Which is worse? Being part of one of "the 10 messiest band breakups" or learning your group
is ending via fax? Stay tuned to find out how some of your favorite ‘80s bands came to an end.
The Clash was a true punk band. Their unpolished look was in direct opposition to the glitz of MTV,
they never held back with their political lyrics,
and they had the punk rock sound to back it up. From "White Riot" to "London Calling,"
they achieved mainstream success with a style that was firmly anti-establishment.
In 1985, the band released what would be its final album: "Cut the Crap." Two key members of the band
were already gone: the drummer, Topper Headon, and one of the frontmen, Mick Jones. Alongside Joe
Strummer, Jones had written and sung many of The Clash's hits. Reasons for Jones' departure vary,
but both personality and creative conflicts seem to have driven Jones and Strummer apart.
Parts of "Cut the Crap" are painfully disjointed and overproduced,
despite Strummer's stated desire to strip their sound back to basics.
After "Cut the Crap," the band fully broke up, and never reunited.
In 2013, Rolling Stone ranked the breakup of the rock band Guns N' Roses as one of "the 10 messiest
band breakups." Like The Clash, their demise was brought on by the exit of key band members.
Only a few years after their massive success with 1987's "Appetite for Destruction," conflicts
started between the band members. They got rid of drummer Steven Adler due to his drug problems,
and the feud between frontman Axl Rose and lead guitarist Slash worsened.
It's difficult to piece together what the exact cause of the split was, as Slash and Duff McKagan
describe one version of events which paints Rose as difficult and controlling,
and Rose has stated it would be hard to tell his story without, quote,
"being negative to everybody else and calling them a liar."
Regardless of the exact details of their disagreement,
this personality clash forced the band apart in 1993. In 2016,
Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan reunited for a tour after two decades apart. They remain in
the current lineup, and in August 2021, the band announced a new song titled "ABSUЯD."
Time Magazine describes the Pixies as having, quote, "a demented,
dreamy surf-punk sound" combined with "irreverent and sometimes morbid lyrics" that were a major
influence on 1990s alt rock. Kurt Cobain said that their album "Surfer Rosa" changed his life.
However, like many bands, the Pixies got more stressed and fought more the bigger they got.
In 1993, less than ten years after the band was formed,
lead singer Black Francis announced their breakup on the radio — before telling his
bandmates. Reportedly, he called guitarist Joey Santiago after getting off the air
but only informed bassist and songwriter Kim Deal and their drummer David Lovering via fax.
Black Francis later said,
"We could've survived if we could've just stopped the train and taken a f---ing vacation."
The Waitresses were a band invented exclusively for the single "I Know
What Boys Like." When it came time to follow it up, they struggled.
As explained by "One Hit Wonderland," songwriter and guitarist Chris Butler came up with the snarky
song while working with another band and got his friend Patty Donahue to sing lead
vocals. The song charted, but the rest of the album went mostly unnoticed. After touring,
Butler and Donahue's relationship became strained, and that was it for the Waitresses.
Despite the difficulty the band had building a career off of "I Know What Boys Like,"
the band has another song that has ultimately become more popular since their breakup
and is probably even better known than their hit single. According to Butler,
the label asked them to record a Christmas song, and they "threw together" the song
"Christmas Wrapping" as a favor to the label. The upbeat song about an adult's
complex relationship with Christmas continues to play on the radio every holiday season.
In 1988, INXS reached No. 1 with their single "Need You Tonight,"
a far more electronic, synth-y track than the New Wave alt band had ever released before.
The following album, "Kick," sold more than 10 million copies.
Tragically, though, in 1997, their 37-year-old frontman Michael Hutchence died unexpectedly.
The band waited 15 years to officially break up, but things were never the same without Hutchence.
Founding member John Farriss said,
"We lived for each other in the trenches and we loved each other.
"It was the six of us against the world and then suddenly
and inexplicably we were but five. We were lost right at the moment we were on top."
"Like one minute we were rehearsing playing music with Michael, and then a few days later we were
in the same room - the gear's gone - and we're rehearsing carrying his coffin."
Synth-pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood topped the charts with their first two singles,
"Two Tribes" and "Relax." They were as controversial as they were popular.
According to The Guardian, the BBC banned the playing of "Relax" on the radio and the showing
of the queer-coded music video on TV. If anything, the controversy helped the band even more.
Behind the scenes, though, there were tensions between the members. According to Past Daily,
an actual fight broke out backstage between frontman Holly Johnson and bass player Mark
O'Toole. When their second album was less successful, Johnson decided to leave the band.
According to Holly Johnson, though, leaving the hit band was harder than it seemed. Rather than
let Johnson move on, their label took him to court to try to prevent him from working with
anyone else. The legal battle took two years, but ultimately the judge sided with Johnson.
In the 1970s, the band Styx had many soft rock/prog rock hits like "Come Sail Away," but
they had also found success with concept albums like "The Grand Illusion" and "Paradise Theatre."
By the '80s, though, the public had had enough of concept albums — and even Kiss' popularity
took a huge hit after releasing a concept album. The members of Styx agreed that it was time to
leave concept albums behind — except for singer, keyboardist, and lead songwriter Dennis DeYoung.
