Supergroups

Continuing the "super" theme from below, Sara refers to The New Pornographers as a "supergroup." Wikipedia agrees with that assessment, but Carl Newman doesn't: "I'm really tired of that supergroup label, and I wish people would stop using it. None of us were known at all outside of Canada—I just don't think it's accurate."

I think I agree with Newman. I'd restrict the "supergroup" concept to entities like The Traveling Wilburys where the members were independently famous before the group was formed.

Comments

I think super groups have to have released multiple hits in a row through consecutive albums. Hits as defined by sales and radio play. Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin etc. Radio and sales models have changed drastically, so I don't think a 'super group' is possible anymore.

Posted by judson | June 21, 2007 10:39 AM

I realize that ELO is a famous band, and that Jeff Lynne was in the Wilburys for his producing talents as well as musical ones, but am I the only person who has always assumed, only mostly in jest, that his relative lack of stature implied that his place in the band must have depended on being their weed supplier as well?

Posted by jfaberuiuc | June 21, 2007 10:47 AM

insightful

Posted by anon | June 21, 2007 10:51 AM

I think "supergroups" have to live up to their billing to be super - Cream, for example, was a "supergroup." Led Zeppelin was arguably a "supergroup", as Page and JP Jones were already well known to a lot of rock fans before the band formed. The Travelling Wilburys are what is known as "an embarassment." But I agree with Judson that the whole concept is probably now passe given the way the music business is so fractured. Also kids these days don't seem to idolize musicianship qua musicianship anymore, it's all about the songwriting or the singing. Who are the famous drummers under 30? Who are the famous bassists? Who are the young guitar heroes? There don't seem to be any Jeff Beck, Ginger Baker, Clapton or even Graham Maby types around - guys who bounced from band to band but were always well known as outstanding individual musicians.

Posted by vanya | June 21, 2007 10:53 AM

I have to agree with Matt on this one. The Travelling Wilburys would be a supergroup. So would the 80s band Asia.

The Beatles, based merely on their record sales or the hits they released, would not. They were just a highly successful rock band whose members were unknown prior to the formation of the band.

Posted by UncommonSense | June 21, 2007 10:54 AM

Plus there's the fact that the NP just aren't all that "super" -- I know it's sacrilege to say this, but I think they're just about the most overrated indie band out there. The material I've heard (three albums or so) just doesn't compel repeated listens (I'd be curious to hear: Are there folks out there who actually *listen* to the discs regularly?) -- with one dramatic exception: "Letter from an Occupant," which is downright brilliant and will certainly stand any test of time.

Posted by Marty Lederman | June 21, 2007 10:55 AM

The Travelling Wilburys are what is known as "an embarassment."

The hell you say!

Who let this Philistine in here?

Posted by UncommonSense | June 21, 2007 10:59 AM

I think you also need to be more famous than the New Pornographers to be a "supergroup." The only reason I've heard of them is because I read this blog.

Posted by too many steves | June 21, 2007 11:10 AM

"The Beatles, based merely on their record sales or the hits they released, would not. They were just a highly successful rock band whose members were unknown prior to the formation of the band."

What, are you 12 years old? Often when they released an album they occupied the first three spots on the Billboard. That's the #3, #2 and #1 song in the country. In fact, they became so 'super' they could no longer tour. What with the screaming and the riots and such. I'm not sure how you define a super band or super group. What difference does it make how the band was formed?

Posted by judson | June 21, 2007 11:15 AM

I would opt for a more formalist definition of a supergroup: any group whose members released albums under different names (solo or with other bands) before they released songs or albums together, especially if they continue to release solo albums -- which A.C. Newman, Dan Bejar (Destroyer), and Neko Case all have, receiving a fairly similar level of fame and attention as the NPs.

And Carl Newman just isn't right that nobody outside of Canada had heard of any of them: Newman's Zumpano had released well-received albums on Sub Pop, Destroyer was already an indie songwriting phenom, and Neko Case was well-known in alt-country circles (and the girl isn't even from Canada). Call them an indie-rock supergroup if you have to, but with Loose Fur, Swan Lake, Broken Social Scene, The Sea and Cake, etc., they're in good company.

