What's a band that you like that was gone way too soon?
What's a band that you like that was gone way too soon?
For example, a band like Joy Division. Two masterpiece albums in the form of Unknown Pleasures and Closer, and the untimely death of Ian Curtis cut it all short. They were even heading into the direction that New Order eventually went in, and it would have been interesting to see what Ian Curtis would have done if they fully made the leap into electronic music while he was still alive.
New Radicals made only one album, and it’s probably in my top 10 albums of all time.
Blind Melon
Shannon Hoon went out way too soon.
I always liked the band Jellyfish.
I just took a gander over to Wikipedia to learn why they broke up. It was there where I read one of the best break up write ups ever:
"During the tour for Spilt Milk, Sturmer and Manning grew increasingly distant as friends. On their return home, the two songwriters independently wrote material for a third album, provisionally titled Nausea Trois. By then, they were drifting apart musically. Manning remembered that, prior, they would bond over albums such as Paul McCartney's Ram or the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle; however, "it was clear that none of that was happening anymore." He said that he was "rediscovering my love of [...] high-energy, fun melodic pop with attitude. And Andy was Leonard Cohen. That was it." When Sturmer presented him a country ballad song, he accordingly "left in tears because I had zero interest in recording it." Sturmer felt that Manning had outgrown the partnership, and for his part, was fearful that Manning's new songs would likely inspire journalists to persistently compare the band to Alice Cooper."
Really paints a picture!
They were a good band while it lasted.
Also...In 2004 or 2005, Coachella organizers invited Manning to reunite Jellyfish for a one-off performance at the festival. Manning advised the organizers to consult Sturmer first. Sturmer, through his lawyer, responded he would not accept the offer regardless of any amount of money involved.
Woah!!
Jeff Buckley
The original Drowning Pool.
Death
I would love to hear the songs Chuck would have written about the current state of the world. Stuff like 1,000 Eyes always gets me when I hear it today.
Mother Love Bone: broke up before they'd released their first album. RIP, Andrew.
Also, School of Seven Bells (RIP, Ben)
I don't have any bands that just... Disappeared after releasing a banger or two, but I do lament how Kings of Leon drastically changed after their first album.
Loved the way the singer sounded on that first album. But the subsequent releases sounded like a totally different singer and band and musical style, and I don't like them beyond their first album.
No wait... I do know of a couple bands that disappeared way too soon. Fastball, who was deemed "too ugly for music videos" when MTV was at its height making it difficult for them to go anywhere, and Blind Melon, whose frontman died at a young age and kinda destroyed the band.
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Birmingham's own Nineteen Forty-Five. Not sure what happened; a couple of the members went on to backup Amy Ray for her solo career, another released her own solo album.
Two amazing albums and handful of other releases.
Probably not very well known compared to others I see here, but I was a huge fan of the band Girls when they released there first album in 2009, an EP in 2010, and finally the last album in 2011. I got to see them play either in 2011 or 2012 which I am still happy I did to this day. They broke up in 2012 after playing a festival and that was it. From my understanding the lead singer didn't want to continue and then pursued another project a few years later, which was absolutely awful if you ask me. He also was known to get into bad patches of drug use and dissappear for periods of time. In 2020 his long time friend and band member of Girls died. He had another side project that didn't take off (but does sound better than the first) and now I have no idea what he is doing. At this point I doubt the band will ever get back together from the sounds of it, especially since one of the members died.
I’d say Velvet Revolver. With most of the Guns N’ Roses lineup without Axl and with Scott Weiland (RIP) on vocals, broke-ass, 9th grader me downloaded that whole album on dialup (my family couldn’t afford high-speed at the time). And boy in 2004 did I listen the shit out of that burnt CD. They later released Libertad in 07’. It was okay..
Afterwards, Weiland left and by the time he passed away, I had forgotten about them. So I went back and damn did Contraband still held up. It comes up in my mixes from time to time.
The other one was kind of cheesy. Does anyone remember Battle for Ozzfest? The MTV show around 04, 05ish? Well, the band that had won was A Dozen Furies. They were a metal-core type of band (product of the time). But I absolutely loved their music at the time. However, by 2006 they had disbanded.
