Bands that Collapsed Under the Pressure
 

On the heels of the recent Replacements Reissue, it got me thinking about how bands get crushed in the transition from independent label to majors.

This thread is specifically dedicated to lamenting those bands who couldn't survive the leap.

Replacements - Pleased To Meet Me[i/]- Man what a dissapointment. They started compromising their music and kicked out bob stinson. they lost their roots and were never the same again.

Husker Du- Candy Apple Grey This record should have garnered some hit songs on the radio but it was really weak compared to the last three. Mould and Hart started developing big egos and churning out songs rather than being inspired. They really wanted to breakthrough and would do anything for it. How else do you explain them being on the Joan Rivers show?

husker du was gonna be my first choice.

buttholes as far as quality of music goes.

Did the Replacements really collapse under the pressure? I thought they just allowed a bunch of jackasses in suits to have them play on a bunch of substandard albums that were so boring that they eventually faded to non-existence...

Collapse under pressure, that'd be Joy Division who never released a bad album under that name.

Basically any band where the members constantly faught. Like Pixies.

The Verlaines - Not that they really went to a major label though.
They left Flying Nun in New Zealand and went to Slash in USA in the early 90's. They were given a producer who tried to make them sound like a grunge band, which they weren't, and the albums they made weren't up to the standard of the early ones.

If you mean bands who became shit when they signed to a major and then split up:

The Jesus Lizard

ditto jesus lizard

the better question is what bands haven't collapsed under pressure.

because, when big pressure starts creeping into a band/artist, they either start compromising (i mean sucking) or breaking up/retiring/trying their hand at something else.

omg i h8 sell outs!!!1

at the drive in...

One might say Nirvana. There is popular opinion that Nirvana were on the verge of breaking up just before Kurt killed himself. "In Utero" may have ended up as thier final album either way.

I was thinking this one. Damn...

My contribution is Hum.

I'd agree, which with my Joy Division example basically sums up my theory that unless somebody kills themself, no bands "collapse under pressure". Agreeing to put out records that are supposedly going to sell but lack the original artistic vision of the musicians is not "collapse" it's fizzle down to nothingness. If Kurt hadn't killed himself they might have broken up, but then how long before the first reunion and each subsequent?

Who hasn't, as in who's stayed around a long time and stayed good?

Sonic Youth, Legendary Pink Dots, Girl Trouble, Melvins, Suicide (I know my opinion is in the minority on that one, but I love American Supreme a whole lot, and they keep playing together despite the fact they've never put out a lot of albums.)

Shot is a really great album, and it's only the different production that really sets it apart from anything they put out on Touch n' Go. I haven't heard Blue though.

its not very good. i think they had just run out of steam by that point.

I love Hüsker Dü's last two albums. My only problem with them is the production (and on NDR and FYW too.) Everything sounds tinny and the guitars are flat as fuck.

Husker Du's production is probably one of the only reasons why they aren't one of my favourite bands.

true that, its a love-hate thing with them, especially on their later albums

WHAT! they didn't collapse under big management pressure, they grew apart musically, Cedric and Omar couldn't make the music they wanted in ATD-I, drugs were also involved.

can we define pressure? the first post implied that pressure was when an artist/band wanted to make the leap from cult-like or underground to a bit more massive. i was also thinking about expectations from the audience/critics which have cracked many a band/artist.

ok let's see:

sy: exception to the rule, they powered through it.

lpd: what pressure? it's not like they had a chance to break big or had amazingly great expectations around them (besides doing the best albums they can).

girl trouble: don't know them.

melvins: remember the mid to late 90's? controversial at best, utter crap at worst; they sabotaged themselves over any attempt to really be a big band.

suicide: i think they are kinda like a nostalgia act, and yeah, i'm not really into their later albums.

yeah but even melvins were on that major they still released records like prick on amphetamine reptile, and thats liker my third favorite record of theirs. them and mudhoney almost got chewed up by major labels, but they got out in time.

flaming lips i feel have been the most successful underground band to jump to a major, i mean, they actually went from a good band, to a brilliant band over the course of their major label records. listening from where they started as like this kinda butthole surfers rip off acid punk thing, to releasing an ablum like the soft bulletin, thats really impressive to me.

but yeah, sonic youth did it the best. they released some great, comparativley pop influenced ablums on majors, like ddn, goo, a thosand leaves, washing machine, but then they started their own label to released their more experimental stuff like the syr's, tv shit, silver sessions, they are a band that ALL musicians should look up too. i think recently theyve become my favorite band again, along with the stooges anyways.

SY is the one band I can think that has been pretty consistent in doing what they want, without cracking.

The Butthole Surfers really are a sad story. Their 80s output is 100X better than their 90s ouput.

i lost a lot of respect for the buttholes during their lawsuit with touch and go, corey rusk has never been anything but 100 percent supportive of the bands on his label.

80's buttholes was so fucking amazing though, just watch their dvd blind eyes see all, they were way ahead of their time.

You are honestly always a pleasure to argue with, because you at least have interesting ideas about music rather than resorting to lame name calling as some do.

That said...

