Top 5 Bands That, Unlike Weezer, Should Never Break Up -- No Matter How Bad They Get

By Ian S. Port Fri., Oct. 8 2010 at 12:05 PM

Categories: 2010 Music Lists

By now you've probably heard of Seattle resident James Burns' bid to raise $10 million to make Weezer break up. You may have also heard that, disturbingly, Burns has been the target of death threats for his ~~brilliant idea~~ prank. Frankly, we can see both sides here: Weezer (apart from its new tour) has become embarrassing -- and that's if we're being nice.

But some now-embarrassing bands are buoyed by their considerable legacies, and others should stay together purely to occupy their members, who would doubtless be off doing even more awful things were their main projects to break up. Here, then are the top five bands that fall into this admittedly dodgy category, along with how we might punish misfits like Burns who would try to break them up.

Terrible, agreed, but what else could they do?
5. Aerosmith

This Boston hard-rock outfit reached new heights of ickiness earlier this year with frontman Steven Tyler's new gig as an American Idol judge. And that's saying something, because it seems like Aerosmith has spent most of this millennium proving that it actually can do worse than 1997's Nine Lives. But kind of like Keith Richards or Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler and his band mates look too much like tour-worn, plastic-surgery-augmented rock stars to do anything else -- and they're way too old to start another band now.
Punishment for trying to break it up: Tying you down with colorful sashes to administer a Botox overdose.

4. Coldplay
The only thing worse than Coldplay will be the band that tries to fill the sonic and cultural space of Coldplay after Coldplay has broken up. Chris Martin may be a kind, socially-minded individual, but having mastered the art of ignoring his ubiquitous, insipid piano ballads, we're not sure we could handle having to go through that again with a similar band.
Punishment for trying to break it up: Suffering through the next post-Brit-pop balladeers will be punishment enough.

Decent people making indecent music -- but it could be worse.

3. Foo Fighters
This is purely out of the hope that if Dave Grohl retains his main songwriting outlet, he'll keep doing what we really want him to do -- which is play drums in cool supergroups like Them Crooked Vultures. Foo Fighters hasn't dropped a good single since the '90s, but as long as Dave's happy enough to do weird shit on the side and hilariously threaten to sue Scissor Sisters, we're happy, too.
Punishment for trying to break it up: We'll sic Grohl's lawyers on your ass.

2. Green Day
Guess what? Green Day is still good. Not completely -- 21st Century Breakdown had its share of shudder-inducing power ballads -- but overall it wasn't bad for bunch of aging East Bay punk brats. And you should see the band's live show. We're always going to need blitzkrieg power pop, and you'll notice that Blink-182 isn't on this list.
Punishment for trying to break it up: Uh, living in a world where Blink-182 and Weezer still exist.

We will endure even this to see them play live.

1. Metallica

Shit, these local dudes could make a documentary about their embarrassing therapy sessions every six months, or put out a St. Anger every year, and we'd still throw down on anyone who encouraged them to break up. (They have a hard enough time staying together already!) As ridiculous as the millionaire members' personal foibles are, we need their band to exist. Living with the knowledge that we would never again see Metallica perform "Master of Puppets" or "Search and Destroy" live would do to us what the landmine did to the poor lad in that video for "One."
Punishment for trying to break it up: Listening to Lars Ulrich confess his innermost feelings for 20 years straight.

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