Ŵe got the gang back together, but shouldn't have

I recently listened to the Little Village album again for the first time since the 90s, which I have to admit I only listened to once back then and felt it was one time too many. Re-listening to it didn't change my opinion of it. Reassembling the band from John Hiatt's Bring the Family seemed like a great idea on paper, but whatever magic was conjured on that album abandoned them, with Little Village turning out to be pretty much the worst thing all involved ever did.

Likewise, the idea of making another movie with the cast of A Fish Called Wanda seemed like a great idea. Then Fierce Creatures came out and was such a huge misfire that no one ever yearned for Cleese, Curtis, Kline & Palin to work together again.

Any other examples like that, where a random group of people assembled for a project that went so well that there was demand for them to work together again, which then resulted in a demand that they never work together again?

Bands that break up and reform with less than stellar results kind of count, I guess, but not really what I'm thinking of. More just one time combinations that really hit the one time, then bombed when they tried again.

Those post-Beatles Beatles things like "Free as A Bird." And whatever that one was from a couple years ago.

I'm going off memory on this one, but it is the first thing that came to mind. I welcome corrections.

The Latin Playboys (Los Lobos' David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez, with Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake) released a self-titled album in 1994. I thought it was a really nice experimental album. It was about 30 mins long and was cool to listen in one shot since there were very few conventional songs. I have no idea at the time if it was supposed to be a one-off, but they got back together in 1999 to release a second album called Dose that I listened to once and sold back to the CD store. It's possible that second album might go down smoother if I listened now, who knows. My memory at the time, though, was that they should have not attempted the second one.

“Dose” is good, too! I quite like them both.

MrFab Wrote:
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> “Dose” is good, too! I quite like them both.

OK. I'll check it out.

[Goes and skips through it on Spotify]

Maybe not as bad as I remember, but IMO, at least half of it is unlistenable. I stand by my original assessment. I love the idea of it, though...a totally warped take on the styles of music that Los Lobos were known for. They tried to push it further on Dose, but it seems too forced and weird for weird's sake. Just my take, of course, and I am glad you like it!

I like that Latin Playboys work. I think I saw them with ... Lisa Germano?

Eight years after their breakup, the members of the band Japan reunited to record a new album. Because David Sylvian wanted to make a clean break from their past, and wanted to ensure that the new music would stand out on its own terms, he insisted on a new name for the project. They settled on the name Rain Tree Crow ... after, one might assume, throwing darts at a rotating wheel of nouns.

As the project advanced, it became clear that the music the quartet was creating would be less commercially appealing than their previous work. This made three of the musicians inclined to consider an attractive "hook" for the band to use, to generate interest ... and of course, the most obvious hook was to release the new music as a Japan album. Sylvian refused to consider the idea, though. He was adamant that the project and the music it created should rise or fall on their own merits. From there, the sessions just dissolved into arguments and frustrations.

Eventually, they ran through their advance from Virgin, who offered them more money for studio time if they'd release the work as a Japan album. Rather than capitulate to the suggestion of a "Japan reunion" (how tacky), Sylvian abandoned the project altogether. The news of their lead singer's departure killed any possibility of an extended advance from the label. The remaining three finished the album hastily, and released it as Rain Tree Crow -- using the names of the four musicians involved on the cover, as the only link to their past. It's not altogether bad, if you like ambient music, but it certainly doesn't deliver the stylish fun of Tin Drum or Gentlemen Take Polaroids.

Personally, I really like the Rain Tree Crow record. But I think it sounds like a Sylvain solo album (or, in the case of "Blackwater," which got a lot of triple-A radio, a Daniel Lanois song) than a real collaboration between the musicians. Which is ironic, given the recording circumstances Delvin described.

I have that Rain Tree Crow album. It's OK. Certainly nowhere close to as good as the last two Japan albums. I always thought it was a one-off with no real intent other than "let's get together and see what happens," but I saw this in the Wikipedia entry, which totally surprised me (emphasis on the last sentence is mine).

According to Karn, "the whole concept and direction of that album was that it was going to be very pop-oriented", wanting "to surprise people by doing the unexpected—by coming back into a market which we'd left behind a very long time ago. So, we decided that we would have a new name— Rain Tree Crow. The more obscure the name, the better. We believed that it would be a long-term project and that the name Rain Tree Crow would become more important than the name Japan".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2026 07:11AM by zoo.

It's tough coming up with another example that doesn't involve a self-contained band, and I'm tempted to say what you have here is much more common in jazz. That is, when it's time to make an album, the artist in question either brings in the group he's touring with or puts together a different group of top-shelf players who are well-known in their own right. (The fact that Hiatt recorded his next album with his touring band kind of drives home the analogy!)

There's no shortage of solo artists in rock, and they certainly tap high-profile names when they can. Bob Dylan's Infidels immediately comes to mind - Sly & Robbie! Mick Taylor! Two members of Dire Straits! - but they tend to be one-time occurrences. I also feel like there's a different dynamic when that happens, where they're constantly swapping out players (often on the SAME album sessions) or constantly moving through combos out of restlessness or fickleness. Otherwise, they just rely on their producer who taps the same pool of session pros at their disposal.

But Hiatt's album (which I'm listening to right at this moment) was free of the usual constraints placed on a pop star working under a recording contract, albeit not by choice. John Chelew wasn't even a producer by profession nor did he work in the same part of the record business, so it really came down to Hiatt picking the players, and this was THE group with no other guests. Latin Playboys is a similar situation coming out of bandmates and people who were already friends and creative collaborators. It's surprising this kind of thing doesn't happen more often in rock, but it makes sense - the music is often made by self-contained groups or under the luxury (and in many cases the desire) of using a wide variety of players.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/06/2026 08:42AM by belfast.

> "We believed that it would be a long-term project
> and that the name Rain Tree Crow would become
> more important than the name Japan."

Well, we all need something to believe in, I suppose.