DeYoung pushed an idea for a concept album called "Killroy was Here." While the album,
and especially its lead single "Mr. Roboto," did well, the rest of the band didn't like
writing songs about robots or having to perform an elaborate performance onstage
telling the complex dystopian sci fi story that DeYoung forced them into.
So despite the album's success — or rather because of it — the band broke up.
Berlin was known for singles like "The Metro" and "No More Words"
and was tremendously influential in the '80s. Lead singer Terri Nunn stated,
"When we started there wasn't anyone else in America making electronic music.
It was all punk and power pop."
And then things went sideways. In 1986, producer Giorgio Moroder convinced
Nunn and the band to record "Take My Breath Away" for the "Top Gun" soundtrack.
The song was an enormous success and made Berlin internationally known.
Behind the scenes, there was already tension within the band,
but the overnight success pushed them apart. The rest of Berlin
resented that their biggest hit was a song they hadn't written. Nunn said,
"We fought about that, then we fought about the fact we
had to play it in concerts [...] we were just fighting to fight."
Within a year, the band had broken up.
The Police released five albums in their first six years, all of which
featured songs that would become classics. However, the conflicts between band members
were fairly public from the beginning. Behind the scenes, the relationships between frontman Sting,
guitarist Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland were more and more strained.
As Sting took creative control in The Police, the rest of the band got increasingly frustrated,
and in 1984, the band officially split. They eventually reunited for their induction into
the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and had a reunion tour after the 2007 Grammy Awards.
"The Police have broken up. Can you confirm that?" "It's outrageous! I wonder if it's true?!"
The Smiths blended Morrisey's morose, poetic lyrics with Johnny Marr's
innovative and delicate music. The two intense creative forces
within the band created a sound that was incredibly influential.
But Morrisey and Marr began to clash. After Morrisey insisted they fire their manager,
Marr was forced to fill the role of manager as well as lead guitarist.
Meanwhile, Morrisey began taking more creative control of the group. Marr told The Guardian,
"It's what split the band up. To this day I haven't met anyone who thinks a
major rock group should be managed by the 23-year-old guitar player."
The Smiths attempted to replace Marr after he quit the band, even going so far as to bring
another guitarist into the studio, they were never able to release any new songs.
Wham! was a two-man band — George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. For five years,
the pop duo had chart-topping hits like "Careless Whisper"
and "Wake Me up Before You Go-Go." They sold around 28 million records.
When the band broke up, the press, fans, and even the label believed it was because the two
childhood friends had fallen out. According to Michael, though, that was never the case.
Michael has assured fans that there was no bad blood between him and Ridgeley at all,
calling it, quote, "the most amicable split in pop history."
In truth, Michael had decided it was time to move on from the teen pop songs that
made Wham! a success. He wanted to make more mature music for adults,
and for him that meant a solo career — one that went very, very well indeed.
["We, Wham! Being a representation of our youth [...] was never going to
last into, into adulthood proper."
Formed in 1980, British new wave group Haircut 100 was almost an instant success,
becoming massive pop stars in Europe and the UK in their first year.
But just four years later, the band had broken up.
In an interview with "The Wright Stuff," former frontman Nick Heyward claimed that one
source of conflict was that he was making more money than the other
members of the band because he was the songwriter.
"That was where the tension started with the band. That's why we fell
apart [...] I wasn't the popular guy. I left because I was ganged up on."
On VH1, former bandmates stated that Heyward felt threatened, and that it was the singer's,
quote, "mental anguish" that ultimately drove them apart. Ultimately, all the bandmates got
back together in 2004 for the VH1 series "Band's Reunited," where they played their
hits "Love Plus One" and "Fantastic Day" again for the first time since the split.
Probably best known for their No. 1 hit "Don't You
Want Me," post-punk synthpop group the Human League was extremely influential,
encapsulating the sound of the '80s and influencing many artists in following decades.
Despite their many hits in the early '80s, their album "Hysteria" was far
less popular. In order to make another album — "Crash" – the label suggested new producers:
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. It was a disaster. After nonstop infighting,
the band left their producers to finish the album alone. While the first single still charted at
No. 1, an interview with Melody Maker at the time shows the fraught relationship the band had
with the album. When lead vocalist Philip Oakey was asked if he liked the album, he responded:
"We took two years to write six songs,
and that means, if we hated this LP [...] We'd have to put it out anyway."
The Human League did not officially break up and continued to release some songs in the U.K.,
but they never charted in the United States again.
Van Halen's singer David Lee Roth and guitarist and songwriter Eddie Van Halen
had worked together to record chart-topping glam metal rock songs like "Jump" and "Panama,"
but the two had different goals for the band. Roth wanted to be the biggest band in the world,
while Eddie wanted to mix it up artistically.
Tensions escalated within the band about the direction they should take the music,
forcing members into two clear camps: Eddie and engineer Donn Landee in one
and Roth and producer Ted Templeman in the other. Eventually it led to a split, with Eddie saying,
"The band as you know it is over."
He was right. The band continued, with new singers and a new direction, but it was never the same.
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