Posted by Tim | June 21, 2007 11:19 AM

This is of course correct. Most musicians will have been in prior bands before they are in a famous band, so the test can't be whether they have been in any prior band. They must have been in well-known bands before joining up to form the supergroup. Hence, NP doesn't count.

(That said, I am not a NP fan. However, there have been a few Neko Case songs I like. But I'm sure it is blasphemy to say I like her better solo than with the band...)

Posted by Al | June 21, 2007 11:19 AM

"Cream, for example, was a "supergroup.""

Blind Faith was the first "supergroup". I'm not sure who the first "supermodel" was. Although Steven Colbert was described as "superstantial" (by himself), I'm not sure what this means.

Posted by Ken C. | June 21, 2007 11:30 AM

Since when does Yglesias cite music made before 1991?

Posted by Kriston | June 21, 2007 11:31 AM

what about the reindeer section?

Posted by ray | June 21, 2007 11:37 AM

Matt is right on the principle here. But I don't agree that

None of us were known at all outside of Canada

I can't be the only American who was a big Neko Case fan long before hearing the NPs.

Are there folks out there who actually *listen* to the discs regularly?

Again, I can't be the only one. "Use It," "Miss Teen Wordpower" and "To Wild Homes" are all great songs. Not to mention "The Laws Have Changed," which my friend with the best indie-rock-radar included prominently on his best-of-2003 compilation and I listened to with embarrassing frequency for a while.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | June 21, 2007 11:42 AM

Do the Raconteurs count?

Posted by SDM | June 21, 2007 11:45 AM

This is of course correct. Most musicians will have been in prior bands before they are in a famous band, so the test can't be whether they have been in any prior band. They must have been in well-known bands before joining up to form the supergroup. Hence, NP doesn't count.

(That said, I am not a NP fan. However, there have been a few Neko Case songs I like. But I'm sure it is blasphemy to say I like her better solo than with the band...)

Posted by Al | June 21, 2007 11:52 AM

Is it a "supergroup" if the members came together in the twilight of their careers just to scrape together the last bit of blow on the mirror of life? (Velvet Revolver, I'm looking in your direction...)

Posted by Frank Bruno | June 21, 2007 11:55 AM

I think you're referring to Supah! Groups. The Wiki lists 37 super groups since 2000, but very few of them are Supah!

Posted by paperpusher | June 21, 2007 11:57 AM

I realize that ELO is a famous band, and that Jeff Lynne was in the Wilburys ... but am I the only person who has always assumed, only mostly in jest, that his relative lack of stature implied that his place in the band must have depended on being their weed supplier as well?

I still remember an old Rolling Stone review of a book by a conservative critic. The crtic made this sort of aside about Jeff Lynne, and the entire Rolling Stone review amounted to "he doesn't realize what a great figure Jeff Lynne was, therefore we don't have to take any of his arguments seriously."

Posted by McG | June 21, 2007 12:18 PM

Velvet Revolver, I'm looking in your direction,

or even worse... Supernova: the putrid coagulant produced when you hold a TV contest to find the singer to front Tommy Lee, Jason Newstead (former Metallica) and Gilby Clarke (former Slash replacement in GnR).

Posted by cleek | June 21, 2007 12:19 PM

It also refers to a concept generalizing the mathematical concept of a Lie group to an object whose Lie algebra is defined by commutators and anticommutators, instead of just commutators.

Posted by moron | June 21, 2007 12:20 PM

I have a vague sense that a supergroup isn't just composed of individually famous musicians, but musicians who are famous _for being members of other groups_. Test cases: The Extra Glenns, made up of Franklin Bruno (of Nothing Painted Blue, but probably equally well-known as solo artists) and John Darnielle, who releases solo records as a one-member band (The Mountain Goats) Hindu Love Gods, made of Warren Zevon and everyone in R.E.M. not named Stipe.

And I'll stand up against the New Porno hating. I find solo Neko pleasant but kinda dull, and I go back to _Mass Romantic_ much more often than I to the Arcade Fire or Fiery Furnaces records, though all this stuff is good. "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism" in particular is surely one of the great songs of the decade.

