Goodbye One Direction (And Every Other Band You Actually Love)

[BeeNee]

I know my poor niece is still so young and innocent and still believes in phrases bands like to make like: "don't worry fans, we're just taking a break and then we'll be back," or "when (insert band/group members name) left the group, it was mutual and we're still friends," but as I predicted and she refused to believe, her beloveds are probably on the way out following in the predictable footsteps of just about every other actually good band or group you've ever known.

It's what I've been telling every school teacher since the dawn of time about group work assignments...they just don't work. Everyone either wants to do something or everyone wants to do nothing and then someone has to either take the reigns, leave for the sake of the group's sanity, or they all just tank.

I mean what hope has any band or group when for example, you have two biological brothers in the infamous Gallaghers of Oasis who couldn't even work together without nearly pummeling themselves to death backstage at a gig? And they're related! Now take a bunch of people who are just put together by some management group or rich old creepy dude (*cough, cough* Simon) and you tell them you guys are a group, and will travel round everywhere together and sell yourselves as what we tell you, you are going to be. Everything is scripted, everything is manufactured including your music, your personalities, your interviews, your fashion and hair, all to the point where you're essentially your label's slave; a contractually bound slave at that.

Time and time again, fans build up this irrational hope that their band will be around forever especially with their promises and sweet talk, but most of the time, they just can't last. Typically the lead singer with the talent will go for a solo, and you might as well start planning to go with them, or some recipe for disaster like drugs and alcohol, label conflicts, death of a band member, divorce, or someone's realization that being famous is sooo totally hard. All you have to do is look at the R.I.P. roster of Sonic Youth, R.E.M, Gun's N' Roses, Destiny's Child, The Supremes, N'Sync, The Clash, Blink 182, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, and on and on.

As for my niece, I'm pretty sure over time she'll recover from the loss or you know, I'll just tell her Santa isn't real to try and soften the blow.

[Saoirse_Nua]

I remember when Take That broke up for the first time in the mid 1990s - I swear many of the news programmes put up the phone number of The Samaritans on the bottom of the screen (The Samaritans is a suicide prevention charity) and noted that the charity has doubled it staff for the night while reporting the story,
I think it is great to support things but over investing can be a bit insidious. The more cynical among us know that young teen girls especially are targeted for financial reasons like merchandising etc.

[Redstang88]

I don't think this is a guarantee by any means.
I think it is more often the trendy bands- One Direction, R. E. M., Blink 182, etc- that fade away without a trace.
True talent, the bands that didn't follow trends but rather create their own- Black Sabbath (still around BTW), Rolling Stones (54 years and counting), Rush, AC/DC (unfortunately on their last days I think, down to one original member), Deep Purple- that are timeless.
There are new bands that will probably be around in 30 years too, but you have to look to find some of them.

[Library]

Eh I'm not a big fan of bands. I don't like the idea of bands because they have less freedom than single singers.