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Regardless of the heights an artist achieves in his Career,
there comes a point in time where they are expected to have
the good grace to just go away. I mean do you really need
to see Neil Young yodeling away ever again? Or how about Bob
Dylan? Or Jesus – how about Mr."Hope I Die Before
I Get Old" himself Pete Townshend? That guy’s a
fucking embarrassment – all old and shit, bitterly carrying
on about this and that. Shut up already. You’re relevance
was buried with Keith Moon back in ‘78.
But the All-Time Champions of Embarrassment is Aerosmith.
These guys used to rock. I swear – they did. But since
then they decided that the only prize left to capture was
the imagination of the brat demographic. Twelve year old jerks
raised on N’Sync and Britney Spears singing along to
the latest Aerosmith cut from the soundtrack to the latest
Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It just makes me sick.
Now these are extreme examples; most artists achieve far
milder levels of shame and embarrassment. But I decided to
put together a list here of the place where a few the greats
truly lost their way. These legends would have been better
off had overdose/plane crash/suicide intervened first.
Guns ‘n Roses:
The story goes that the night before the big Use Your Illusion
Tour was set to begin, Axl Rose informed the band that they
had a choice: either turn over future control of the name
Guns ‘n Roses to him alone, or he wouldn’t do the
tour – forcing cancellations and heavy fines. These financial
hits coupled with no future income would surely mean they
would lose new houses and such. So under this threat they
acquiesced and Axl won. So close to a full decade later, he
has decided to re-emerge with four new guys to play under
the name "Guns ‘n Roses" This is clearly where
they lost their way for good. Now the only hope is the reunion
tour – which is lame as hell, too.
Eric Clapton:
Eric technically lost it when he quite doin’ heroin.
What followed was good, but never matched the glory days.
But when he decided to do a duet with Babyface – I screamed
to the gods that made me, demanding to know why Stevie Ray
Vaughan went down in that helicopter when the world would’ve
been so much better off with Clapton on board instead.
Pink Floyd:
If Roger Waters is not on the stage, then the band you are
watching is not Pink Floyd. Period. They may be the best Pink
Floyd cover band ever to play, but they ARE NOT PINK FLOYD.
He was the absolute single handed genius of that group, and
the notion of them calling themselves Pink Floyd without him
should be a crime that calls for public flogging.
Sex Pistols:
The Sex Pistols were the only band that could rival the Beatles
as having the perfect career: they had only one album with
great songs start to finish, and then were history before
they started to suck. Unfortunately, only Sid Vicious died,
leaving the other members free to fuck up the whole deal with
a reunion tour that stunk to high heaven. There are few things
in life more pathetic than a fifty-year-old Johnny Rotten
acting like the twenty-year-old Johnny Rotten.
Smashing Pumpkins:
Although I maintain that the
Pumpkins never lost it musically from a creative standpoint,
they definitely gave themselves a musical vasectomy in the
performance department firing Jimmy Chamberlin. Heroin overdoses
or not, he’s a motherfucker on the drums, and his dismissal
remains the only blemish on their career.
If you have any thoughts / comments about when someone started
the slow slide into irrelevance, please let us know. If it’s
funny we’ll print it in a future issue.
Comments on this article?
Send them to rants@publicitywhore.com!
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