Your biggest "what if's" in music?

I like your idea about Mick and Keith and I've often wondered why they didn't combine the "sounds" of their respective solo work and integrate it into the Stones. I guess that would have required that The Glimmer Twins would then have separate writing credits (in collaboration with outsiders) and maybe that wouldn't have fit the business model established long ago.

 

After the success of Please Please Me EMI moved The Beatles to Columbia and the producer's job to Norrie Paramor.

 

Just imagine what Stones albums we could've gotten had they combined Talk is Cheap, Main Offender and Wandering Spirit.

 

What if Mike Love made an extended remixed disco version of 'Chug A Lug' ? Just think about the ontological ramifications of that!

 

Although I have no insider information...I don't believe that he actually had a real accident.
I feel it was a way for him to take a break for a while.

 

My favourite theory is that there was an accident, but the injuries were exaggerated to fend off music industry pressures & allow time to regroup while psychedelia raged through the music industry.

The "back to basics" comeback in 1968 was canny stuff, impeccably timed.

 

The 'different Dylan voice' of Nashville Skyline certainly suggested some type of transformation (one I enjoy tremendously).

 

What if David Byrne wasn't a d*ck (err, I mean what if he just took a few years off...) and Talking Heads would have continued into the 90s.

 

What if my wife liked collecting records as much as I did?

 

What if Kate Bush had fallen in love with touring? If every album had been followed by a tour, if she toured as much as Pink Floyd?

 

What if Def Leppard had kept Pete Willis in the band?
I say this as I am listening to On through the Night as I type this.

 

What if Rush was a sextet with horns and marimba?

 

What if Bono and the Edge had quit U2 in 1981/82?

From Wikipedia:
Adding to this period of self-doubt, Bono's, the Edge's, and Mullen's involvement in a Charismatic Christian group in Dublin called the "Shalom Fellowship" led them to question the relationship between their religious faith and the lifestyle of a rock band. Bono and the Edge considered quitting the band due to their perceived spiritual conflicts before deciding to leave Shalom instead.

 

In Dylan's mind the mysterious, amnesia-inducing breakdown that he had in Woodstock post mc crash seems to loom much larger.

 

What if Neil Young pulled a Brian Wilson/Peter Green after the disastrous Harvest tour in '73?

 

What if when John Lennon climbed the latter and looked through the spyglass it said no?

 

What if ABBA took a break, and then "regrouped" a couple of years later? Would they be all at sea in the mid-80s, or would they have found a way to adapt to the then current music scene? I´m not sure I would hope for them to have gotten back together then, but who knows?

 

What if Elvis toured outside of North America?

 

I missed this, what happened? is it in his book?

yeah....and what if he fired col parker?

 

If he didn't fire him and toured Europe, would the "colonel" be allowed back into the US?

 

What if Bill Bruford had stayed with Yes for Topographic Oceans - would the album have more energy and drive (though I do love good chunks of the album.)

What if Ian Curtis had lived? People rightly mourn Bowie, Lennon and Prince etc. But with Joy Division, they had only really begun and had already given us Unknown Pleasure and closer.

 

What if i had something better to come up with than this ?.

 

What if Lennon had loved the idea of the Eastman's running things

 

What if The Replacements would have held their **** together and became "America's Best Rock N Roll Band" circa '84/'85?
What if the Ramones actually had a few top 40 singles and managed to sell a bunch of records?
What if The Move toured America in 1968 and were able to get into the Billboard charts?
What if Bill Berry hadn't left R.E.M.?
What if we had Otis Redding into the 70s and 80s?

 

I think their version of 'Do Ya' would have exploded lots of transistor radios. Technology simply wasn't ready for the Move.