Second Wind Wonders
I’ve often wondered if the time would come when musicians would simply run out of new ideas for songs and the charts would be characterised by recycled songs from many moons ago. Now it seems my pondering may finally be leading somewhere...
Cue the mass return of supposedly ‘split’ bands, reforming for a second taste of the high life.
Let’s not be fooled though, while many musos have claimed to put artistic differences behind them for the sake of giving their fans another reason to dust down their attic collection of memorabilia, it’s more likely to be financial reasons or mid-life crises fuelling these re-formations.
I blame Take That for kicking off the trend back in 2005. At the height of their fame in the mid-nineties they sold a whopping 25 million records. However after Robbie Williams’ decision to go it alone, the four-piece didn’t survive past 1996 without their fifth jester carrying the record sales.
Fast forward a decade and while Gary Barlow may have been sitting pretty in his plush pad drinking champers on his songwriting royalties, the other three lads were languishing in the iffy world of club DJing and reality TV appearances. Now, with a sell-out tour and a lifetime’s supply of M&S undies under their belt, they’ve paved the way for other groups to hop on the reformation bandwagon. Let’s take you through the list:
Pink Floyd
First formed: 1964
Split: 1995 (with the usual continuous release of boxsets and live recordings continuing to be released after this date)
Reason for re-forming and when: Everyone digs a bit of ‘charidee’ work and Pink Floyd are no exception. It seems past squabbles were put aside in aid of a reunited front at Live 8 in 2005. “Like most people I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the third world," said Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour. Maybe their fans will see them next play at Live 9?
The Police
First formed: 1977
Split: 1986
Reason for re-forming and when: The band never officially split as such but each member decided to try the solo route, probably as a bid for the others to make a name for themselves individually rather than always be labeled as a backing act for Sting’s lead vocals. To mark their 30th anniversary, rather than buy each other pearls, they instead chose to reform for a European tour and a 30-track greatest hits album, proving there’s ‘every breath’ left in the old boys.
East 17
First formed: 1992
Split: 1999
Reason for re-forming and when: Perhaps Brian Harvey’s medical bills from running himself over in 2005 after eating too many jacket potatoes, “they were big. I put cheese on, then tuna mayonnaise and I ate the lot”, was a reason to round up the other members (Tony Mortimer and those two other guys who mimed at the back and couldn’t dance). I’ve often hoped the whole potato saga was a ludicrous publicity stunt, as rib-tickling insane as it may sound but whatever the truth may be, East 17 have made hobbled attempts at various university fresher’s balls to replay the fame game. In reality the band have failed to attract anywhere near the amount of screaming teen attention they once had.
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