Bands that spawned divergent solo artists: Wich is the divergentest?

Wich?!? Gah... If a moderator can fix my annoying typo in the header, I would PayPal him a dollar...

Need to think about this. As a side note re Genesis, both Tony Banks and Steve Hackett have also had solo careers.

John Cale's solo music sounds very little like the stuff he did in the Velvets.

Yeah, John Cale and Lou Reed probably should have been a choice...

Antony Phillips and Ray Wilson both forged solo careers apres 'Sis, too.

I don't get how Bryan Ferry is much different solo.

Different from the other offshoots, rather than different pre- and post-band, I guess.

Of the choices listed, I'd say Roxy.

Japan should be in here. David Sylvian and Mick Karn went more and more avant garde, whereas Richard Barbieri would become neoprog as part of Porcupine Tree, and also his solo work.

You're all gonna hate me for this but Blur is a genuine contender

I'd argue Damon Albarn has spawned more divergent solo careers than all the other Blur members counted together.

I don't think the question is re: how many children out of wedlock though, Geir.

fleetwood mac, but that's a band with 3 "divergent" phases, at least, so follows the solo careers would be pretty different

The Mynah Birds feat. Rick James and Neil Young.

Cream.

Explanation for Cream, since I voted "other". Ginger Baker's jazz and African explorations diverge from Jack Bruce's jazz and Clapton's blues and country rock.

I wanted to say The Damned, for Captain Sensible's great pop hits, but Brian James' small amount of solo material didn't diverge much.

byrds?

Yellow Magic Orchestra?

Led Zeppelin. Page got into soundtracks, Plant went synth then world then country, Jones recorded with Diamanda Galas and Robyn Hitchcock.

yeah robert plant's solo stuff was the first thing that came to mind.

and it would have seemed like page would have just plain made a lot more music than he has.

Wait, what about the Police?

Sting - adult contemporary that I guess resembles some of Synchronicity but is light years away from their other albums
Stewart Copeland - mostly soundtrack work
Andy Summers - ugly guitar instrumentals w/ Robert Fripp

i feel like for most bands the divergence is in terms of profile -- one goes onto be a solo star, the other guys toil in relative obscurity. maybe the other members of N Sync made dramatically different music from Justin but you wouldn't know because nobody's heard it.

eh, all the police dudes did shit that was already sort of latent in the actual police IMO

We should have a 'least' divergent thread.

Like the Bay City Rollers, for instance, who spawned "Les' Bay City Rollers", "Eric's Bay City rollers", etc.

eh, all the police dudes did shit that was already sort of latent in the actual police IMO

― he do the waka lyfe (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, February 15, 2011 11:19 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah but it's supposed to be divergent from each other's solo careers, not the band per se -- like one guy could hedge close to the band's sound and the other goes off in a whole other direction. like...J Mascis solo records sound like Dinosaur Jr., but Barlow's other stuff does not.

ah misunderstood i thought it was divergent from the band not from each other

Housemartins? Surely there's Normal Cook vs. the rest, but whatever Norman Cook has spent the past 20 years + doing is extremely different from The Beautiful South or the original Housemartins.

Norman Cook even. No idea whether he is a normal cook. :)

Radiohead are actually a pretty good choice for this:

Jonny Greenwood - avant-orchestral work and film scoring
Thom Yorke - more skeletal, electronic version of RH fare, w/ occasional remixing work and collabs with folks like FlyLo
Phil Selway - MOR folk-rock

Alumni of Frank Zappa's bands are/were in everything, from new-agey space music (Patrick O'Hearn) to jazz, blues, prog, metal, R&B, etc etc

The Who (in the 70s):

Pete Townshend on Who Came First - searching tributes to his spiritual master
Keith Moon on Two Sides Of The Moon - innovating the practice of charging booze to the record label

Television:

Tom Verlaine: More Television-ness
Richard Lloyd: Something that sounds like Nick Lowe

xpost hang on, Moon didn't exactly invent that, surely even Frank Sinatra did that...

Adult-contemporary-new-wave band Fra Lippo Lippi
Bassist Rune Kristofferson leaves the band and starts Rune Grammofon

Faith No More

Mike Patton: avant thrash, noise, free improvisation, sleazy rock, soundtracks, ersatz hip-hop, lush orchestral crooning, etc. etc.
Roddy Bottum: sunshine indie pop (Imperial Teen)
Mike Bordin: joined Korn
Billy Gould: started Kool Arrow, releasing non-English language punk stuff
Jim Martin: pumpkin farmer

Oh and The Smashing Pumpkins...

James Iha - Acousticy Evan Dandoness..
etc.

Most of these aren't very divergent - members of rock band end up making slightly different rock music to one another. Geir is actually on the money with the Housemartins. Blur might be another one but that's largely due to Damon Albarn collaborating with anything that isn't nailed down.

Adult-contemporary-new-wave band Fra Lippo Lippi
Bassist Rune Kristofferson leaves the band and starts Rune Grammofon

They did actually start out as a very dark Joy Division-influenced postpunk band, and then gradually change their style towards more AOR-like music.

They were always very big in certain parts of Asia, thus funding Rune Grammofon, which was also their label towards the end of their career.

^ Certain parts of Asia = 10s of thousands of tickets sold in Manila, specifically.

hah I would have brought up The Housemartins had Geir not gotten there first

gnarls barkley
any of neil young's bands
any of david pajo's bands
tenderhooks (!)

Read "Certain parts of Asia" & immediately thought Steve Howe, John Wetton etc.

How about Big In Japan?

Organized Konfusion.

Faith No More prob the winner so far, Big In Japan also a v. good nomination

whatever Norman Cook has spent the past 20 years + doing is extremely different from The Beautiful South

writing the basslines for The Beautiful South is extremely different from The Beautiful South?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Organized Konfusion.

― if there is a King Moaty, apparently he is huge into slapstick. (a hoy hoy), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7:42 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

huh?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It seems nobody ever mentioned Aphrodite's Child here. They varied styles and genres a lot already within their short career as a band, but even more so afterwards, with Demis Roussous becoming a MOR balladeer while Vangelis went on to make instrumental new age electronic music.