Bands which have a shift in power dynamics from within

[Z]

The most obvious one being the Rolling Stones I guess. Brian Jones being shunted to the side once Jagger and Richards started churning out hits.

Did something along those lines happen with Split Enz too? Neil Finn joined later and was having more hits than his brother iirc, that must've been weird.



Which other ones can you think of? Ones totally disconnected to their value as a creative force seem potentially more interesting.

[greenman]

Pink Floyd the other obvious one, arguably happened several times.

Led Zeppelin towards the end as well with Page taking a back seat to Plant and John Paul Jones for In Though The Out Door.

[Gulftastic]

The Miami Sound Machine
The Miami Sound Machine ft. Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
Gloria Estefan


Bitch was ruthless.

[Delete Delete Delete]

Fleetwood Mac would fit the bill.

[the science eel]

Reed booting out Cale and then going for something a bit gentler (and ultimately more mainstream) is the first thing that came to mind.

[Phil_A]

Did something along those lines happen with Split Enz too? Neil Finn joined later and was having more hits than his brother iirc, that must've been weird.

It was Phil Judd who had the beef with Neil, he ended up quitting for good because he reckoned the power balance had shifted too much in favour of the Finns. Although he is quite a "complicated" character so who knows what the whole story is.

[Rizla]

Did something along those lines happen with Split Enz too? Neil Finn joined later and was having more hits than his brother iirc, that must've been weird.

Phil Judd was the main creative force to begin with when they were proggy and weird, then he was replaced with young Neil in 1977. Tim Finn was in the hotseat til 1980 with a string of excellent singles, none of which troubled the charts much (I See Red, My Mistake etc) then in 1980 Finn the younger comes out with by far their biggest hit "I Got You" plus a few other corkers. Tim wrote "6 Months in a Leaky Boat" though which is unbeatable in their late canon imo.

I love the Enz so much it's quite sad. Keep meaning to start a thread on them, but I don't know if I want other people liking them. They're mine.

[sevendaughters]

yeah I heard the Finns were pretty cool with each other but Tim was paralytic a lot.

Flaming Lips pretty much shifted from Wayne writing everything to mostly Stephen once it became apparent that he was a much more accomplished musician. Kept them fresh, though I think Wayne was ultimately better.

[Rizla]

It was Phil Judd who had the beef with Neil, he ended up quitting for good because he reckoned the power balance had shifted too much in favour of the Finns. Although he is quite a "complicated" character so who knows what the whole story is.

No, Phil and Neil got on well, though they were only in the band together briefly and didn't record together. It was Tim who socked Phil in the jaw after a gig in Atlanta in 1977, during a depressing tour, that led to him leaving, not for the first or last time but that led to them getting Neil in. Tim was tripping on mushrooms at the time.

EDIT

For further clarification, refer to this extensive 10 part radio series, https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/enzology. There's a couple of good documentaries on youtube too.

[Brundle-Fly]

Genesis spring to mind.

[DrGreggles]

The Miami Sound Machine
The Miami Sound Machine ft. Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
Gloria Estefan


Bitch was ruthless.

Yet spineless...

[Colin Sanction]

Joie and Merv leaving Ozric Tentacles. Jurassic Shift and Arborescence are their later peak, after that, it's just fluff.

[studpuppet]

C'mon. Bucks Fizz

[hummingofevil]

Genesis spring to mind.

"They held me back and they held me back."

The first thing that came to mind for me was Paul Warhurst's few month golden period of being converted to a goal scoring forward player. Doing-a-Dion I think you might say.

But bands...? Oasis are Liam's band that he allowed Noel to control. They were quite good at first but for me the moment Noël decided he should sing his own songs is when they went to dogshit. It wasn't as easy as saying the release of WTSMG but more around the live touring of that record. Wonderwall is a Liam song and it's fine. Give it Noel on his little acoustic solo mid-show break and it, him and them can fuck right off.

Maybe a shout for Mogwai? Barry Burns introduction to band might not be the only reason they gradually moved from radge, football-shirted oiks into soundtrack sound artistes (boring) but they did change.

And speaking of Mogwai and Oasis, Graham Coxon seemed to take Blur more in his direction in late 90s.

[PaulTMA]

Blur's 1997 album was talked up (initially by Damon) as being "Graham's album", but I always thought it offset the balance of democracy that they didn't move on to do 'Alex's album' afterwards.  An album akin to Far Out, Hanging Around and Naughty Xmas (Goblin In The Office) would have caused much more of a stir in 1999 and aged far better than than the aimless time-wasting of '13'.

[Maurice Yeatman]

Doobie Brothers. No-nonsense boogie and country rock until Michael McDonald joined for the Takin' it to the Streets album. From then on he contributed more and more songs, and there were more jazz, soul and funk influences, with founding member Tom Johnston taking a back seat. (I think they later reverted more to the original sound when they reformed without McDonald.)

I think something similar happened with Little Feat as Lowell George's influence waned with his substance abuse and eventual death.

[Satchmo Distel]

Beach Boys after 1967 due to Brian Wilson's meltdown, although the popular assumption that Wilson sat out their albums completely is a myth.

Lennon allowed McCartney to become the more productive and assertive partner from 1967 onwards but a lot of that was passive aggression and drugs.

[jobotic]

What went down in Spacemen 3 then? Didn't they have a side each on the last album? Sonic went on to make interesting sounds with an ever dwindling audience and Jason made overblown guff that was praised to the heavens. Unless i'm remembering it all wrongly, be happy to corrected.

[thraxx]

The Prodigy. 

