Miser

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIwkFNxj5qU803iy7Vtw-6VPkDCc2wmHL

They put out one album and I love it. They don't seem to be interested in doing another one.

Memento

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbsObMjR8kdheo0ECRmB6v0i7ZLfodIeT

I found them years after they broke up and am sad. Love this album.

Not very well known, but Darcy Clay, a singer from New Zealand who only released a 6 track EP before taking his own life. His music reminds me a lot of early Beck. It would have been great to hear what he could have done.

Also My Red Cell, a Welsh (I think) punk band that released one album almost 20 years ago. I really liked them as a teenager, but they never took off.

Foreground Eclipse, easily the best screamo (maybe?? i dont know music words) band I've ever listened to. Bands like katikatiyama and Shinigiwa Satellite (some members of which became the aforementioned KKY) fill that void, I'll never get over the sheer mastery of mixing screaming and clean vocals.

Probably not very well known compared to others I see here, but I was a huge fan of the band Girls when they released there first album in 2009, an EP in 2010, and finally the last album in 2011. I got to see them play either in 2011 or 2012 which I am still happy I did to this day. They broke up in 2012 after playing a festival and that was it. From my understanding the lead singer didn't want to continue and then pursued another project a few years later, which was absolutely awful if you ask me. He also was known to get into bad patches of drug use and dissappear for periods of time. In 2020 his long time friend and band member of Girls died. He had another side project that didn't take off (but does sound better than the first) and now I have no idea what he is doing. At this point I doubt the band will ever get back together from the sounds of it, especially since one of the members died.

Acid Bath. Their bassist died in a car accident after they released two of the best, most unique metal albums of all time imo. I still listen to them regularly. Sammy went on to do Goatwhore. The vocalist had other projects I wasn't fond of. But still one of the best bands of all time for me.

Dry Cell 😥 They tried to renegotiate their record deal with Warner Records and never recovered

https://youtu.be/odx2_KdUI6Y

DRAIN (DRAIN STH in the US). Their singer quit after 2 albums. Excerpt from https://blabbermouth.net/news/former-drain-sth-drummer-martina-axen-featured-in-new-zinny-zan-music-video

In a 2008 interview with Autona magazine, Axén stated about DRAIN STH's decision to call it quits after only two albums: "Well, one of the reasons was that our singer decided to quit the band and the music business overall. We could have continued with somebody else singing, but were stuck in such bad deals with the record label that, basically, it seemed useless to keep on going. To get out of the deals, even after she quit, we had to sign a contract that we could not play together more than two of us at a time in any constellation (within five years) without the label considering it to be 'DRAIN,' meaning we would still be signed with them. It was unbelievable, because by then, Flavia [Canel, guitar] had already given up and quit too, and the label still wouldn't let me and the bass player [Anna Kjellberg] go, saying that they considered us being the main songwriters. So me and the bass player signed the papers, got two tickets to Los Angeles the day after, and never went back."

Eighty-five comments in and no one has mentioned Necrophagist.

Stabwoueeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrerd!

The Civil Wars. Apparently, they has a falling out and split up. Too bad, both are very talented.

Black Country, New Road. The lead singer had some mental health issues and quit the band. They said they are going to keep going, so it's not completely lost yet. I'm holding out hope.

I've got two nominations, in very divergent tastes -

Zeigeist - a fun pop electronica art project that was intended as a one-and-done experimental piece. Obviously, shut down as intended - after producing one of my all-time favourite albums.

World/Inferno Friendship Society - sure they were around for a while and pumped out a lot of albums, but it's also felt like they were just on the cusp of breaking through and getting the acclaim they deserved, at any given moment, with each new release. ... Jack Terricloth died in 2021, and while revival & tribute projects are ongoing, the band will have died with him.

I felt like the first line up of Public Image Limited that split up after Metal Box could have done at least one more great album with Wobble's bass and Levene's guitar - instead it all fell apart after that and became the John Lydon show.

The Manic Street Preachers had just hit their stride with The Holy Bible album when Richey Edwards disappeared. It was devastating all round when he went. They did great stuff after but I always wondered what direction they would have gone in if he had still been with them because his lyrics were the ones I found most interesting

Definitely Pretty Vicious for me. British rock group, dropped like 2 EPs and an album before breaking up, I believe due to health reasons.

Definitely Pretty Vicious for me. British rock group, dropped like 2 EPs and an album before breaking up, I believe due to health reasons.

Gospel. They released an absolutely legendary prog/screamo record in 2005 called "the moon is a dead world" and then just disappeared (though they actually did release a followup last year but after a 17 year hiatus they might as well have been dead)

Honorable mention: Weakling. Birth of American black metal, released "dead as dreams" and I don't think ever played a show

Thanks for this - brings back the memories. Along the vein of Joy Division, I've always been a fan of Love and Rockets, and when I went to look them up it turns out they just got the band back together again. Likewise with Bahaus.

So for the purposes of this post, I'm gonna nominate King Missile... they could have been the next Ween.

Fair to Midland. 2 albums and called it quits unfortunately. Hell of a live show. Lead singer never went on to another project either.

Hail Of Bullets

Might be a bit on the Zoomery side of cultural conversation compared to the rest of this thread, but the duo Her’s were tragically killed in a road accident while on tour in the US. They made songs that were cheesy but still emotionally resonant, which is a hard balance to hit.

Their music would blow up even more online in the years following their death, I know there was a lot of of TikTok buzz around them during the pandemic, when a bunch of bedroom pop artists were gaining a ton of traction. While I hate that platform, it can be pretty good for promoting music naturally when people aren’t gaming the system (which they’re doing all the time - fuck TikTok). I think some of their famous songs are still considered TikTok clichés, but I wouldn’t really know.

I didn’t even know they were dead until this year.

There’s always this conspiracy of labels preferring to promote artists who are dead because they can pocket more money from dead artists, and I think about that when one of their songs pop up.

Machines of Loving Grace released three really good albums from 1991-1995 (and had a good song on the soundtrack to The Crow), and then just stopped while working on their fourth. The lead singer now teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.

The Knack - bangin hit, and couldn't handle the first month of tour together. Broke up.

Fully expecting no one in this thread to ever have heard of them: Made in heights Love their music. Unfortunately the duo got into a nasty fight about rights and royalties and split up. They're only really available on YouTube anymore.

Hers.

Grateful Dead. Sure we have Dead & Co. but they are no Grateful Dead.

Propellerheads - one excellent album in the 90s, one of the most iconic songs in The Matrix (the lobby scene), and then nothing.

Not a band, but Chris Cornell ...Temple of the dog, Soundgarden, Audioslave...