Supergroups that succeeded...

A quote from Ivan, "Ok, but remember supergroups almost never work."

Sometimes they do. What SUPERGROUP(s) have been successful?

U.K. was one. I have heard some comments/posts saying this unit was over-rated. Fair enough, they're opinions. Personally I have found this album to contain some of my favorite moments in progressive rock; power vocals; roto toms from hell, great instrumental trade-offs, poly rhythms, jaw dropping guitar.....

ELP is a supergroup and I believe some could say the 73/74 era King Crimson was as well.

What SUPERGROUPS were successful?

Anyone citing GTR and or Asia may take some flak..... I own both, so I won't throw stones.   

Edited by diddy

Well I think ELP were pretty darn successful.. in other ways besides record sales.  For one thing, regardless of good or bad publicity.. they still seem to get a lot of it.

Which is the way to consider a supergroup successful? Record sales or musical quality? Asia sales very well even now (sorry Danbo  ), but its music -as well as most supergroups- is poor (I say poor respecting fans, but for me is terrible). 

ELP and UK were the only prog supergroups that really 'worked'.So the interesting question to me is why did so many fail? I suspect one reason is that supergroups are formed on the basis of reputations and not for artistic reasons. Keith Emerson needed to work with other people who could understand what he was trying to do in music.Greg Lake was not so well known at the time but Emerson could see the possibilities that working with him could bring.Famously they tried to get Hendrix involved (along with Mitch Mitchell) but instead they recruited the best young drummer around (not necessarily the one with the biggest reputation).So ELP was not just 3 random musicians who stumbled upon each other.

ELP were a hard act to follow.Ironically UK in their second incarnation mimicked the ELP 3 peice set up of bass drums and keyboards and made no secret of their desire to be ELP!

 

 

Marcelo wrote: Which is the way to consider a supergroup successful? Record sales or musical quality?

Ooooppps, Maybe relevant or meaningful would have been a better term. Record sales don't mean much....IMHO.  

Yes did turn into some kind of 'supergroup' when they got Wakeman and Howe in the band. And did it work? Well, not too many of you would say 'NO!', don't you?

Recently, I thought the OSI album was really worthwhile, I liked it even more than most Dream Theater stuff.

 

I guess again some explanation/definition has to be put up, this time for the term "Supergroup". There is confusion out there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It used to mean a group made up of parts of other 'successful' ( 'well known'?) groups.

I guess the first supergroup was successful was put together by Al Kooper for the Supersession album (remastered/reissued last year), members comprising:  Kooper (ex. Blues Project, BST), Mike Bloomfield (ex. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, also one of Dylan's early electric backing band ) and Steve Stills (until then Buffalo Springfield). Cream strictly weren't a supergroup but their (and Traffic/Family) spin-off, Blind Faith would qualify and certainly sold as such. Krimson until Bruford/Wetton arrived were super but not a supergroup. UK was a supergroup because of the various band members' antecedents. And Transatlantic (loathed as am I to admit it) are one form of supergroup.  Bodast, Mabel Greer's Toyshop, Tomorrow, and the Strawbs in  electric folk mode, don't strike me as  successful anteceding bands.

Just to add another point about ELP that I didn't make before.There was a natural hiearchy in the band:

Keith Emerson - 26 years old at time of forming ELP.Biggest reputation.

Greg Lake - 24 years old -up and coming musician

Carl Palmer - 20 years old -'the baby'

There's no doubt in my mind that Keith Emerson ruled the band in the early days (Although I expect Three Fates may well disagree with me!).The first album is a 'keyboard wonderland'.The second album (Tarkus) was still very much Emerson's 'Baby' and Greg Lake even threatened to walk out because he thought Tarkus was an Emerson solo peice.The reason he didn't is that he isn't stupid! Lake knew that Emerson was one of the major talents in rock music and ELP as a band very much rode on that. Gradually ELP became more of an 'ensemble' and the band forged their best music on Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery. Anyway sorry if this has turned into a potted ELP bio ,but basically my point is that ELP developed as a band because the there was a leader (at least intitially) and so a natural hiearchy in the band in the earlier years.Most supergroups just start out a battle of egos and so never really develop 'organically'.They are doomed to failure! 

Edited by richardh

Dick Heath wrote: A couple of those solos albums by Jeff Berlin, e.g. Champion, had some interesting line-ups.

Interesting line-up with mediocre tunes and pop-jazz production. I was disappointed... it sounded like a group of uninspired studio guys with one hyper-busy bassist playing fast without any emotion whatsoever. Sad.

What about BRUFORD? That was defintely a supergroup: Dave Stewart from Hatfield and National Health, Allan Holdsworth with Gong/Lifetime/Soft Machine cred, ubber bassist Jeff Berlin and Bill (Yes/KC) Bruford. "One of a Kind" still stands as Jazz-Rock Fusion masterpiece.