Two of the most fearsome words in the entire rock ‘n’ roll lexicon: solo career. The genre is strewn with the wreckage of great and near-great bands that shattered into lesser side projects, seldom managing to summon the magic that attracted a mass audience in the first place.
Nice read. For me, McCabe was/is the genius of The Verve and an incredible guitarist. The early EPs, 'A Storm in Heaven' and 'A Northern Soul' will always be my favorite albums. Early live videos from the 90s highlight just how intense they were. Shame the egos, mainly Richard's, ripped them apart.
Mark Lanegan is the best example of solo work exceeding the band. As much as I liked The Screaming Trees, Lanegan's solo work is far more creative. It's also more varied and has significantly more depth and artistry than anything the Trees ever produced.
Early Verve is absolutely magical, a lot of the stray tracks were collected in the remastered box sets but check out the Voyager 1 live album and the radio sessions as well!
I've only heard a few Lanegan tracks, I believe he might have even done a track or two featuring Nick McCabe, and don't know if I've ever heard anything by the Trees.
I have Voyager 1 and it is astonishing. Incredible what it now sells for as well! I also have various alternative takes and unreleased tracks from Urban Hymns that is arguably better than the original LP. I like a decent bit of UH, but there are tracks I really don't like on it. I never bought 'Forth.'
It's a shame the band and/or label didn't compile a fourth deluxe boxset for Forth, the LP was a mixed bag with a bunch of scattered highlights but there were also a lot of great b-sides and demos, and plenty of great live footage from Glastonbury, Coachella, etc. that most fans would appreciate. Well worth checking out!
I can't imagine you could have this general opinion and "prefer Clapton to Cream", as Cream was miles more energetic and colossal than any other project its members had, except for Ginger Baker's Air Force when he had the Gurwitz brothers in it.
But anyway. "Creative tension" often seems better from outside; but it wears on you over the course of years, the frustration is corrosive and cumulative. I've worked for (regional) "name acts" and groups a lot, and their dynamics internally are different; often the "names" are perfectly fine, it's just that the perception that the previous groups evoked was like amphetamines to critics, and they were super-mad to be deprived of it and took it out on the solo projects. A lot of these "legacy acts" benefit heavily from the collective halo of critical hindsight; even tho' they were a product of time and place, reflected such, and said critics drew meaning and cultural power from interacting with them. Times end, places change; and said writers react to that by pushing Nostalgia (and thereby their own "I Was There" credentials) and denigrating everything else after.
I suppose if one considers Derek & The Dominoes an actual band that's my true favorite, and then the rest of the 70s ala 461 Ocean Boulevard. There's some Cream I love, but a lot of it is kinda 60s "you had to be there" IMHO.
You make an important point about "creative tension," it's easy to romanticize from far away after the fact, as so many have done--but yet the fact remains that however corrosive the collaborations tend to be far richer than the solo materiel!
Beg pardon, but my point was that such a position is not so much "fact" as it is opinion; and frequently an opinion with several other motives potentially in train.
I look at it like this: someone's "post-big group" solo work should be weighed against that of any other solo artist in that genre, who doesn't benefit from prior projects for name recognition. As if they're heard afresh. They deserve a chance to stand or fall on their own, without the burden of "received opinion" (which as you probably know, takes on a life of its own over time to suit various other agendas).
We've definitively departed the realm of facts, but at a certain point millions of fans and radio plays can't be completely wrong. It's impossible to say whether the Beatles are better than the Stones, say, but I'm pretty comfortable saying Abbey Road or Sticky Fingers are better than George's 1982 Gone Troppo for instance, and that that asymptotically approaches an absolute truth.
I was in a band in college and briefly afterward. Loved being a member of a band. Liked how it was the name of the band on the bill. Not my name,. I was safely anonymous in the band. Later I became a writer. Then I was a MY NAME guy. I was known as MY NAME. When as a band you played with another band which was a MY NAME band, you knew they would be fucked up in some way. Their ego was out of control. But as a writer you have no choice. Your brand is your name. You become the dreaded MY NAME guy.
Morrissey was never as good as the best of The Smiths, never reached the same heights without Johnny Marr. Debbie Harry and Blondie, Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders, lots of other examples. So the point is totally valid.
