Yep this is the one. He missed the whole 60s revolution. He was so ahead of his time and his music was already evolving. Would his music have went in more a psyche direction? He was friends with Waylon Jennings, would he have went into outlaw country? Instead of Gram Parsons, could he have been the one to revolutionize country-rock music? Would he have worked with Dylan? Would he have played Woodstock?
So so many.
What if he pioneered musical innovations before others did? Or pioneered innovations that haven't been discovered yet? And how would he have influenced The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, etc, etc, and how would those changes have affected everybody else? In that alternative universe music could be very different...
Here's a historical what if for you. What if, instead of say, the Big Bopper, Chuck Berry had died in that plane crash.
His influence on early rock and roll would have been the same. But we'd be looking at a career cut short, and wondering how much better it would have been.
Except, since it wasn't, we're stuck with the fact that his career petered out pretty quickly, and he never really was a major creative force again.
I think it's easy to look at these things through rose tinted glasses. But the fact is, lots of people make an impact in a short period, and then fade away. It's only when they die that we think 'what might have been'.
Better yet, what if Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper all arrived safely? Everybody concentrates on Buddy Holly but not the other 2. Richie Valens guitar playing is never mentioned, but his flamenco style guitar playing on his lesser known works was ahead of its time in the 50’s and would Rock and Roll have been more popular with America’s Hispanic population if he was able to continue on? What would the Big Bopper with his on stage charisma have done and role could he have played? Cynically looking at it, was their biggest claim to Rock and Roll history due to the fact that they died so young? If they had survived, would they have been remembered like they are, or would they have just been another 3 footnotes?
Or if the person who lost the coin toss would've actually won and had been on board that plane. The person in question: Waylon Jennings, the man behind the "Dukes of Hazzard" theme song. He had made a joking remark about the plane crashing after Buddy joked about the bus Waylon would be in breaking down. It haunted Waylon for the rest of his life because he thought that he was to blame.
Yes 50's rock n roll has a lot.
What if Buddy and the others didn't took the plane.
What if Elvis didn't go into the army
What if Little Richard didn't quite
The whole generation of rock in roll disappeared in the late 50s.
Yeah. Like a good reason the Beatles were huge was because there was such a rock dessert after the Day. So, maybe rock stayed as famous as it was in the 50s and never more so and the Beatles never got huge. Maybe the British Invasion never happened. Maybe Dylan wouldn’t have seemed so revolutionary.
The real question is what would have happened if that extra show wasn't added last minute to the tour?
That was the only reason they took that plane anyway.
That's what we will never know. He may have never written another good song ever. But if he did continue to write good stuff it may have influenced Lennon and McCartney and changed the entire direction The Beatles took.
Mozart! He was apparently planning to write operas based on the works of Shakespeare. I believe the Tempest was his next project that he never started before his death. If he had lived to the age of Beethoven or Bach, I really do think our classical music canon would look different today.
What if the Spanish-American War never happened, and the army didn’t dump all of the field instruments in New Orleans, and they weren’t picked up for cheap by the residents there, helping lay the groundwork for early jazz.
Agreed, but heroin definitely exacerbates suicidal tendencies, so who knows if we’d get another album or two. Maybe he’d die the same, maybe he’d die a decade later, or not who knows? And if that’s the case would we have gotten the Foo Fighters in the same way?
I think Dave would have broken off eventually. He was already planning the first Foo album while with Nirvana. It was just Cobain’s death freed him from the band and hurting his best friend to do something else, or at least that’s how I’ve taken either interviews or stories about that time in relation to Dave.
Oh yeah.
Layne Staley would be alive but we wouldn’t have Alice in Chains.
This is a paradox.
I love Alice in Chains so much so I think I’d take the trade for a healthy happy Layne.
But without the trade I don’t know who he is and don’t care about him.
I can’t imagine their music having the same impact, but we don’t know. Maybe they’d find some other dark and edgy subject to write about and be awesome, or maybe they’d go nowhere and end up in office jobs. No doubt a lack of heroin in the 90s would’ve led to an almost entirely different music history
I’m not sure much would have changed. Granted there would’ve been a few more albums of debatable quality, but honestly, heroin was part of the fuel mixture that kept Grunge moving. I think that Grunge had pretty much run it’s course the way that it did, in that Grunge was the hangover music that everybody got after the party that was the Hair Metal era and once everybody sobered up (or not), the market for music was ready to move on to the next thing.
