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

in the Ginger Baker documentary Clapton presents himself as the sanest, most benevolent man in rock and it's a fucking chore and I don't believe it for a second.

there's a live version of 'i shot the sheriff' on the clapton box that sounds fierce-ish, but other than that it's a rough last 2.5 discs

he took the wrong drugs i guess

Fuck Clapton forever for this fucking shit:

"I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking [indecipherable] don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck's sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he’s a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he’s our man, he’s on our side, he’ll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he’s on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!"[116]

wow, i knew he'd said something along those lines but had never actually seen the quote. that's pretty fucking rank. i can't believe we don't hear more about that.

In an interview from October 1976 with Sounds magazine, Clapton remarked, "I thought it was quite funny actually. I don't know much about politics. I don't even know if it would be good or bad for him to get in. I don't even know who the Prime Minister is now. I just don't know what came over me that night. It must have been something that happened in the day but it came out in this garbled thing... I thought the whole thing was like Monty Python. There's this rock group playing on-stage and the singer starts talking about politics. It's so stupid. Those people who paid their money sittin' listening to this madman dribbling on and the band meanwhile getting fidgety thinking 'oh dear'."

So that's ok then.

Can someone please explain to me why that quote didn't kill his god awful career?

no youtube

Lennon's not really that much of an insane answer... I'll give him Imagine, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band a small handful of his songs from Double Fantasty and Milk And Honey, plus '#9 Dream' and 'Mind Games' (the song)... rest of his stuff, and I include the rock'n'roll covers record and his early collaborations with Yoko here, is mostly gash.

I'll give him "Imagine", plus his half of "Double Fantasy". "Mind Games" and "Walls and Bridges" had their moments.

"Plastic Ono Band" was horrible. Period.

Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band is the best record of either of their (post-Beatles) careers. By far his (and damn near Ringo's) best playing.

Tarfumes I don't wanna tell you how to live but if I were to say to you Moo Mot Meed the Mroll you'd catch my drift n'est-pas

lennon contributed some awesome guitar work to yoko's 'walking on thin ice,' which turned out to be the last thing he ever did in the studio.

jesus, we woke geir up!

speaking of ringo...

you'd catch my drift n'est-pas

Oh, I know. It's just that it's been a while. It's like when you haven't seen a whack-a-mole game in years, and then you walk past one and can't help but give it a sentimental whack.

I don't mind some selections from Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band and Fly, but I see those more as Yoko solo records, even if Lennon does have a hand in them. It's the Unfinished Music stuff that I can't really get on board with.

lol aero

I listened to the 12/12/12 Sandy Concert on the radio driving home from work, not really knowing exactly the order of who was playing when or who had already played, etc. Jon Stewart was doing this impassioned intro about the Jersey Shore and gives this big wind up and I'm thinking 'oh cool I haven't missed Springsteen' - and then Stewart says 'And who better to play for you now than the great man...' (me: YAY!)"...old Slowhand himself, ERIC CLAPTON!'

*NEEDLE SCRATCH*

I nearly crashed the fucking car I was so mad. I actually yelled at the radio 'GO FUCK YOURSELF SLOWHAND YOU C---'

Clapton video upthread takes me back to a time when videos of songs from soundtracks peppered in, err, sounds from the movie. Boy, that was a weird era, man. Try hearing that tune without the cue ball being struck = impossible now.

"Plastic Ono Band" was horrible. Period.

― The GeirBot (Geir Hongro), Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:36 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty much a flawless album

my feeling is he's classic for yardbirds and cream and kinda dud for everything else. even as a 15-year-old classic rock fiend the 'layla' album always put me to sleep.

but even derek & the dominos is not really "solo" maybe. isn't most of the guitar goddery there Duane Allman anyway?

peter hammill solo >>>>>> vdgg

Did Colin Blunstone get a pass in the UK? That dude's solo stuff is pretty bad besides One Year.

Any Wu-Tang clan member solo career, except for Ghostface and Method Man.

Richard Thompson. Some of those early solo albums are pretty great, but outside of the Grizzly Man soundtrack the past 20 years seem pretty dire.

hmm but I would say most of his reputation rests on those solo albums (and the Linda stuff) rather than on Fairport which was always more of a collective group thing

With richard thompson we're falling into the "artists with long careers who got less good after a decade or so" which is nearly everyone who doesn't die/retire young.

@ fadanuf I'd say Rod Argent got more post-Zombies goodwill, but at the couple of recent Zombies concerts I've been to, the crowd has been clearly divided into Colin-lovers and Argent-lovers

Nobody mentioned Sting yet?

It's been a while but I seem to recall his very early solo stuff to not be horrific, but certainly not befitting the genius that was The Police. And then he became a New Age wanker and I haven't cared since.

Sting doesn't get a pass, or at least hasn't since around 1990.

even Sting's good solo stuff never seemed to get much of a pass. maybe his first solo album but people have torn this dude to shreds for nearly 3 decades now!

Yet he still is constantly one of the top grossing touring artists every year he hits the road. So some people sure give him a pass.

co-signing Jarvis Cocker.

the list of people who were in good/popular bands who went on to make shitty solo albums is kinda endless. lotsa people think they were the genius of the group and then they are stuck in a studio with don was and its 4 a.m. and the riffs just sound really shitty and kenny aronoff is begging to go home so that he can feed his dogs.

Karl Bartos

if you are dave mason you create good will for decades with one single song!

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?

Not really solo albums but the two of them are practically inseparable so it's close enough, but anyway those Flo & Eddie solo records are pretty underrated.

Yet he still is constantly one of the top grossing touring artists every year he hits the road. So some people sure give him a pass.

At this point though there are probably as many people who are there to hear Sting songs as ones who want to see the guy from the Police

So at least half of his top-grossing audience gives him a pass then!

yeah but the "based entirely upon past successes with respective bands" part doesn't fit

depends on what your definition of "get a pass" is. I mean Phil Collins sold a zillion albums too. as did Clapton.

"Richard Thompson. Some of those early solo albums are pretty great, but outside of the Grizzly Man soundtrack the past 20 years seem pretty dire."

don't understand this at all. the guy's live performance continue to be amazing and as a guitarist he's just not normal.

Karl Bartos

who gives this guy a pass

hes only done like two albums too, and one of them was alright (Communication??)

depends on what your definition of "get a pass" is. I mean Phil Collins sold a zillion albums too. as did Clapton.

― frogbs, Tuesday, February 5, 2013 10:09 AM

Whereas Sting was always billed as the Police guy and while still remaining commercially successful, he is still known for his work and accomplishments in The Police. I still see solo Sting dates touted as "from The Police." I don't think Collins solo gigs mention him as "the guy from Genesis" or Clapton as "former Yardbird" or whatever.

maybe worth mentioning that I could not really tell Phil's Genesis hits apart from his solo ones, while the Police/Sting were totally different entities

as I said upthread, Collins may be one of the few artists whose solo career changed the band's sound.

^great thread idea

surely anagram, you'd mention Pete Hammill there?

nick cave is a goofy answer, sorry scott, unless this thread is "artists whose solo work isnt as good as their work in bands." he was a critical phenom, not just a dude who got a pass because of the birthday party.

Same with Clapton to a lesser degree, I think.

This is what I was getting at: I doubt the people who made "Tears in Heaven" #1 on the AC charts were all Yardbirds or Cream fans or even aware of early Yardbirds. Did the Yardbirds even score any big hits before Beck replaced Clapton?