current Sepultura are. Hey, at least no one died!
KMFDM - still going strong, some personnel changes, but actually quite stable lately. Still good, but a bit past their peak. Their most recent album was a major disappointment.
ELO: disbanded in '86, but Jeff Lynne has been recording and touring with a reformed ELO over the past few years, and I finally got to see them live twice (in 2018 and 2019)
Queen: similarly, disbanded in '91, after Freddie’s death. Brian May and John Deacon have been touring with Adam Lambert as their vocalist, and I finally got to see them live, twice, too.
Yes: oh, what a tortured line-up this band has had. Due to in-fighting, there were two sub-groups touring under Yes’s name in recent years: one with Steve Howe and Alan White, the other with Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, and Trevor Rabin; the former group is apparently still active, and recording a new album, while the latter group appears to have broken up last year.
Some of my favorite bands aren’t recording anymore, but they’re still touring, or at least they were, pre-pandemic. ZZ Top, the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Who are all hitting the road again in 2021. The Who even released an album of new music in late 2019. Alice Cooper, in addition to hosting his nightly radio show, also released a new album and is back on the road. Bruce Springsteen has been consistently releasing new music and is bringing his show back to Broadway.
Pete Townshend has said that he and Roger Daltrey are the world’s most expensive Who tribute band.
The Kinks - disbanded in 1996, last studio album in 1993, last good studio album in 1986. Ray and Dave have finally patched things up, and we’ve been hearing reunion rumblings for a few years, but I’m taking a wait-and-see approach. Will definitely spring for a ticket if they do actually reunite and tour. 2 former bassists and one keyboardist are dead. Van Halen - first singer split in 1985, second singer split in 1996, third singer lasted one album. Released 2 1/2 extremely subpar albums in the mid-90s (Side 2 of F.U.C.K is pretty good, but Side 1 blows). Had a 3/4 reunion album in 2012 that was solid but not amazing. Most of the songs were reworked demos from the 70s, so stuff that wasn’t good enough to be filler back when they were at their peak. Eddie died last year, so they are finished. Ramones - all four original members are dead. Cheap Trick - still going strong. Temporarily had a different bassist from mid-high school through college. Had about 2 decades worth of albums that consisted of one or two great singles and whole lot of filler, then bounced back in 2003 with the great Rockford album. Later albums have been good, but not great. Drummer bailed and was replaced with Rick’s son.
Guns N Roses–the only constant member since being fomed in 1985 has been W. Axl Rose—though Duff McKagan and Slash are back with group after taking long hiatus
Mötley Crüe—founded by Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee,Mick Mars and Vince Neil in 1981. Remarkable all four are still alive despite being notorious for living a hard rocking life. They started touring together again in 2018.
The Who: the half that’s left sucks now, still limping along
Jethro Tull: the leader kicked everyone out and his voice is shot, still limping along
Pink Floyd: train wreck my god
Yes: train wreck my god, see @kenobi_65 post above
The Clash: band dissolved, best member died
Elvis Costello: still limping along, new stuff is boring as hell
King Crimson: actually still doing pretty well, they cleverly only release live albums now
For just about all of high school my musical interests were solely concentrated in classical music. Most of those composers were dead before my grandpa was born.
Very near the end of high school I started to branch out into classic rock (influenced by my dad) and most of those bands hadn’t done much new by the time I entered high school ('99) and that hasn’t changed in the decades since.
It’s interesting to me to happen upon a YouTube video of a big hit from the early 2000s and all the comments talk about how much the song meant to them in high school and I’m like “I never even heard of this song.” Guess music just wasn’t especially important to me at that time.
Technically OMD are still around, though I haven’t listened to anything they have put out in over 30 years. The Police disbanded in my freshman year in college. Talking heads continued to produce good stuff into the late 1980s (so through my college years. Eurythmics didn’t do much past the mid 1980s and to be honest they had a very short peak. Pet Shop boys continued to be popular in the UK for a couple of decades but i had moved to the US where they were never that big.