Was reading some reviews of the late '60s Monkees albums at Amazon, and one collector had a very interesting take on them ~ he was a huge fan of the "dangling by a thread" albums made by bands who were about to split up, or should have split up but kept going. Recordings done after a main member had left the group. The Monkees' Changes, the post-Morrison Doors albums, The Lovin' Spoonful's Revelation/Revolution '69, BTO's post-Bachman albums ...

Do you have a special fondness for any albums of this sort?

not necessarily a fondness for any of them, but the following definitely made a huge difference (some good, some bad , some just different) in their respective bands:

journey without steve perry immediately came to mind for me.

fleetwood mac without christine mcvie.

chicago without terry kath is a completely different band than with him.

doobie brothers without michale mcdonald.

genesis without peter gabriel.=====genesis without phil collins.

renny

I don't think I have any such titles other than "Revelation/Revolution '69", which sports a great cover and is hilariously pretentious, quite a left turn from the jug band days! But being a Monkees fan, I want a complete run there, too.

The Who:
"Face Dances" - which I like a lot as an album if not necc as a "Who" album
'Its Hard" -- which I recall not liking very much - although I always think of picking it up again to be sure
"Endless Wire" - IMO a total sad affair, particularly the limited edition version.

Much as I love and admire Joe Strummer, Cut the Crap was a "Clash" album that probably was best left unreleased.

After Prince's name was replaced by a symbol, he was never the same...

I tend to look at the Doobies in the opposite way. After Tom Johnston was a bummer for me. McDonald made them an MOR act.

Supertramp has released some fine albums since Roger Hodgson's departure, particularly Brother Where You Bound and Some Things Never Change. Free As A Bird has its moments, too, but is weaker overall.

I've long been a fan of "Revelation: Revolution '69", although it has never fit in well with the rest of the Spoonful catalog. "Never Going Back" is a great song. The Who's entire post-Moon output should have a gigantic asterisk next to it. As for the Monkees...the loss of Peter Tork was hardly catastrophic. Their last three albums contained scattered Tork-era outtakes, and "Instant Replay" and "The Monkees Present" included some of Nesmith's strongest (and essentially solo) material. "Listen To The Band" is another great song.

Something about the Rolling Stones changed after Brian Jones died, but I've never been able to put a finger on what it was exactly.

Billy, while I agree with you, I was going to ask Renny about this. He didn't really say "better" or "worse", he just said "different". I suspect he may agree, too, but let's let him say that if he wants to...

I really enjoy all of the Doobie albums up through Stampede. Michael McDonald, while a great musician in his way, really did change the direction of the Doobie Brothers, and, IMHO, not for the better.

I've got an unbootlegged, pre-fucked-with-by-Bernie Rhodes version of this album (from Joe!) and it's pretty good, actually - better than "Combat Rock" as a whole. But yeah, that version should never have come out in the form it did. Joe thought so too.

Wow... that would truly be a holy grail for me! I listen to the bootlegs from that 84-85 tour all the time just to hear Ready For War and Dictator in listenable form. An unreleased Clash album better than Combat Rock? Too cool. Hopefully that'll come out some day.

I thought I remembered that, but I wasn't sure.

I had no idea there was an earlier version. Maybe someday we'll get parts on a retrospective.

Let's not forget "Time" from 1991, which was missing Buckingham and Nicks but included McVie. That was the album they brought in Dave Mason, and Becca Bramlett.

Styx comes to mind for me, no Dennis DeYoung...no Styx!
Same with Foreigner. After Lou Gramm left in '91, Mick Jones brought in Johnathan Edwards, and the album tanked. (Whatever became of that guy?)

Jeff

I'll defer to Renny's Chicago opinion, but I'll add that Chicago was probably THREE bands - Kath-era, post-Kath, and post-David Foster. I just skimmed an article in the new Bass Player w/Peter Cetera, and he indicated that Foster's involvement took the band in a new direction.

The Velvet Underground w/o Lou Reed
Marshall Tucker Band w/o Toy Caldwell
Blues Image w/o Mike Pinera
It's A Beautiful Day w/o David LaFlamme
Iron Butterfly w/o Doug Ingle

I love Canned Heat - but without Alan Wilson, Bob Hite or Henry Vestine - they should go by the name the Canned Heat Blues Band (as one of their releases was titled)

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band reunited a year or so ago - only problem is Alex has been dead for nearly 25 years.

Little Feat without Lowell George is truely a little feat.

I doubt it; ex-manager Bernie Rhodes has them (if they still exist, what I got from Joe was dubbed from a cassette copy he had - not bad sounding but it would be a rugh sounding CD.) Bernie's got three or four albums that have never been released - some of them are quite legendary (like the Subway Sect album) but he won't hear of their release or even sell them to the artists, no matter what. Vic Godard rerecorded the Subway Sect album this year (which is great; would have been one of the early punk classics) after trying for 20+ years to get even a listenable copy from Bernie. A pity.

But, Joe regretted making the album in the first place and would probably not wish for even the "good" version to come out, since he saw the project as a betrayal of the Clash as Mick, Paul, Topper and himself. At least that's how he felt when we discussed it, a couple of years before he passed away. On the other hand, he did make copies of it for people!

I STRONGLY agree with the above-stated opinions about Chicago (after Terry Kath) and the Doobie Brothers (after Tom Johnston).

IMO the doobie brothesr are 2 completely different bands, the one with mcdonald and the one without him.

i happen to like both of them for what they are, but i can see how fans of the original doobies would not like the mcdonald version.

hell, i really like the albums when mcdonald left, and i don't think very many people have even heard them.

renny

p.s. looking back on my post, i guess you could say i really think a lot of patrick simmons.

i actually saw that version of the mac in concert, they opened for CSN, and christine mcvie did not tour with them, she only played on the album. they were OK, but nothing to write home about..