13 bands who went large… after which it wasn’t enjoyable anymore

In rock mythology, success is meant to be the completely happy ending – the dream fulfilled, the champagne uncorked, the crowds roaring.

But for a lot of nice bands, that dream grew to become a slow-motion catastrophe. The similar chemistry that when sparked creativity turned poisonous underneath the load of fame, medication, ego, and exhaustion. Recording studios grew to become battlefields; excursions felt like jail sentences. Some collapsed in a haze of decadence, others underneath the chilly stress of perfectionism.

From The Beatles’ weary breakup to Fleetwood Mac’s cocaine-fuelled cleaning soap opera, from Pink Floyd’s alienation to Guns N’ Roses’ implosion, these are tales of brilliance devoured by success. The music endures – shimmering, swaggering, heartbreaking – even because the bands that made it disintegrated. Here are 13 rock teams who scaled the mountain of fame, solely to find the air on the prime was skinny, bitter, and something however enjoyable.

1. The Beatles

What started because the world’s most joyous pop phenomenon step by step become a claustrophobic stress cooker for The Beatles. By 1968, Beatlemania had curdled into exhaustion: relentless touring had ceased, however limitless enterprise wrangling, public scrutiny, and private drift created a suffocating environment. The Let It Be classes uncovered deep fractures – Paul McCartney’s perfectionism typically clashing with George Harrison’s rising frustration and John Lennon’s apathy.

Abbey Road‘s bitterness and fatigue are palpable

Meanwhile, the chaotic launch of Apple Corps and bitter disputes over administration, notably involving Allen Klein, compounded tensions. Even as they recorded Abbey Road, their remaining collaborative effort, the music retained magnificence and innovation, but the underlying bitterness and fatigue are palpable. Four mates and collaborators, as soon as inseparable, had been compelled to confront the tip of an period, making their farewell album a bittersweet coda to a shared youth, creative brilliance, and a interval of world cultural upheaval.

2. The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones’ rise from scrappy blues upstarts to the self-proclaimed “greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world” was meteoric, however the exhilaration got here with a heavy worth. Constant touring, drug busts, and the pressures of sustaining a decadent, rebellious picture step by step took their toll. The demise of founding member Brian Jones in 1969 forged an extended shadow, whereas the Altamont tragedy – the place a fan was killed at a free live performance – marked the darkish facet of their period of extra.

Altamont marked the darkish facet of the Stones’ success

By the mid-Nineteen Seventies, rampant heroin use, inside friction, and monetary mismanagement made the rock ’n’ roll dream really feel more and more nightmarish. Despite producing a few of their most iconic music throughout this era, the band’s camaraderie was by no means fairly the identical, and surviving each private demons and public scrutiny left them hardened, cautious, and profoundly modified as a unit.

3. Guns N’ Roses

Few bands captured the uncooked vitality and rebellious spirit of rock fairly like Guns N’ Roses in 1987 – and few imploded as spectacularly. The meteoric rise introduced its personal chaos: Axl Rose’s obsessive perfectionism and mercurial temperament often clashed with Slash and Duff McKagan’s drug-fueled recklessness, turning collaboration right into a minefield.

The sprawling Use Your Illusion tour grew to become emblematic of this volatility, with overlong exhibits, repeated delays, onstage walkouts, and occasional riots undermining even their most celebrated performances. Behind the scenes, lawsuits over administration disputes, missed commitments, and contractual wrangles piled up, making a authorized quagmire.

By the mid-Nineteen Nineties, Axl discovered himself remoted, the unique lineup fractured, and the band’s fame as a rock powerhouse overshadowed by chaos. What had as soon as been thrilling hazard grew to become harmful spectacle, illustrating how fame can devour the very qualities that made a band legendary.

4. Fleetwood Mac

By the time Rumours hit in 1977, Fleetwood Mac had achieved international superstardom – however private peace was elusive. Romantic entanglements abounded: Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’s fraught affair, and John and Christine McVie’s crumbling marriage, fuelled by late-night cocaine binges, made the recording studio really feel like a stress cooker.

Crumbling marriages and cocaine binges turned the recording studio right into a stress cooker

Yet out of this turmoil got here unforgettable songs of heartbreak, typically sung straight between the individuals who impressed them – ‘Go Your Own Way’ and ‘Don’t Stop’ exemplify this painful intimacy. By the time Tusk arrived in 1979, camaraderie had curdled into competitors, with band members jockeying for consideration, pushing particular person visions over collective cohesion, and generally undermining one another in refined studio battles. The ensuing rigidity formed the music, but in addition made life in Fleetwood Mac a continuing negotiation between brilliance, jealousy, and emotional fragility.