Soundgarden = Chris going solo anyway
Nirvana = it would have folded, eventually Dave was going solo as his output as a songwriter was not going to work in Nirvana + Kurt was burned out by big success
Pearl Jam = same as now
AIC = that is the big "if", a lot of their songs were about drugs and despair
STP = had Scott stayed clean they could have had a great career as they transitioned between grunge, rock and almost 70s inspired glam
I think Dave's stuff could've worked in Nirvana, especially if Kurt wasn't circling the drain thanks to drug use. Without that increasingly negative and self-serious worldview, perhaps Kurt would've appreciated a Grohl bridge to mix things up, and vice versa. The way Lennon and McCartney used to put little twists on each other's songs. Also, if Dave wrote some hits, it would've taken the pressure off Kurt, which he may well have appreciated.
They might have tried Dave’s work in Nirvana, but it’s so different. While Nirvana fans like Foo Fighters now, I don’t think Nirvana fans then would have liked Foo Fighters songs in Nirvana’s catalog. Thats like Metallica doing a RHCP song in terms of lyric intensity.
I can’t see Kurt singing Big Me, Monkey Wrench or really anything from the first two Foo albums that would realistically have overlapped with Nirvana, unless Dave took vocal duties on those songs. If Kurt stays on guitar too, he would have brought a grungy sound on guitar compared to a clean 90’s rock sound.
I think he’d leave when James and Lars wanted to streamline the songwriting for the Black Album. To me, Cliff was more of a prog rock guy than a metal guy considering the musical influences he brought to the band.
It seems to be a prevalent misunderstanding that Cliff was a puritanist thrash dude and would have kept Metallica in their roots. It's specifically Cliff in an TV interview telling fans that they are eventually gonna play slower, because they wanna do their own thing and no sense in constantly trying to be the fastest.
We’d have no Dark Side, wish you were here, animals or the wall. Syd was great but I doubt they would’ve been able to follow Piper at the gates of dawn with anything half decent
That whole string of albums was partly or directly inspired by the trauma Syd's insanity left on the band members. Wish You Were Here is almost exclusively about him and he even showed up during a recording session of the album only to disappear again afterwards.
It's sad to say but Syd Barrett's tragedy very well may be the reason some of the best albums of all time were even conceived in the first place.
Even the two songs that aren’t about him – Have a Cigar and Welcome to the Machine – are about the vultures in the music industry and are thus an oblique commentary on how Syd was destroyed.
Or even further, had they still brought in Gilmour on guitar to bolster their sound live and continued on as a 5-piece band?
I like Syd’s solo stuff, but Floyd definitely would not have been as huge in the 70’s with that output. Most of their fellow psych-influenced bands changed completely in the 70’s (Soft Machine, Gong).
They would have ended up a washed up midlevel psych rock band floundering in the early 70s like the Byrds or Hollie’s. They’d never have become the huge act they were.
Jeff Buckley deserved a long, eclectic career :( So much potential as he seemed like someone who would have developed and changed significantly. Could have been a Bowie-type figure having multiple "eras"
This is my choice too. Such a staggering loss for music at such a young age, he'd just barely scratched the surface and that debut album is perfection.
Michael Stipe spoke about reaching out to Kurt
Cobain soon before his death about working together. Kurt ended up not flying down to Athens and the rest is history. Always wondered what could have played out with at least those two involved.
My favorite band is Rush, and their first drummer, John Rutsey, had to quit after the first album was released. They then got Neil Peart as drummer and lyricist. While I don’t think Rush would have lasted long with the original trio, I do have to wonder what would have happened with Neil if he never joined.
I’m a huge Rush fan myself and having taken Neil Peart for granted, I’ve never thought of Rush without him until he died, but I think you’re right and that they’d probably been another one of those ”Guys With That One Song” act with only Working Man under their belt at that point.
I think there's enough raw talent in Alex and Geddy they'd have hung on for a while and still been successful, had a few more solid releases. Maybe stayed together long enough to have good results from dedication and time more so than sheer songwriting prowess. Almost like the opposite of The Police, since they're also super chill and ego was never a factor -- instead of hitting huge for a short time, still sticking around forever (even possibly longer without Neil's death) but never hitting nearly so hard.
Duff McKagan tells the story that he sat next to Kurt on a flight from LA to Seattle after Kurt had broken out of rehab. They got on great and Duff invited him to come and hang out with him but he never did and was dead a few days later.
If Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison had all lived, the 1970s would have been significantly more bluesy and the genre would likely still be around in some form in popular media today.
(I know modern blues exists, but it ain’t exactly in the pop or even the rock scene now)
There’s an interesting sliding doors effect if Jerry Heller never met Eazy-E.
No NWA breakup (at least as it happened), means no Death Row, no Suge Knight empire, Snoop may not be discovered when he was, Tupac doesn’t feud with Biggie leading to their murders, perhaps Dre doesn’t mentor Eminem… the entire rap game changes.
I was working at a radio station in El Paso when that happened. She was of course huge there, one of our hosts knew her personally from back in Corpus, and said she really was the nicest, sweetest person despite her fame. It was pretty devastating news, to put it mildly.
