Punk music has come and gone in waves through the years. And with it, the bands and musicians that made the genre what it is today have come and gone. For a few big names in the genre during the 20th-century waves, their ends were quite sudden. Let’s look at how the following three mega-famous punk bands from the genre’s past saw their careers change almost immediately.
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The Clash
The Clash’s legacy as one of the greatest punk bands of all time will live on, but their end was quite… anticlimactic? And yet, it felt like it was over in an instant. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones were hard at work figuring out how their version of punk would evolve as the 1980s kicked off. Sadly, when Cut The Crap came out in 1985, it was clear that the legendary punk band was not really itself anymore.
Jones had been fired, two fans of the band were added on guitar, and the synths used on the record were so intense that it made the album unapproachable to most. Strummer was not at his best songwriting-wise, either. He would later admit that Cut The Crap shouldn’t have been a Clash album. And with that, the band came to an end in 1986.
The Replacements
Punk bands are rarely known for being well-behaved, but The Replacements took it just a little bit too far. More or less, the height of their career came to an end after their infamous performance on Saturday Night Live in 1986.
The band showed up drunk, performed poorly, swore on live television, and was subsequently banned from ever returning to SNL. Their career as a band didn’t end then. However, their chances of becoming a major international act were squashed with that awkward mishap.
Sex Pistols
The heart of Sex Pistols was getting into trouble as much as possible. That contributed to their demise, but their demise came without much fanfare.
This entry on our list of punk musicians and bands whose careers instantly fell off after they had, more or less, done everything they could have as a band. They made it big in the UK and toured America. What else was there to do by 1978?
Sid Vicious took it upon himself to get a little too insane by carving up his chest ahead of a set in Texas, the whole tour was poorly planned, and Johnny Rotten was completely sick of touring. Rotten would later announce to a crowd in California that he was done performing with the band. After that show, each member returned to England. Sex Pistols were done, at least for a while.
Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns
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