But I think I like them more because a friend of mine, somehow knew one of the members from a forum that my friend ran, or something like that. Anyways, because of that he got Ozzfest tickets, which I had no money for at the time, and I had an absolute blast there. Drank my first beer under the table, my virgin ass made out with a girl, had a Marine tease me for not being able to do pull-ups, rocked out all day, and got burnt with a cigarette in a circle pit (still got the scar).
I did meet the guys at the meet n’ greet tents, got a random sampler CD autographed and they seemed all around cool dudes! So thanks A Dozen Furies, you guys indirectly made my poor ass have an absolutely awesome time that summer!
PS: I don’t really listen to metal that much anymore. Unless I’m working out or something. But I go back to those albums every once in a while.
Jellyfish. Would’ve been interesting to hear how their sound evolved over time. Same fi Dee Lite — Dewdrops In The Garden was a cool album. I wish they’d get back together even if just to make one modern LP.
Miser
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIwkFNxj5qU803iy7Vtw-6VPkDCc2wmHL
They put out one album and I love it. They don't seem to be interested in doing another one.
Memento
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbsObMjR8kdheo0ECRmB6v0i7ZLfodIeT
I found them years after they broke up and am sad. Love this album.
Mutemath.
Drummer Darren King (an amazing drummer btw) abruptly quit the band for good in the middle of a tour one year, and while they did find a replacement for him to finish out the tour, that was the thing that started the unraveling of the band. It wasn’t long before all the remaining members left, leaving the founder and lead singer, Paul Meany, alone with the name. He’s tried to do some small things with it since that time, but he admits (as he should) that Mutemath’s real existence is in the past now.IMO a full third of Mutemath’s essence was Darren King’s drumming. It made sense for the band to cease existing without him or someone like him. The replacement they used on the tour was ok but just not the right fit. He (seemingly) couldn’t do what Darren did.
Foreground Eclipse, easily the best screamo (maybe?? i dont know music words) band I've ever listened to. Bands like katikatiyama and Shinigiwa Satellite (some members of which became the aforementioned KKY) fill that void, I'll never get over the sheer mastery of mixing screaming and clean vocals.
Not very well known, but Darcy Clay, a singer from New Zealand who only released a 6 track EP before taking his own life. His music reminds me a lot of early Beck. It would have been great to hear what he could have done.
Also My Red Cell, a Welsh (I think) punk band that released one album almost 20 years ago. I really liked them as a teenager, but they never took off.
Device.
This was a group that consisted of David Draiman from Disturbed and Geno Lenardo who is a former guitarist from Filter. Only one album was released in the entire discography and the project lasted 2 years. It was a nice breakaway to hear David branch out from Disturbed to see what else he can do and I wished more albums was released. It could've been an industrial supergroup.
Power Trip :( Fuck fentanyl, man. PT so perfectly encompassed 80s thrash metal and were absolutely electric live. Lucky to have a few amazing albums from them, but I’m sad we’ll never get more.
Thanks for this - brings back the memories. Along the vein of Joy Division, I've always been a fan of Love and Rockets, and when I went to look them up it turns out they just got the band back together again. Likewise with Bahaus.
So for the purposes of this post, I'm gonna nominate King Missile... they could have been the next Ween.
Device.
This was an industrial band project that only released one album in 2013. This was made during the time Disturbed was on hiatus and David Draiman got to be a part of something new. Would've been nice to have seen what a second album could've been.
Fair to Midland. 2 albums and called it quits unfortunately. Hell of a live show. Lead singer never went on to another project either.
Eighty-five comments in and no one has mentioned Necrophagist.
Stabwoueeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrerd!
Hail Of Bullets
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
Their second album, Rise of the Eagles is amazing, but their lead guitarist left, they didn't make an album for another 7 years, and by then, it was too late :/
I also like The Cooper Temple Clause, but their third album after the bassist (Didz Hammond) left to do other stuff was shit, with a couple of decent tracks. Then they broke up.
Might be a bit on the Zoomery side of cultural conversation compared to the rest of this thread, but the duo Her’s were tragically killed in a road accident while on tour in the US. They made songs that were cheesy but still emotionally resonant, which is a hard balance to hit.
Their music would blow up even more online in the years following their death, I know there was a lot of of TikTok buzz around them during the pandemic, when a bunch of bedroom pop artists were gaining a ton of traction. While I hate that platform, it can be pretty good for promoting music naturally when people aren’t gaming the system (which they’re doing all the time - fuck TikTok). I think some of their famous songs are still considered TikTok clichés, but I wouldn’t really know.