Posted by JSE | June 21, 2007 12:38 PM

Here's my humble contribution to the "supergroup" debate -- http://washingtontimes.com/entertainment/20070614-085512-5993r.htm

I never got around to mentioning the NPs (whom I do actually listen to a regular basis), but I think Carl "A.C." Newman should lighten up. The term has become rock-journalism shorthand for any band whose members play in other bands.

Posted by Scott Galupo | June 21, 2007 12:40 PM

Asia. Asia should be the the only "supergroup" as they marketed themselves as such. As a result, "supergroup" should be short-hand for horrid, over-produce, past its prime, orchestral arena rock that shouldn't be listened to.

We need a new word.

I listen to the NP's regularly.

Posted by notchris | June 21, 2007 12:51 PM

Well presumably they're an indie. supergroup suggesting that the individual members of the group were well known and respected among aficionados of such music prior to forming the band. Which is true. I imagine the degree to which you consider them a supergroup is the degree to which you followed and enjoyed their previous work.

Posted by Jack | June 21, 2007 1:04 PM

The term has become rock-journalism shorthand for any band whose members play in other bands.

Surely the right word for such an entity is "side project", e.g., "Golden Smog is a side project featuring members of Wilco, the Jayhawks, and Big Star".

And Frank Bruno is right: "supergroup" by all rights ought to be a pejorative. Most of them are dreamed up by industry whores (Damn Yankees, The Firm); even the few that don't suck usually don't add up to the sum of their parts (Blind Faith, CSNY).

Posted by kth | June 21, 2007 1:14 PM

Super or not, the NPs are just about the only band mentioned so far that are actually worth listening to. Certainly more so than the Travelling Wilburys. I'd take any single NP album over the entire TW catalog, abbreviated though it may be. Super is clearly an a priori designation, having nothing to do with actual quality of output.

Posted by hwest | June 21, 2007 1:27 PM

You should send this question to Amanda for an Ask An Insufferable Music Snob post. Calling the New Pornographers a supergroup is a classic IMS move, because it implicitly suggests that you were familiar with all of their members long before their first album dropped.

Posted by tps12 | June 21, 2007 1:40 PM

Archtypal supergroup = Blind Faith: Clapton, Baker, Winwood (and Grech) post-Cream. I've never heard of the current band under discussion, but I'm 53.

Posted by Marlowe | June 21, 2007 1:41 PM

Yep.

Posted by BP | June 21, 2007 2:18 PM

SuperTramp?

Posted by The CarpetMuncher | June 21, 2007 4:04 PM

"Super or not, the NPs are just about the only band mentioned so far that are actually worth listening to. Certainly more so than the Travelling Wilburys."

Why do discussions like this always devolve into "The music I listen to is great; The music you listen to is crap."?

Does it *really* threaten your existance so drastically that somebody might like something you don't?

Posted by Robert Earle | June 21, 2007 4:23 PM

The term 'indie supergroup' is an oxymoron.

There's nothing wrong with NP, but they are not a supergroup.

Posted by American Citizen | June 21, 2007 4:38 PM

Why do discussions like this always devolve into "The music I listen to is great; The music you listen to is crap."?

Because, you anti-Semite, the Jewish people have an inalienable right to defend their ancestral homeland by any means necessary against those who are pledged to destroy it!

I liked the Traveling Wilburys and, when I was twelve, owned ALL the ELO albums (even the weird, artsy early ones.) Back then, a "supergroup" was universally understood to be a band composed of musicians who had already achieved rock stardom in other outfits.

Also, I will add that in a musically just world, "Letter From An Occupant" would have been a #1 Billboard monster hit (and still possesses sufficient broad-based merit for me to recommend buying it from iTunes if you haven't heard it yet.)

Posted by James Gary | June 21, 2007 4:44 PM

Judging from the chronological decay in quality of supergroups since the 60s, one can't blame the New Pornographers for dodging the title.

