Mostly abysmal solo careers that get a pass based almost entirely on past successes with respective bands and / or good will

lennon is an insane answer

^^^this. his most famous/signature song is not a Beatles tune

Yeah, but that still doesn't excuse the majority of Mind Games and Walls And Bridges...

Phil Collins is the really insane answer, not because of the quality of the output but because he's one of the most critically maligned artists I can think of.

Yeah he did not get a pass, at all.

all those people that bought No Jacket Required were really just loyal early Genesis fans dontchaknow

Challopy answer ahead:

Ozzy Osbourne. I always think I like those early 80s solo jams, especially the Rhoads ones, more than I actually do. When I hear them, I go all meh. Moving into The Ultimate Sin and beyond, the dude was just living on name recognition alone.

Sting is another good example of someone who would qualify for the opposite

Alan Vega

iggy was cool up to and including zombie birdhouse (talk about an underrated album, it's so much fun!) and then it was all coasting on name alone. and that's a long time to coast on yer name.

yeah sheesh bob mould whenever i've been unlucky enough to hear his solo stuff i have a hard time believing that he was ever a part of something that i loved. and even that love is an old love. i bought candy apple grey when it came out and hated it. and i didn't even listen to flip your wig that much. so, NDR was the last thing i loved. that was a while ago.

i think lou reed just got old. and when he got old he got boring. and he's been a solo artist for way longer than he was ever in a band. lots of people only know him as a solo artist. but he has definitely been taken way more seriously for way longer than a lot of people. and often undeservedly. new sensations the last thing i really liked by HIM. and that was long ago for sure.

i'm gonna say nick cave too. in a pretty cool band. got more deadly boring/tedious/lazy with every album and people treat him like an art installation.

love New Sensations.

wanna be positive and ask: who was once a member of a popular/respected/etc band who made really great solo albums that are underheard/underrated? i guess john cale fans have already spoken here. most people have never heard his solo stuff. in the 70's people listened to him more.

i DO love those early 80's rockabilly alan vega albums. think they're really cool. nobody listens to them.

Stewart Copeland's Rumblefish soundtrack comes to mind.

Those first three Phil Collins solo albums are still underrated.

i'm gonna say nick cave too. in a pretty cool band. got more deadly boring/tedious/lazy with every album and people treat him like an art installation.

Nick Cave does do art installations though. heh

PAUL MCCARTNEY! Holy shit. That's the best answer to this, and I am astounded that no one has mentioned this.

wut? I wouldn't call most of McCartney's solo career (at least the first 15-20 years of it) "abysmal" at all.

and at their peak Wings fans were too young to know the damn Beatles.

Yeah, I don't agree with McCartney whatsoever. The guy was still having BIG hit singles well into the '80s.

In fact, McCartney is the one "solo Beatle" who I feel doesn't deserve to be in this category.

Oh hell no. His solo career is full of total crap that no one would be talking about without his Beatles career behind him.

SIMPLY HAVING A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS TIIIIIIMMEEEEEEE

I have the two albums John Fogerty did in the '70s, but not the two from the mid-'80s (I know "Centerfield" and a couple of other songs). Not abysmal by any means, but they might count as coasting or getting a pass. Centerfield finished Top 10 in Pazz & Jop, with two double-sided singles in the Top 15. A bit much? "Centerfield" the song is pretty ordinary.

His solo catalog is vast enough to contain garbage that's not contingent on Beatlemania.

and at their peak Wings fans were too young to know the damn Beatles

Their peak was probably Speed of Sound/Over America...I'm sure they had some really young fans, but just don't think is true at all.

If you were the age of the teens in Dazed and Confused listening to "Silly Love Songs" dominate the summer, it was your music in a way The Beatles weren't.

That was me: 15 in 1976, a Wings fan. And the Beatles meant a hundred times more.

"I've Had Enough" would have sent me scurrying back to my older bro's copy of "Eleanor Rigby" to hear what I missed.

I don't know enough about The Mars Volta to say "The Mars Volta" but don't even Mars Volta fans old ATDI in higher regard?

*hold not old

James Jackson Toth

Nick Cave does do art installations though. heh

― pun lovin criminal (polyphonic), Monday, February 4, 2013 4:25 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not the nick cave who was in the birthday party...

wanna be positive and ask: who was once a member of a popular/respected/etc band who made really great solo albums that are underheard/underrated?

Martin Rev. Michael Nesmith.

not the nick cave who was in the birthday party...

I said "heh"

Johnny Fever otm re Ozzy -- anything after Rhoads is fucking dire, he was just trading on the name.

Chris Cornell belongs here.
Euphoria Morning was a fine 'hey guess what I really dig the beatles' album and had a few nice tracks but after that it was just GO THE FUCK AWAY and that billie jean cover should never have been a thing.

Rob Halford - bleh to both Fight and Halford.
but I dunno how popular that stuff was or what kind of a pass it got, if any.

that billie jean cover

excuse me?

159th response hall of fame xpost to AG

What else - Weiland covering "Smooth Criminal"?

for better or worse I think The Mars Volta evolved into their own thing

wanna be positive and ask: who was once a member of a popular/respected/etc band who made really great solo albums that are underheard/underrated?

Roger Daltrey's first (Daltrey) is reasonably solid, but also has some of his most amazing vocal moments. I'd listened to the Who for 25 years before I heard Daltrey, and it increased my appreciation of his approach exponentially.

John Entwistle's first two solo records (Smash Your Head Against the Wall and Wistle Rymes) are great, but after that he ran out of ideas. Unfortunately, he still made four more solo records.

If you were the age of the teens in Dazed and Confused listening to "Silly Love Songs" dominate the summer, it was your music in a way The Beatles weren't.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, February 4, 2013 5:49 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That was me: 15 in 1976, a Wings fan. And the Beatles meant a hundred times more.

― clemenza, Monday, February 4, 2013 5:52 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A good parallel would be Justin Timberlake, no? A lot of the youngs love him, but really don't remember or have purposely forgotten N*Sync as best they could.

Nothing against 'N Sync, and I know they had a couple of huge albums, but I don't think they quite blanketed the culture the way the Beatles did. The Beatles were still a very immediate presence to me in 1976, and their music was still heard on the radio all the time. (That may have been the year Lorne Michaels made big news with his fake offer to reunite.) Were 'N Sync still a big deal in 2006? Maybe they were, I don't know.

Just remembering that the first (of countless) Beatles revivals happened in the mid-'70s. The Red and Blue albums came out in '73, then Rock 'n' Roll Music in '76 (in conjunction with "Got to Get You Into My Life" making it into the Top 10). They were anything but a distant memory.

shorter list would be people whose solo careers eclipse their band careers, methinks

neil young
van morrison
michael jackson
brian eno
paul simon

+ Peter Hammill

James Jackson Toth

― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Monday, February 4, 2013 6:00 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hardy har har. I'll never top The Blood Group I guess. ;)

This probably makes your point for you, but what band was Peter Hammill in?

Van der Graaf Generator

xpost in 1976 less time had passed since the last new Beatles album was released than has now since the last Timberlake album.

Yeah, I'll rep for both The Idiot and Lust For Life (though the latter is about three good songs and a shit ton of filler), the same way I'd rep for about 50% of All Things Must Pass. But, God, after these, woof.

What he said ^^