I didn’t even know they were dead until this year.
There’s always this conspiracy of labels preferring to promote artists who are dead because they can pocket more money from dead artists, and I think about that when one of their songs pop up.
Machines of Loving Grace released three really good albums from 1991-1995 (and had a good song on the soundtrack to The Crow), and then just stopped while working on their fourth. The lead singer now teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.
I felt like the first line up of Public Image Limited that split up after Metal Box could have done at least one more great album with Wobble's bass and Levene's guitar - instead it all fell apart after that and became the John Lydon show.
The Manic Street Preachers had just hit their stride with The Holy Bible album when Richey Edwards disappeared. It was devastating all round when he went. They did great stuff after but I always wondered what direction they would have gone in if he had still been with them because his lyrics were the ones I found most interesting
I've got two nominations, in very divergent tastes -
Zeigeist - a fun pop electronica art project that was intended as a one-and-done experimental piece. Obviously, shut down as intended - after producing one of my all-time favourite albums.
World/Inferno Friendship Society - sure they were around for a while and pumped out a lot of albums, but it's also felt like they were just on the cusp of breaking through and getting the acclaim they deserved, at any given moment, with each new release. ... Jack Terricloth died in 2021, and while revival & tribute projects are ongoing, the band will have died with him.
Sugarcult.
They never got the same amount of recognition as other SoCal pop punk acts from the same era. Likely because Start Static was a phenomenal debut album, but the next (and last) two they followed it up with were kinda shit. Memory and Dead Living were the only two good songs that came out of Palm Trees And Power Lines and Lights Out respectively - and it's no surprise they fell off the face of the planet.
Would love to see them record a new album.
I would've also said The Higher but they got back together recently and put out this banger.
DRAIN (DRAIN STH in the US). Their singer quit after 2 albums. Excerpt from https://blabbermouth.net/news/former-drain-sth-drummer-martina-axen-featured-in-new-zinny-zan-music-video
In a 2008 interview with Autona magazine, Axén stated about DRAIN STH's decision to call it quits after only two albums: "Well, one of the reasons was that our singer decided to quit the band and the music business overall. We could have continued with somebody else singing, but were stuck in such bad deals with the record label that, basically, it seemed useless to keep on going. To get out of the deals, even after she quit, we had to sign a contract that we could not play together more than two of us at a time in any constellation (within five years) without the label considering it to be 'DRAIN,' meaning we would still be signed with them. It was unbelievable, because by then, Flavia [Canel, guitar] had already given up and quit too, and the label still wouldn't let me and the bass player [Anna Kjellberg] go, saying that they considered us being the main songwriters. So me and the bass player signed the papers, got two tickets to Los Angeles the day after, and never went back."
The Knack - bangin hit, and couldn't handle the first month of tour together. Broke up.
Fully expecting no one in this thread to ever have heard of them: Made in heights Love their music. Unfortunately the duo got into a nasty fight about rights and royalties and split up. They're only really available on YouTube anymore.
Hers.
Grateful Dead. Sure we have Dead & Co. but they are no Grateful Dead.
Propellerheads - one excellent album in the 90s, one of the most iconic songs in The Matrix (the lobby scene), and then nothing.
Not a band, but Chris Cornell ...Temple of the dog, Soundgarden, Audioslave...
Dry Cell 😥 They tried to renegotiate their record deal with Warner Records and never recovered
Definitely Pretty Vicious for me. British rock group, dropped like 2 EPs and an album before breaking up, I believe due to health reasons.
Definitely Pretty Vicious for me. British rock group, dropped like 2 EPs and an album before breaking up, I believe due to health reasons.
Gospel. They released an absolutely legendary prog/screamo record in 2005 called "the moon is a dead world" and then just disappeared (though they actually did release a followup last year but after a 17 year hiatus they might as well have been dead)
Honorable mention: Weakling. Birth of American black metal, released "dead as dreams" and I don't think ever played a show
For any mid 2000's metalcore fans out there I'm sure yall can agree that Catherine fits the answer to this question. Their album The Naturals was absolute perfection and then cancer had to be a piece of shit and take the vocalist from this world. Their follow up with a new vocalist, Inside/Out, had a couple of good songs but it just wasn't the same. Always wondered what that release would have been like with their OG vocalist.