In the marketplace perhaps, but in terms of songs and sonics, IMO, they became Just Another Generic Yet Successful Pop Metal Band.
That's true, I saw them back in 2000 with Entwistle. They were fantastic. I'd rather have things as they are than 40 years of crap - mediocre quality Who albums.
No, they actually benefitted from it. Seven was uneven, but then they released Cantamos, and continued a great run of albums up through 1977. Cantamos is a great freaking album. The 4 man Poco lineup made music equally as good as the Richie era, I’d not better.
Def Leppard after Steve Clark died in 1991. The band never came close to recapturing their 80's glory. Misfits without Glenn Danzig
I hear this kind of thing all the time, but someone would have to explain it to me. My interest in the Rolling Stones begins with "Beggars Banquet", their first album (mostly) without Brian. From then on they really became "The World's Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band". Why is Brian Jones so important?
Crazy Horse lost a lot when Danny Whitten left and became something else with Poncho. I've seen them live with Nils and it's again a different (great) band. Danny and Poncho were around when Neil was in a golden period of songwriting, Nils isn't. Neil has certainly lost his way but I don't think that's due to the loss of Poncho. Same argument could be made for the loss of Andy Fraser but I wouldn't say Free lost their way with Heartbreaker (my fav Free LP), more like Paul Rodgers found his way forward.
More artistically than commercial (at first).......but Little Feat after Lowell George died. I know that as George became more inhibited, his input was less as the 70s went on, and I know their biggest commercial success was with the first 2 Craig Fuller albums.........but I just think the classic band was through 1979. I don't really listen afterwards.
The Grateful Dead after Brent died. They carried on, and Hornsby provided some nice moments of chemistry with Jerry, but they were essentially Weekend at Bernie's after 1991. I'm sure many Heads who went to shows after '91 will vehemently disagree.
They were more hit and miss 1992-1995.........but I put the cause on Jerry's usage/declining health than blaming Vince Welnick.
Ok, they lost their way when Gabriel left and then completely lost their bearings after Hackett departed. Thankfully for them where ever the hell they ended was much more financially lucrative so what the hell do I know and why is anyone even listening to me or reading this? (Maybe they aren’t!)
Not blaming Vince at all even though his playing isn't my cup of tea - he entered into an impossible situation IMO. The band IMO had come to the end of the road by the time Brent passed. Hell, they probably should have called it quits after Jerry's coma in '86, but the machine had to be fed.
Many of the members listed left for a reason. Things were not going well. Conflict between members over musical direction or personalities. Their leaving was not necessarily the reason for the band losing its way but rather the result of the band losing its way.
Great idea for a thread. For me, the interesting ones involve losing members that aren't front people and so the "lost their way" thing seems a bit more surprising. But I think those are few and far between. I'll add here that I'm also interested in situations where you - the listener who's posting on this thread - lost interest in a band after a non-front-member of a band split. They may have gone onto greater (or equal) heights - so "lost their way doesn't apply" - but it wasn't the same for you. This one's easier for me: Elvis Costello after Bruce Thomas left and, although I didn't experience this one in real time, Springsteen after Vinnie Lopez and David Sancious left. And, although I was never super into Foreigner, I certainly wasn't interested at all after Ian McDonald left. And, come to think of is, King Crimson after McDonald and Giles left.
Before this devolves into another damn Beatles thread, no, they just quit playing as a group. The intent of my thread was not on a group that just quit playing but kept on playing and literally lost their way.