5. The Doors

The Doors’ hypnotic chemistry was inseparable from Jim Morrison’s volatility – and it finally unraveled the band. Morrison’s poetic brilliance was matched by self-destructive extra: heavy ingesting, drug use, and unpredictable behaviour grew to become routine. Live exhibits typically descended into chaos, from missed cues to onstage provocations, culminating in his notorious Miami arrest for alleged indecent publicity.

Arrests and authorized pressures piled up, straining the band’s focus and funds. Meanwhile, inside tensions mounted as Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and John Densmore struggled to rein within the frontman’s impulses. L.A. Woman provided a inventive resurgence, however Morrison quickly fled to Paris, the place he died at 27. The Doors’ story reads like a Greek tragedy: extraordinary expertise burning too brightly and too quick, leaving a legacy of transcendent music shadowed by turmoil, authorized battles, and a way of potential without end unfulfilled.

6. Pink Floyd

By the late Nineteen Seventies, Pink Floyd’s journey from psychedelic experimentation to international superstardom got here with a heavy emotional toll. Roger Waters’ growing dominance over songwriting and course, mixed with the isolating pressures of fame, created a joyless, tense environment. The band’s camaraderie eroded as inventive selections grew to become unilateral, turning collaboration into negotiation.

Recording The Wall almost destroyed the band

The Wall crystallised this alienation: its sprawling narrative of isolation, fame, and psychological partitions mirrored Waters’ personal emotional distance. Recording it almost destroyed the band; David Gilmour bristled at Waters’ management, Rick Wright was successfully pushed out, and Nick Mason struggled to keep up his position.

The democratic spirit that had as soon as outlined Floyd dissolved underneath the load of ambition and paranoia. By the time the wall ‘fell’, the band’s friendships had been fractured, leaving a musical masterpiece born of genius, battle, and the price of towering ambition.

7. The Who

The Who’s explosive vitality – all windmilling guitars, smashed devices, and onstage fury – hid rising fractures beneath the floor. Pete Townshend’s ambitions to raise rock right into a critical artwork type with sprawling idea works like Tommy and Quadrophenia typically clashed with the band’s primal energy. Roger Daltrey pushed for visceral immediacy, whereas John Entwistle and Keith Moon thrived on chaos, not introspection. Moon’s more and more erratic habits, fueled by alcohol, capsules, and sheer exhaustion, made touring of venture – he may play brilliantly one evening, collapse the following.

By the mid-Nineteen Seventies, Townshend had grown weary of fame’s equipment. He noticed the music business as corrupt and hole, haunted by the sense that rock’s youthful idealism had curdled into routine spectacle. Moon’s tragic demise in 1978 from an overdose of prescription sedatives ended not simply an period however a way of goal. The Who stored going, however the pleasure – and hazard – that when outlined them was gone.

8. Van Halen

Van Halen as soon as outlined the sound of unfiltered, hedonistic pleasure – that blend of California sunshine, pyrotechnic guitar wizardry, and grinning extra. David Lee Roth’s strutting charisma turned each gig right into a circus, whereas Eddie Van Halen’s jaw-dropping guitar work rewrote rock approach. Onstage, they appeared unstoppable; offstage, they might barely stand one another. Roth mocked Eddie’s seriousness and classical leanings, whereas Eddie bristled at Roth’s ego and limitless want for consideration.

Eddie constructed his own residence studio to flee Roth’s interference

Tensions got here to a head in the course of the recording of 1984, when inventive management battles spilled into open warfare – Eddie constructed his own residence studio to flee Roth’s interference. After the album’s huge success, Roth give up (or was fired, relying on who’s telling it). The Sammy Hagar years introduced chart-topping albums however much less hazard, and by the late Nineteen Nineties, revolving singers and bitter feuds made Van Halen really feel extra company than chaotic. The fun-loving kings of extra had partied themselves into burnout.

9. Kiss

Kiss’s ascent was pure theatre – 4 masked characters respiratory fireplace, spitting blood, and turning enviornment rock right into a comic-book spectacle. Their mixture of arduous riffs and cartoonish showmanship made them international icons, and the merchandising machine quickly rivalled the music itself. But by the late ’70s, the fantasy was collapsing underneath its personal weight.