But I have trouble with the analogy. A band with left and right together would produce cacophony. One needs internal coherence along with the external challenge. Maybe a better analogy is the interplay of genres, jazz and classical for example, each making the other stronger and more interesting.
That's an interesting idea, but I feel like jazz meets classical has usually sounded more interesting in theory than in practice. My aunt had an album of Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea vamping on classical music, for instance, that was kind of a dud. Whereas in rock the combination of disparate aesthetics is capable of producing gold in the way that McCartney was the honey and Lennon the vinegar (forgive the mixed metaphor, please!). The Verve is one of my all time favorite bands but I find a lot of their early live bootlegs almost unlistenable because the singer Ashcroft and the guitarist McCabe were often too busy competing with one another to gel. That dynamic is very audible in this performance of one of their biggest hits a few years later as the band was falling apart--Ashcroft and McCabe push each other to greater heights and there are moments of brilliance, but overall it's kind of a mess or a cacophony as you say, as opposed to when they managed to leave their egos at the door. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D1vAu_PcPs
Lots of influence in the other direction also of course.
So to me that's an analogy that works, one wouldn't want left-right fusion. But we do need mutual understanding and respect, as a basis for unity, on that I agree completely.
The immortal Gershwin! I'd say that there's a distinction between a single solo artist integrating disparate strands into something new and a band of artists with different perspectives and sensibilities collaborating to create something that none of them could have produced individually. The political analogue might be the distinction between one navigating different arguments in their own mind to reach their personal conclusions vs. assembling a winning political coalition. I consider myself a centrist because I feel I can really grok the worldviews of left and right and critically assess each in context, but that is certainly different from assembling a coalition fusing the best ideas from across the political spectrum.
Is there something about classic rock/pop rock that benefits from multiple collaborators? Vocal harmonies? Chord progressions? That do not apply to pop or jazz like say Sinatra, Crosby, Bennett, etc.
Most rock consists of pretty bog-standard riffs and rhythms that plenty of amateurish musicians could easily replicate, but then for special groups there's that certain X factor of chemistry. Nobody's ever quite captured the amiable swing of the Beatles, and The Verve had sort of a one of a kind liquid space funk thing that's simply inimitable. There aren't too many rock bands that play together so well.
Good article - I like your analogy of the fate of creative music teams to our current political situation. I think the problem with getting the band back together politically is the same problem that creative teams have. If either participant gets too locked into their ideology (or, for musicians, their individual willingness to sublimate their individual creative style to the chemistry that succeeded) and they are successful in dehumanizing and demonizing their “opponent” (Paul was a workaholic and a pouting musical genius to John’s lethargic heroin addict and pouting artistic genius) it will turn sour, clique-y, vicious - and revolutionary. The band breaks up and the bonds of affection are frayed or broken by real or perceived betrayals. The American Constitution has the answer (just read Federalist 10) but our problem now is that the artificial administrative state overlay has metastasized into a sour, clique-y, vicious featherbedding operation - for instance, the educational establishment. Problem is, if the right approached the left to say, sorry about my transgressions, and how about your transgressions? the left would scream rape. The right is learning to respond in kind. Not good. If the Constitution is not the answer to this then I fear failure will increasingly be an option. Also, The Verve sucks U2 ass.
Respectfully, I suggest you check out Urban Hymns b-sides like "Echo Bass" and "The Longest Day," not to mention the early singles and first two albums, before coming to a definitive conclusion about The Verve! They just might surprise you.
Oh, Mr. Exile, that last sentence was meant to have been deleted before posting - a friend was reading over my shoulder and I put it in to draw a laugh - which worked, but I should have pulled it before proceeding! Anyway, for my sins, I will give The Verve a fair listen. Cheers.
Nice read. For me, McCabe was/is the genius of The Verve and an incredible guitarist. The early EPs, 'A Storm in Heaven' and 'A Northern Soul' will always be my favorite albums. Early live videos from the 90s highlight just how intense they were. Shame the egos, mainly Richard's, ripped them apart.
