Band That Broke Up In The Late 80's

Foreigner
The Cars
Thompson Twins

 

The Replacements?

 

Is that the only criteria? Some good ones include:

The Dream Syndicate
The Rain Parade
Opal
Guadalcanal Diary
Big Black
Green River
The Smiths
Husker Du
The Housemartins
Camper Van Beethoven (later re-formed)

 

dokken and twisted sister

 

The Go-Betweens (though it may have been '90; and then they reunited in the late 90s)
Felt
Microdisney
The Sound

 

The Smiths

 

The Police!!

And

The Eagles (at least until soft serve ice cream became available in Hell)

 

Spandau Ballet?

 

The Thompson Twins put out an album in '91. No one noticed...but they weren't broken up yet.

 

Captain Beefheart

 

The Police broke up no later than 1986 - I'd date their breakup to 1984 but they did try to do SOMETHING again in 1986.

The Eagles split in 1980...

 

Frank Zappa quit performing in 1988.

 

Oh - LATE 80's

Nevermind

 

No, Nirvana didn't break up until the mid-90s...

 

Wham! in 1986

The Bangles in 1989

Both had big hits right up until their dissolutions.

 

I'd argue 1986 was mid-80s, not late 80s. Semantics? Yup, but hey, the thread's based around semantics, so I'm going for it!

 

They broke up the final week of June that year, with a big farewell concert. If they had only held that off until September, I could have been right even going by your stricter metric, as each third of the 1980s (early, mid-, late) would theoretically constitute three years and four months. (Unless you are counting 1990 as "late '80s.")

 

That was because of his band imploding on him. Glad I seen them before it did! Great show.

 

Springsteen gave the E Street Band its walking papers in 1989, if that counts, though they obviously reformed.

Also, the Monkees reunion of 1986 finally ran out of gas in 1989, with no public announcement. Again, they reformed.

And though the group technically stayed together in name, Ian McCulloch left Echo and the Bunnymen in 1988 and the subsequent Noel Burke era seems to be erased from history somewhat.

 

Spacemen 3

 

Madness, but that really didn't last very long at all, did it?

 

NOW we're getting nit-picky!

I've always defined early/mid/late this way: "early" = 1980-1983, "mid" = 1984-1986 and "late" = 1987-1989.

When I was 37, I said I was late 30s. A friend disagreed and said I was still mid 30s, as she felt 34-37 = "mid". As much as I disliked admitting I was "late", I couldn't agree with that - you can't have 2 of 3 brackets account for 80% of a 10-year period!

 

Starship (nee Jefferson Starship nee Jefferson Airplane).

 

Echo & The Bunnymen, OMD, Talking Heads

 

ELO