After the commercial success of Firestarter it always rankled with me that Keith and Maxim were allowed to the fore to write lyrics and become almost yer actual proper front men.  I totally get why that must have happened.  Keith himself, I seem to remember, admitted that they were just a bunch of burnt out ravers, and I know a band has to evolve, and they probably wanted to get more involved in the creative side.  After all bands like Underworld were doing it.  There isn't really anything that sounds like the first two prodigy records, so I've always found it a shame that their contributions - those 90s videos that basically became a Keith/Maxim personality vehicle - defined and drove what the Prodigy were after that. 

[thraxx]

What went down in Spacemen 3 then? Didn't they have a side each on the last album? Sonic went on to make interesting sounds with an ever dwindling audience and Jason made overblown guff that was praised to the heavens. Unless i'm remembering it all wrongly, be happy to corrected.

As I recall there was certainly a split, with Jason wanting to get more grandiose and high concept and commercial with Sonic Boom wanting to get more experimental.  They both did that with their own projects, with some success at first but they both went far too far in my opinion revisiting and wearing out the same blueprint for years: Spiritualised disappeared up their own overblown anus, whilst the EAR stuff, both live and on record, ends up unlistenable.  I know that's not Spaceman 3, but those solo projects are the effects of that change in the band.

Will Carruthers' excellent autobiog does touch on this subject.

[Jockice]

What went down in Spacemen 3 then? Didn't they have a side each on the last album? Sonic went on to make interesting sounds with an ever dwindling audience and Jason made overblown guff that was praised to the heavens. Unless i'm remembering it all wrongly, be happy to corrected.

I think you're right!

[famethrowa]

Pink Floyd the other obvious one, arguably happened several times.

Could it be said that everyone in the Floyd got a crack at being leader at some point?

- Syd writing and singing all the early stuff
- Rick pushed to the front to sing when Syd dropped out (didn't last long)
- Nick pushing the band through the noisemaking of Ummagumma and Pompeii era
- Roger gradually taking over from Dark Side on
- Dave taking control in the late 80s

[daf]

- Dave taking control in the late 80s

I think there's a case to be made for Obscured by Clouds - (1972) - as the first Dave led era - there's only two of the 10 songs he doesn't either sing lead on, or have a hand in writing.

(Wright is also very strong on that album - so maybe that's more of a Dave/Rick era?)

[Pingers]

Fleetwood Mac obviously. Out with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer and with them the Blues. In with Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (books about kleptomania) and a very different sound. I like aspects of both, just don't mention Tango in the Night (shit, I just mentioned it).

[Natnar]

Fleetwood Mac obviously. Out with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer and with them the Blues. In with Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (books about kleptomania) and a very different sound. I like aspects of both, just don't mention Tango in the Night (shit, I just mentioned it).

I think after Peter Green left Mick Fleetwood became the one with the real power in Fleetwood Mac, just look at recent events.

[greenman]

As I recall there was certainly a split, with Jason wanting to get more grandiose and high concept and commercial with Sonic Boom wanting to get more experimental.  They both did that with their own projects, with some success at first but they both went far too far in my opinion revisiting and wearing out the same blueprint for years: Spiritualised disappeared up their own overblown anus, whilst the EAR stuff, both live and on record, ends up unlistenable.  I know that's not Spaceman 3, but those solo projects are the effects of that change in the band.

Will Carruthers' excellent autobiog does touch on this subject.

Really though I think you can see the spilt is already mostly there by the time of Playing With Fire, it just isn't made as obvious as on the following studio album by not separating the songs to each side. Really the two of them working more closely together didn't last beyond the point were they used up their early material.

With Floyd I would say the eras were something like...

Barret - Piper
Waters and Wright - Saucerful to Ummagumma
Waters, Wright and Gilmour - Atom Heart to Darkside
Waters and Gilmour - WYWH & Animals
Waters - The Wall and Final Cut
Gilmour - Latter albums

[a duncandisorderly]

yeah I heard the Finns were pretty cool with each other but Tim was paralytic a lot.

top blokes, the both of them. the crowdies came to Mtv in november of 1993. we did this thing where a camera crew went in & out of the guitar shops in denmark street, ostensibly looking for a hired-gun guitar slinger to join the band, though we already had tim there with neil.
later, when we were de-rigging the studio at 3am & I remembered I was getting a cab home, I swiped the carpet that they'd been set up on. it's still in my home-studio.

I rate NF very highly as a singer-songwriter, but I don't think he's made a good move joining the mac.

[a duncandisorderly]

spirit springs to mind, with ferguson & andes (founding members) both quitting & leaving the band to randy california..

"After the group undertook a promotional tour to support the album Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, Ferguson and Andes left the group, forming Jo Jo Gunne. California had accused them of plotting to take over the group. Their final gig with Spirit occurred on January 30, 1970, which almost ended with a fist-fight"

but this is as nothing compared to the still-running feud between dave brock & nik turner, the latter whose nickname was hawkwind, but who cannot now trade off that name.
brock was originally just one of the songwriters, & shared vocal duties with turner, bob calvert & lemmy. but now, after fifty years, it's just brock.

[a duncandisorderly]

honorable mention for keith bailey (a top bloke, but..) who took over here & now seemingly quite forcefully.

[NoSleep]

Gong has been through quite a few changes over the years, the most notable being after Daevid Allen left for the first time in 1975 and the band produced Shamal (also promoting material from Steve Hillage's Fish Rising around the same time. Then suddenly becoming a jazz fusion band under the leadership of Pierre Moerlen to produce Gazeuse!.

Daevid Allen's first band, Soft Machine went through many changes, with no original members present by the end.