Its fine to admit you’ve got nothing left and call it a day. Instead bands keep going and churning out stuff no one wants to hear
This is inspired by that autotuned nursery rhyme the Strokes have just farted out
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Listened to The Jam last night and had a similar thought. 6 albums in 6 years, breakup when they just got a no 1 album, not a sniff of a reunion since
Nailed it
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Rather than break up or autotune (and AI?) guff,
I’d be happier if they’d just announced a 25th anniversary boxset and tour of ‘Is This It’.
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Especially when they seem to be trying to force themselves in a different direction to fit in with the times. Just pause and get a side project
Only because Weller didn’t want to.
Foxton and Buckler did reunite as ‘From The Jam’ and did all the old stuff tbf.
Agreed - I like knowing when a discography for a band is “done” and I don’t need to fear a near perfect one being brought down by crappy later releases
I don’t mind bands reforming to tour the hits if they promise to stick to them only and not even hint at any new material
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The Strokes are a weird one to me because they seem to pretty much just show up and do a few big gigs for good money every few years and don’t seem that arsed about much else.
They seem absolutely perfect for the “announce split and reform 10 years later in a blaze of hype” model.
Be fair to the Strokes - they need to keep working as they’re from very poor families
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He’s right, and he should say it.
I would go further though and say no bands should reform. Just let it be done, move on. You can do a new thing, just don’t go back.
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in fairness to the strokes they are one of the only bands that seem to have never ‘called it a day’, as opposed to the liked of the Maccabees and LCD who just keep breaking up and getting back together which I always find very suspicious as it is basically fraud
Maccabees have only done it once, in fairness. Gang Of Four just announced a new US tour a few months after their farewell tour.
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couldn’t remember if it was them or another indie band i was thinking of tbf, probably a few others who’ve done the same
some bands take a long time to get good though, like Belle & Sebastian did
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Is it another dreaded result of the streaming economy
Like a new band in the 90s or 00s could do well for a bit purely based on having a notable ex member or two of a notable broken up band?
But these days is it just far easier just to pick up the royalties as a legacy act rather than do something new which won’t get anywhere near the mindshare?
genuine set of questions, could be way off
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Slayer is the one that springs to mind. Made a massive deal about splitting up in 2019, made shirts commemorating it and everything, and then got back together 5 years later.
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Black Midi had a good juicy breakup. Main vocalist commenting “it’s Joever” on an Instagram comment then releasing an solo album partially recorded in Sao Paulo
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Agreed. Think I’d think more favourably of This Will Destroy You if instead of releasing about ten albums of go nowhere dull as fuck post rock they’d just released the first two albums of that.
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I think the opposite, I think more bands need to be a bit more honest with “we’re not going to play shows for a bit” rather than “breaking up” for about two years before coming back.
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They should have a member who’s job is just to tell them if the songs are rubbish and not let them release an album until they’ve got enough good ones
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remember the Cribs being on Saturday Kitchen or whatever with Tim Lovejoy talking about this. well it was Ryan Jarman and Jonny Marr. i think they asked Jonny summat about the Smiths splitting up and Ryan started talking about how splitting up is the most important thing a band can do. think he just looked out the window for most of the rest of the show coz obvs they didn’t really want to talk to him. quite funny that they apparently told Jonny Marr that they were splitting up so that he wouldn’t make another album with them
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