How important is membership continuity in a band's success?

I was thinking about this specifically with regard to Radiohead and U2. Both phenomenonally successful across multiple territories and both very unusual w.r.t. keeping the same line up for the duration of the band's existence.

How important to Radiohead's success has been the fact that 1985-present they've been Yorke, Greenwood, Greenword, O'Brien and Selway? How important to U2's success has been the fact that 1976-present they've been Bono, The Edge, Mullen and Clayton?

Do you think that without the constant line-up they would have been less succcessful, less able to conquer the world commercially, less able to prevent dips in quality of their output?

The dips in quality of U2's output have been prodigious

a lot of my favorite metal bands (Sodom, Megadeth, Testament) have been essentially one consistent member and a rotating cast of characters and maintained pretty decent levels of success in terms of musical quality, although not necessarily commercially.

It's incidental, I guess.

Unless you feel the quality threshhold would have remained for REM had Bill Ding not left.

Was having this conversation just the other day with someone who says it's often about managers too - in some senses Paul McGuinness is as important a part of U2 as any of the members. Not sure how important it is but Jefferson Holt resigned (or was sacked) as REM's manager not long before Bill Berry left.

I agree with the thesis. Bands often become significantly different (even if equally good) bands after a line-up change, eg Roxy with and without Eno. Exhibit A in the argument that even the least important members are vital to the overall chemistry is Tony McCarroll leaving Oasis.

The Residents were never the same after Jay Clem and John Kennedy quit the Cryptic Corporation, that's one thing I think we can all agree on.

You could have an Oasis "original members only" reunion, and not need to invite anyone that played in the last line-up.

Sounds like a good idea.

As a great counter-example, I give you The Fall. If it's Mark and your granny on bongos, it's still The Fall!

Another counter-example is The Cure, which is basically at this point Robert Smith + Friends (One of Whom is Almost Guaranteed to be Simon Gallup).

and hey, there's Lol!

Even with The Cure's line-up fluctuating though, there's always been certain line-ups of that band that are held in fonder regard than others. I'm not going to say this is true for everybody, but generally I've noticed the Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Boris Williams formation of the group (with either Lol Tolhurst or Roger O'Donnell filling the keyboard role) is cited as the finest line-up the group ever had. In second place would be with Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Lol Tolhurst trio that made 'Faith' and 'Pornography'.

in Wikipedia-trolling I saw it spelled out that the only other person besides Robert to perform with everyone who has ever been in The Cure is Porl Thompson, which blew my mind a little bit

Yeah, that's true. He was part of the very first line-up of The Cure, if I remember correctly: Robert Smith/Porl Thompson/Michael Dempsey/Lol Tolhurst, then he left before the first album. He's married to Robert's sister, isn't he?

Feel like there's been a lot of bands w/strong songwriter/front people who convinced themselves they were the whole show and ditched the original band for a less interesting more competent backing crew to the detriment of the sound - tho this maybe more often happens when the singer goes solo than w/in the band - it can also be where the singer just takes more control of the same ol dudes

"fonder regard" = "success" ?