I like the Melvins major label albums a lot. Houdini and Stoner Witch are both classics with great songs and cool experimental bits too. I don't know that there was anything "controversial" about that phase except if you were the Atlantic A&R fool who signed them because of the Nirvana connection and then realized what you'd got. Houdini was liked enough by the band themselves that they did it as their ATP set. The Melvins are every bit as much of an example as Sonic Youth of a great band that didn't compromise when they got signed to a major label, the only difference is they got kicked back to the indies, arguably by intention.

LPD and Girl Trouble both never signed to majors, but I still think that to keep a band consistently putting out awesome records and shows for coming on three decades is a remarkable accomplishment. Many would argue that doing it without ever getting big label backing is more of an accomplishment, and most bands really do cave under just that pressure.

You rather contradict yourself in calling Suicide a nostalgia act and then saying you don't like their new records. The very fact they make new records that are challenging to their own fan base (which you didn't say you were part of, but you get what I'm saying) is a strong case for them not being a nostalgia act. They certainly couldn't remake the first record if they even tried, but they're hardly stuck in the Ocasec new wave phase either. You might even be blown away by their next record, in another seven or eight years when they get around to making it...

(danke) and i like you because you actually like discussing things instead of playing the namedrop game.


i think i had a lapsus, i meant the late 90's (when they did the maggot, the bootlicker, etc.), which aren't their top game and i think they did it on purpose to get rid of the pressure and expectations (not to mention label interest).

i too love houdini and stoner witch.


i can't argue with this at all, all true. the thing is, i don't see where there's pressure here, lpd never had the weight of pleasing anybody because nobody expected anything out of them (except good music). these are pressure free bands and actually, it's admirable that they have remained like that for so long.


well, def leppard are still releasing albums with new songs, yet one can't call them anything but a nostalgia act today (maybe "crap"...smartasses). i know they still have an experimental edge but isn't it part of the package? isn't that what we always expected from messers vega and rev? would we care if they didn't go off the deep end, as they understand it? of course it wouldn't be suicide if they didn't. and well yeah, i look forward to their next record, i look forward for them to do something awesome (i'm yet to listen to the vega/pan sonic joint but i'm interested). yet, how many people go to see them for their new stuff and not for "rocket usa" and "ghost rider"?

still, it makes me wonder about their band chemistry though. perhaps everytime they feel the pressure, alan and martin decide to take time off to do their respective shit and once things cool out, they get back together.

I won't say those albums are their very best work, but they still blow out of the water 90% of every rock album that came out the same year. The cover of "Green Manalishi" on The Maggot successfully one ups the Priest version. And if you look up the purchaser ratings on Amazon you'll find those record getting 4.5 stars average from people that actually bought them. Which is admitedly way less people than bought Houdini or probably even Eggnog. Still if making three very good albums in one year rather than just one excellent album is a crime, it's one light misdimeanor.

To be fair, those records are all better in my estimation than Rather Ripped, and I even like RR.

hahahahahahahahaha, burn!!!

let's just look at it objectively, without saying "it's good" or "it's not"; these discs are very experimental for them, and the band was coming out of their major label deal, they were already THE MELVINS, all powerful godz of the riff and survivors of grunge and godfathers of modern doom; indies were killing each other to have the band sign with them, so, instead of diving head first into the pressure of releasing another houdini, they avoided it by doing a complete turn instead of doing what they always do; and once they were through with being odd with themselves, they got their riffs back and their pounding drums and became the melvins again, tried and true. avoiding any expectations.

Surprised nobody has mentioned My Bloody Valentine. The pressure to make a good follow up to Loveless destroyed the band.

Compared to Houdini they're experimental, compared to half of Stoner Witch, maybe so. Compared to Eggnog, those records are downright pop though. I think the Melvins have gone back and forth between their experimental and their pop and punk sides pretty much as regularly as Sonic Youth have from the beginning. Both groups started out slightly more traditional than their sophmore art/noise records, then got a degree of mainstream acceptance with admitedly more accessible albums, then started mixing it up back and forth once they were considered elders of the whole movement.

Gmku's band

aren't the brian jonestown massacre, at this point in history, the epitome of crash and burn?

they didn't exactly "sell out"-- but they had a fucking meltdown before they had a chance to do so.

also-- nirvana. didn't the guy eat a bullet for his success?

Gun's and Roses ?
Kiddin'.

This isn't a band, but Liz Phair comes to mind. However, I don't think that hers was an unintentional sell-out or collapse--she alluded to it right on her transitional album "Whitechocolatespaceegg" with the song "Shitloads of Money" (which I heard was actually one of her earlier songs, from her "Girly sounds" recordings). In a sense I appreciate that she fully acknowledges that she was shifting her priorities to be more practical about making money (read: commercializing herself), but it's still disappointing.

well, guns n roses would work if you consider appetite for destruction to be good, which i do.

in their case, it was just bad timing. by the time of their secoind record, nirvana was happening, and they just got lost in the shuffle. they still sold tons of records, but never made a record that was good.

i love appetite though, its the bridge connecting 80s hair metal with 90s grunge. all the fun rifffs and high pitched vocals of hair metal, but also had very grunge like edge to them (prolly due to duff mckagan, former hardcore dude, and ironically left the band before they made their second ablum).

ive never been able to see how someone could just all out hate appetite though, its just so rockin sounding.

im half drunk and if that sound idiotic, sorry.