Mark Lanegan is the best example of solo work exceeding the band. As much as I liked The Screaming Trees, Lanegan's solo work is far more creative. It's also more varied and has significantly more depth and artistry than anything the Trees ever produced.
Early Verve is absolutely magical, a lot of the stray tracks were collected in the remastered box sets but check out the Voyager 1 live album and the radio sessions as well!
I've only heard a few Lanegan tracks, I believe he might have even done a track or two featuring Nick McCabe, and don't know if I've ever heard anything by the Trees.
I have Voyager 1 and it is astonishing. Incredible what it now sells for as well! I also have various alternative takes and unreleased tracks from Urban Hymns that is arguably better than the original LP. I like a decent bit of UH, but there are tracks I really don't like on it. I never bought 'Forth.'
It's a shame the band and/or label didn't compile a fourth deluxe boxset for Forth, the LP was a mixed bag with a bunch of scattered highlights but there were also a lot of great b-sides and demos, and plenty of great live footage from Glastonbury, Coachella, etc. that most fans would appreciate. Well worth checking out!
I can't imagine you could have this general opinion and "prefer Clapton to Cream", as Cream was miles more energetic and colossal than any other project its members had, except for Ginger Baker's Air Force when he had the Gurwitz brothers in it.
But anyway. "Creative tension" often seems better from outside; but it wears on you over the course of years, the frustration is corrosive and cumulative. I've worked for (regional) "name acts" and groups a lot, and their dynamics internally are different; often the "names" are perfectly fine, it's just that the perception that the previous groups evoked was like amphetamines to critics, and they were super-mad to be deprived of it and took it out on the solo projects. A lot of these "legacy acts" benefit heavily from the collective halo of critical hindsight; even tho' they were a product of time and place, reflected such, and said critics drew meaning and cultural power from interacting with them. Times end, places change; and said writers react to that by pushing Nostalgia (and thereby their own "I Was There" credentials) and denigrating everything else after.
I suppose if one considers Derek & The Dominoes an actual band that's my true favorite, and then the rest of the 70s ala 461 Ocean Boulevard. There's some Cream I love, but a lot of it is kinda 60s "you had to be there" IMHO.
You make an important point about "creative tension," it's easy to romanticize from far away after the fact, as so many have done--but yet the fact remains that however corrosive the collaborations tend to be far richer than the solo materiel!
Beg pardon, but my point was that such a position is not so much "fact" as it is opinion; and frequently an opinion with several other motives potentially in train.
I look at it like this: someone's "post-big group" solo work should be weighed against that of any other solo artist in that genre, who doesn't benefit from prior projects for name recognition. As if they're heard afresh. They deserve a chance to stand or fall on their own, without the burden of "received opinion" (which as you probably know, takes on a life of its own over time to suit various other agendas).
We've definitively departed the realm of facts, but at a certain point millions of fans and radio plays can't be completely wrong. It's impossible to say whether the Beatles are better than the Stones, say, but I'm pretty comfortable saying Abbey Road or Sticky Fingers are better than George's 1982 Gone Troppo for instance, and that that asymptotically approaches an absolute truth.
I was in a band in college and briefly afterward. Loved being a member of a band. Liked how it was the name of the band on the bill. Not my name,. I was safely anonymous in the band. Later I became a writer. Then I was a MY NAME guy. I was known as MY NAME. When as a band you played with another band which was a MY NAME band, you knew they would be fucked up in some way. Their ego was out of control. But as a writer you have no choice. Your brand is your name. You become the dreaded MY NAME guy.
Until the internet! We’re reading an article by The Ivy Exile, after all
You're totally right. Many such cases. Delicious Tacos for one. But being a writer as an ANON has it's drawbacks as well.
Morrissey was never as good as the best of The Smiths, never reached the same heights without Johnny Marr. Debbie Harry and Blondie, Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders, lots of other examples. So the point is totally valid.
But I have trouble with the analogy. A band with left and right together would produce cacophony. One needs internal coherence along with the external challenge. Maybe a better analogy is the interplay of genres, jazz and classical for example, each making the other stronger and more interesting.
