how could you sink solo?

are there good solo albums?!



or even if "good", are there necessary solo albums?

I mean here specifically  the solo album as extracurricular excursion for purposes of self-expression, from someone otherwise productively embedded in a group context that is still coming up with the goods

as opposed to the solo album as what gets made during the solo career of someone who was once in a band, but has left it to go their own way,  or the band split up altogether

although those kind of post-primary-band careers have a checkered history in themselves

but still Scott Walker.... John Lennon....  Gene Clark....  Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico...

Who else? Tom Verlaine had some moments, after Television... Julian Cope, eventually, did (Peggy)...    some swear by Robert Plant's post-Zep efforts, but life's too short to check...  Even Ozzy had "Crazy Train"...

But back to the main theme - not the solo album as "I wish to continue in this industry, I am not ready to retire yet, I have a mortage to pay off after all" ...  but the solo album as "I fancy having a little me-time outside the group, prove I am not dependent on the others"..

And that is a landfill factory, as a phenomenon

Thunderfingers Entwhistle did about seven outside-Who albums

A catalogue of the inessential, this type of indulge-myself / prove-myself solo emission

Either they are a misconceived, unachieved attempt to do something very unlike the original band

Or they remind you of the original band but in a diminished, pale-shadow form - e.g the Robert Gorl and Gabi Delgado jobs, Martin Rev's solo emissions

Although Alan Vega had a couple of good and un-Suicidal turns in the early 80s before going all Billy Idol

But let's not muddy the picture

I can think of so very few that are patch on the primary group's output

This is the best of all the Stone-alone jobs by an order of a billion



perhaps the best of them is not a solo album, but a duo album  - half the group releasing its thwarted pop potential






whereas Jerry Harrison's, oh dear

and even Byrne's, while having moments, are lesser affairs

this is one of the moments





A variant in the annals of expensive wastefulness is a band splitting into two halves to indulge their self-expressive needs / cock a snook at the other two

 Duran Duran >>> Arcadia + The Power Station


Not quite the same but equally unproductive

Soft Cell >>>>  Marc and the Mambas + Dave Ball In Strict Tempo







I suppose that's a bit like the DAF split into lesser tangents





Although the Gorl is a bit of an earworm... there's probably not a month that's gone by since it came out, that I haven't at least once spontaneously erupted into the chorus