Each member launched a solo album in 1978, an indication of egos pulling in numerous instructions, and the large Dynasty and Unmasked excursions grew to become bloated affairs – overloaded with props, costumes, and personnel, however missing the uncooked starvation of their early days.

Ace Frehley spiraled into alcohol and drug abuse, more and more alienated from the band’s industrial focus, whereas Peter Criss’ erratic habits and unreliability onstage made him a legal responsibility. Both had been passed by the early ’80s, leaving Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley to steer Kiss as extra of a model than a band. The spectacle endured, however the soul received misplaced within the smoke.

10. Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath turned heaviness into a faith – however the toll was immense. In the early ’70s, their relentless touring schedule had them taking part in tons of of exhibits a yr, typically with no relaxation between continents. The fixed grind left them bodily and mentally wrecked, fueling a reliance on alcohol and cocaine simply to maintain going. Recording classes descended into fogs of extra: riffs hammered out at 4am, songs forgotten by morning.

Riffs had been hammered out at 4am… and forgotten by morning

Ozzy Osbourne, as soon as the charismatic frontman holding all of it collectively, grew to become more and more erratic. His substance abuse spiraled uncontrolled, and by 1979, his bandmates – themselves deep in habit – made the agonizing resolution to fireside him. Without Ozzy’s manic vitality and Tony Iommi’s grim precision completely balanced, one thing important cracked. Later lineups produced strong music, however the authentic alchemy was gone. What started as cathartic darkness turned inward, consuming the unity that had as soon as made Sabbath unstoppable.

11. The Police

The Police rose quicker than virtually any band of their period – three gifted musicians who fused punk’s urgency with reggae’s rhythm and pop’s polish. But by Synchronicity (1983), that brilliance had curdled into rigidity. Sting’s more and more assertive songwriting – glossy, cerebral, and sometimes solo-driven – left Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland sidelined. Sting would arrive with almost completed demos, dictating preparations, whereas Copeland’s and Summers’ contributions had been minimized or dismissed.

They needed to do their takes individually to stop fights

Recording classes at Montserrat’s AIR Studios grew to become infamously unstable. Sting and Copeland clashed so fiercely that producer Hugh Padgham reportedly needed to separate their drum and vocal takes to stop fights. The band communicated by way of engineers greater than phrases. On tour, the dynamic was no higher – arguments flared backstage and even on stage. By their remaining live shows in 1984, they had been barely talking. They give up earlier than collapse, abandoning luminous perfection constructed on insufferable friction – music’s most elegant implosion.

12. Cream

Cream’s transient however good existence was outlined as a lot by battle as by virtuosity. Eric Clapton pursued blues-drenched guitar mastery, favouring prolonged solos and emotional nuance. Jack Bruce, the band’s bassist and singer, leaned towards complicated jazz-inflected harmonies and bold compositional buildings. Ginger Baker, in the meantime, drove rhythmically explosive, polyrhythmic drums, typically pushing quantity and depth to extremes.

Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce almost got here to blows

From the beginning, these robust personalities collided. During dwell exhibits, prolonged jams generally grew to become battles for dominance – Clapton vs. Baker specifically over rhythmic house, Bruce typically mediating or asserting his personal harmonic imaginative and prescient. Offstage, tempers flared over setlists, solos, and songwriting credit. One notorious incident had Baker and Bruce almost coming to blows throughout rehearsals. Tours had been punishing bodily and emotionally. By 1968, the trio agreed to half methods. Cream’s genius lay on this flamable mixture: virtuosity magnified by rivalry, brilliance burned scorching and quick, inconceivable to maintain.

13. The Sex Pistols

For a band that lasted barely two years, the Sex Pistols’ implosion is known. From the beginning, Malcolm McLaren manipulated the band’s chaos into publicity, pitting Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Sid Vicious towards one another to intensify drama. Infighting and clashing egos had been fixed, exacerbated by drug use – particularly Vicious’ descent into heroin.

Their 1978 U.S. tour was a spectacle of missed flights, hostile audiences, and onstage antics, with fights spilling into resort rooms and media reviews. Sid’s eventual arrest and tragic demise marked the definitive finish. What started as youthful revolt grew to become a real-life horror present, a cautionary story of how punk’s anarchic beliefs may devour the very individuals who embodied them. The Pistols’ story is shorthand for rock’s self-destructive potential – iconic, notorious, and unforgettable.

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