That's an interesting idea, but I feel like jazz meets classical has usually sounded more interesting in theory than in practice. My aunt had an album of Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea vamping on classical music, for instance, that was kind of a dud. Whereas in rock the combination of disparate aesthetics is capable of producing gold in the way that McCartney was the honey and Lennon the vinegar (forgive the mixed metaphor, please!). The Verve is one of my all time favorite bands but I find a lot of their early live bootlegs almost unlistenable because the singer Ashcroft and the guitarist McCabe were often too busy competing with one another to gel. That dynamic is very audible in this performance of one of their biggest hits a few years later as the band was falling apart--Ashcroft and McCabe push each other to greater heights and there are moments of brilliance, but overall it's kind of a mess or a cacophony as you say, as opposed to when they managed to leave their egos at the door. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D1vAu_PcPs
I see your point, but I was thinking of influence rather than fusion, for example Gershwin after he saw Shuffle Along:
https://open.substack.com/pub/rajivsethi/p/towards-an-inclusive-patriotism?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7wld5
Lots of influence in the other direction also of course.
So to me that's an analogy that works, one wouldn't want left-right fusion. But we do need mutual understanding and respect, as a basis for unity, on that I agree completely.
The immortal Gershwin! I'd say that there's a distinction between a single solo artist integrating disparate strands into something new and a band of artists with different perspectives and sensibilities collaborating to create something that none of them could have produced individually. The political analogue might be the distinction between one navigating different arguments in their own mind to reach their personal conclusions vs. assembling a winning political coalition. I consider myself a centrist because I feel I can really grok the worldviews of left and right and critically assess each in context, but that is certainly different from assembling a coalition fusing the best ideas from across the political spectrum.
Is there something about classic rock/pop rock that benefits from multiple collaborators? Vocal harmonies? Chord progressions? That do not apply to pop or jazz like say Sinatra, Crosby, Bennett, etc.
Most rock consists of pretty bog-standard riffs and rhythms that plenty of amateurish musicians could easily replicate, but then for special groups there's that certain X factor of chemistry. Nobody's ever quite captured the amiable swing of the Beatles, and The Verve had sort of a one of a kind liquid space funk thing that's simply inimitable. There aren't too many rock bands that play together so well.
Good article - I like your analogy of the fate of creative music teams to our current political situation. I think the problem with getting the band back together politically is the same problem that creative teams have. If either participant gets too locked into their ideology (or, for musicians, their individual willingness to sublimate their individual creative style to the chemistry that succeeded) and they are successful in dehumanizing and demonizing their “opponent” (Paul was a workaholic and a pouting musical genius to John’s lethargic heroin addict and pouting artistic genius) it will turn sour, clique-y, vicious - and revolutionary. The band breaks up and the bonds of affection are frayed or broken by real or perceived betrayals. The American Constitution has the answer (just read Federalist 10) but our problem now is that the artificial administrative state overlay has metastasized into a sour, clique-y, vicious featherbedding operation - for instance, the educational establishment. Problem is, if the right approached the left to say, sorry about my transgressions, and how about your transgressions? the left would scream rape. The right is learning to respond in kind. Not good. If the Constitution is not the answer to this then I fear failure will increasingly be an option. Also, The Verve sucks U2 ass.
Lol as a U2 and Verve fan I applaud you!
One advantage of the Verve breakup is at least that there’s far less diminishing returns … to get those, check out Ashcroft’s (later) solo material
Respectfully, I suggest you check out Urban Hymns b-sides like "Echo Bass" and "The Longest Day," not to mention the early singles and first two albums, before coming to a definitive conclusion about The Verve! They just might surprise you.
Oh, Mr. Exile, that last sentence was meant to have been deleted before posting - a friend was reading over my shoulder and I put it in to draw a laugh - which worked, but I should have pulled it before proceeding! Anyway, for my sins, I will give The Verve a fair listen. Cheers.
It's all good ! :-D
Here are a couple of good ones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyoqLOcDQ9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lq1K1qAO5o
Great topic to consider. I agree most groups are better together. Stevie Nicks clearly did her best work as part of Fleetwood Mac.
Natalie Merchant solo may be better than with 10,000 Maniacs.
Fun way to think about music,
Jazz world is full of examples and counter examples.