Anyhow, the late 60s supergroups were frankly quite good:

1966 - Cream
1968 - Crosby, Stills, & Nash (later Young)
1969 - Blind Faith, the Plastic Ono Band

Note the marked decline thereafter:

1971 - Wings
1973 - Journey

Ouch. The late 80s and early 90s saw some resurgence, but this was short-lived:

1985 - The Highwaymen (Kris Kristofferson? WTF?)
1988 - The Travelling Wilburys (actually make me cringe)
1989 - Golden Smog (I just out-indied the NP fans here)
1990 - Temple of the Dog

And then the grunge era saw the short life of Mad Season, which began a plunge from which supergroups have never reemerged. Audioslave, Zwan, and Velvet Revolver have continued this dive. Once proud, they are now the anti-gestalt. The whole band can in fact be less than the sum of its members.

Posted by Angry Sam | June 21, 2007 5:41 PM

With regards to the comment:
"The term has become rock-journalism shorthand for any band whose members play in other bands",
I would disagree slightly, so here's my take on the issue as a mathematician.

The use of the word "super" is derived from the same root as "supremum", which for a given set refers to the "least upper bound" of the set, or basically the smallest element that has value greater (in some measurable sense) than every element within the set.

So now let's apply that to the present discussion: clearly, the notion of a "super-group" can be interpreted as shorthand for a "supremum-group", which simply implies that members of the supremum-group are greater in some sense than the other members in the set, with the set being the collective members of all of the bands with representation in the supremum-group.

In other words, the relevant discussion here shouldn't be if the final supremum-group is itself good or even if each of the individual component bands are good, but instead if the members of each component band that are in the supremum-group are "better" than every member that is not in the supremum-group. That sounds like a discussion that should be much easier to have than the value of each band individually.

Posted by msmackle | June 21, 2007 6:13 PM

Thirty-seven comments and not a single mention Power Station. Stunning.

Also, can supergroup be retroactively applied, or is there another term? I'm thinking of a very successful group (eg, Genesis) breaking up into comparably successful parts (Peter Gabriel/Phil Collins/Mike and the Mechanics,).

Posted by nolaboyd | June 21, 2007 8:10 PM

Robert Earle,

I agree as a general principle that people should be allowed to have their own musical taste, and we should welcome a diversity of opinion. However, the Traveling Wilburys are an exception to that rule because frankly they were really fucking annoying. Maybe you're too young to remember just how awful they were, they were really the symbol to us late 80s teens of what a fat decaying joke the boomers had become.

Posted by vanya | June 21, 2007 9:09 PM

Damn Yankees (Tommy Shaw from Styx + Ted Nugent + some other guy)

The Firm (Paul Rodgers from Bad Co. + Jimmy Page)

Foo Fighters (Grohl + the drummer from Sunny Day Real Estate)

King Crimson's 3rd incarnation (Fripp, Bill Bruford from Yes, Adrian Belew, session ace Tony Levin)

Asia (Steve Howe, Carl Palmer of ELP, John Wetton of King Crimson and Uriah Heep, etc)

Steve Howe's been in a half-dozen bands that could rightly be caleld super groups (Yes, Asia, GTR, Anderson-Bruford, Wakeman, Howe, etc)

Posted by cleek | June 21, 2007 9:19 PM

"Robert Earle, ...Maybe you're too young to remember..."

In the comments to the "what effect will Bloomberg have on the election" post, I admit to having voted for John Anderson in 1980. I'm old enought to have watched live (at my older brother Michael's insistence) the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

I own a copy of the Wilburys' "Vol. 1" CD, though I'm pretty much 50-50 on it. I don't remember having any great reaction (including annoyance) when that album came out, save for thinking that, upon hearing "Handle With Care", and his "Mystery Girl" album, it was great to hear Roy Orbison's voice on the radio and MTV "after all these years".

But you make my point for me! Just because you found them annoying, why then presume to speak for others as having that opinion? Why can't you say you found them annoying, and leave it at that? I will note for the record that, per today's LA Times, (amazingly) a Traveling Wilburys' box set is the #9 selling album/CD in the country. Apparently many for whom you presume speak have gotten over their annoyance.

- Fat decaying boomer Robert

Posted by Robert Earle | June 21, 2007 10:59 PM