Let’s discuss any and all music here. You’ve got a new artist who’s rocking your boat that you want to talk about? Post a video! Found out about that unearthed Coltrane album that has the jazz freak in you losing your mind? Lay it out for us! Do you have a theory about what your favorite band might do for their next album? Let’s hear it! Anything and everything music-related goes here.

This week’s discussion prompt: Line-up Changes

Few bands manage to maintain a consistent line-up for the duration of their existence. Moreover, personnel changes due to “creative differences”, bizarre gardening accidents* or other circumstances can occur even when a band is at the peak of their popularity and/or creativity. Sometimes these changes make little to no difference, but other times the change in a band’s sound or musical direction can be drastic. This is most obvious when the lead singer is replaced, but other changes in band membership can also have a significant impact on a band’s music.

So, tell us: Which line-up changes were for the best? Which line-up changes were for the worst? Are there any bands that you stopped listening to (or conversely, started to enjoy more) after a significant line-up change? Let us know down below!

Regarding our header image, I’ve never been a huge Van Halen fan – I think the first album rules, and then there are maybe a handful of great singles after that. But at least I can understand the appeal of the David Lee Roth era band; the Van Hagar era, on the other hand, has always struck me as bland, middle-of-the-road, safe rock music with all the edges sanded off. If anyone wants to explain the appeal of the Van Hagar era down below (or even better, if anyone wants to come to the defense of poor Gary Cherone) I’d love to hear it.

Have fun, and as always, rock out with yr guac out!

 

* In This is Spinal Tap, one of the running gags is that the band’s drummers keep dying; Spinal Tap’s first drummer, Stumpy, died in a “bizarre gardening accident”. However, this later happened in real life to Toto’s drummer Jeff Porcaro, who fell ill after spraying and accidentally inhaling insecticide in his garden in 1992 and later died of a heart attack.