Is it better to burn out or to fade away?

Music history is filled with mysterious and untimely deaths, bust ups and breakdowns that have stolen musical gems from the public domain. Big questions were left unanswered; was the next Nirvana album going to be full of emotional ballads? Would the Stone Roses have recorded their next album in under seven years?

Occasionally one great band can give rise to others but all too often the progeny are sad listless rehashes of the originators. So lets cast those weary, Friday, TLOBF, eyes, over the dissolution of some of our favourites.

Lets start with one that everyone can relate to, Nirvana. Nevermind defined the early nineties angst ridden USA and was the torch bearer for the Grunge movement. There was also the excellent MTV Unplugged set and a whole catalogue of outstanding live performances. Kurt’s suicide in the wake of In Utero shattered many fans hopes and dreams, but I have the sneaking suspicion that Nirvana were on the wane. I found In Utero patchy and with Kurts alleged increasing drug abuse then I can’t imagine that any later material would have decorated their legacy.

David Grohl has done OK for himself of late but the Foo Fighters are a fine example of bands out staying their welcome. Their debut was good and The Colour and The Shape was better but correct me if I am wrong, haven’t the FF’s released the same album over and again for the last 5 years? I will, however, commend them for their invariably great singles and some pretty good videos to boot.

Should Hole and Courtney Love also be considered as a spin off from the Nirvana legacy? Certainly she wouldn’t have enjoyed half the popularity without her more famous partner, but Hole had their moments. Live Through This, (perhaps Kurt’s greatest song writing achievement ???) is filled with enough bile and rage to make your ears vomit at the sound. More latterly Hole seem to have expired and Miss Love gave the world America’s Sweetheart. A commendable effort for such a self destructive individual.

Stone Roses, never one of my favourite acts, but by God did they have some danceable tunes. It took seven years to make the Second Coming and then they just fell apart. I saw their performance at Reading festival in 1996 and it was woeful. Good job they finished when they did. That was the beginning of the individual fragments: The Seahorses…….The Shirehorses(!) and of course an occasionally brilliant but usually average solo career from Ian Brown.

Sticking with those Northern Scallies, wouldn’t it have been much better for all involved if Noel and Liam had knocked seven bells out of each other and ended the misery that is Oasis’ career. Come to think of it, if they had done that after Definetely Maybe then the world would have been a better place. And what of the Verve? They knocked their burgeoning popularity on the head by splitting in the wake of the anthemic Urban Hymns. I still think A Northern Soul is perhaps one of the greatest albums of the 90′s, but Dickie Ashcroft has continued on his cosmic quest with a few stodgy solo albums, so it will be interesting to see if the spark can be reignited.

This year has been a bad one for me, three of my top bands have all quietly slipped off the radar. The Cooper Temple Clause probably left it an album too late before they split (although “Homosapiens” on Make This Your Own is brilliant). Scottish quiet/loud merchants Aereogramme have left a massive hole in my music loving heart which will be difficult to fill, their back catalogue is well worth visiting and I will rue the fact that I never got to see them live. Likewise Your Codename is: Milo, had perennial struggles just to get their music to an audience and it finally took its toll when they called it a day earlier this year. It could be argued that their later work lacked the immediacy of their debut, but All roads To Fault was always going to be difficult to topple.

So back to the inspiration for the article, The Libertines. I for one hope they don’t reform. Pete Doherty is infamous for all the wrong reasons. I would bet that any given reader of OK Magazine or the Daily Star couldn’t actually name his current or previous band. What the Libertines achieved in the short career was the perfect distillation of early 00’s Great Britain and should, rightly, be celebrated. But it had a shelf life and by burning out in such a short time they have preserved an enigma. Babyshambles and Dirty Pretty Things both do enough to satisfy the IndieKids of today but they probably don’t match the sharp song smithery of their origins.

As for todays crop? You wonder whether Arctic Monkeys will reinvent themselves or whether so much at such a young age will see them burn out. Have the Editors shot their bolt? Will Gorillaz stay relevant? Will Amy Winehouse be able to find the recording studio to make another album? Can Maximo Park make a record that doesn’t sound like A Certain Trigger? And will someone do the honourable thing and stop Razorlight.