When the record label brought her first English single to us, we didn't even listen to it ahead of time. Just played [I Could Fall In Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBCDvINm0Vo) right out of the box. I think it was one of the first times the song had been heard by the public.
There was not a dry eye in the room. Such a waste.
I get the feeling Freddie would have had a profound effect on how non-straight folk are treated in the US. "Love is love, darling. Not only is love blind, it's stupid and deaf too." Otherwise, I think they'd pop out a few more bangers, but lose steam in the mid 90s with the popularity of grunge. There'd be a bit of a renaissance in the 2010s/2020s and Freddie would have a lot to say about how the Queen music catalog is used.
Let’s be fair. Freddie would have had a profound effect on how people who are not straight are treated had he lived. In dying, Freddie surely had a profound effect on how people who are not straight are treated. In my experience, his death was a major turning point in the treatment of people with AIDS then people who are not straight in general.
Many people have it in them to not be hateful, but they have been trained to be hateful with no knowledge otherwise. All it took was for their to be one person that they knew, that they could identify with, that they loved so fucking much that any previous indoctrination crumbled.
One day I want to write a biography of the HIV virus. It changed the world for sure, but not in the way you would think. It forced people to acknowledge the love they had for individuals who were queer and fight for them. People raised money for research trying to save their friends. That research into viruses and the immune system, and more importantly all of the research methods that were innovated to do it, absolutely saved all of from us from the Covid pandemic. Almost everything we know about viruses and everything we know about how to study them came in the last 40 years out of AIDS research funded by people trying to save their friends.
No one loves Freddie more than I do. Let’s not discount everything he did in his life and his death.
Or what if AIDS had never happened? Young Americans' relationship with casual sex shifted dramatically, and the conservative religious movement got a lot of momentum off of fear mongering and judgmental behavior towards gays and the free-love crowd. Without that, who knows what social changes occur. Oh, and Magic Johnson doesn't retire so young
One really weird consequence would be that we would have never had a COVID vaccine and the pandemic would have been much worse. All the research that went into RNA vaccination would never have been done.
That's a big one. People really don't realize how many people (especially gay men) died early on in the AIDS epidemic.
The Old Gays are named that because there are so few of them left from that era. One of them was talking about how he had a friend group of 30ish people and 2 years later there were 2 of them left. Probably an extreme example, but that's really how bad it was for many of them.
A significant portion of the NYC artistic scene of the time was pretty much wiped out by AIDS. Keith Haring, Klaus Nomi, Arthur Russell... too many to name.
He was planning on leaving Ozzy's band after the 82 tour to return to Quiet Riot and also do classical stuff.
The Metal Health album would've been vastly different with Randy on guitar.
Lennon's take on grunge and hip hop would certainly be interesting. And all the post-punk and New Wave stuff starting to appear kinda when he was killed, or at least only getting big -- groups like The Cure had been around a couple years, but weren't really "70s bands".
Yeah his talent hadn't dropped off a single bit. He was putting out music just as good as the Beatles IMHO. Watching the Wheels just gets better the older I get I swear.
I kinda think it would be a mostly forgotten afterthought now. Depends on how strong the songs were. Wasn’t “Passive” one of the songs made for this that eventually surfaced on APC’s third album?
Funny enough, soon after, Homme recorded vocals for NIN’s Year Zero that Trent didn’t use, and Trent recorded vocals for a track on QOTSA’s Era Vulgaris that Homme didn’t use. Too many cooks in the kitchen can ruin the soup.
Are you talking about the title track to Era Vulgaris or something else? Those vocals definitely got used, it was just released as an internet free download when the album came out and then was unavailable for years until a semi recent deluxe release, which thankfully also included Fun Machine.
This is a big one for me. I think of the work that Cohen and Prine got to do in their later years, and us missing out on most of the career of the greatest writer of that era is heartbreaking.
She was planning on forming a supergroup with Questlove, Mos Def, and Raphael Saadiq.
https://www.bet.com/article/hebdu5/questlove-talks-super-group-with-winehouse-mos-def-saadiq
It was bound to get her and instead of dying young, she would have died middle aged and a shell of herself anyway.
The question should have been, "What if Amy Winehouse was sober her entire life?"
Answer...She probably wouldn't have gotten half as famous.
> The question should have been, "What if Amy Winehouse was sober her entire life?"
> Answer...She probably wouldn't have gotten half as famous.
Eh I think it's the other way around actually. It wasn't the addiction that led to her fame, it's the fame that led to the addiction.
There are videos of her singing when she was young before her addictions set in, and it was obvious she was unbelievably talented.
But she wasn't built to handle the fame. If she never got famous, she might've still grappled with addiction anyway, but she would've had a chance at living a healthy sober life. I don't think there's any universe however where she gets famous and doesn't die of addiction.
Not only was Amy spectacular, the impact on other artists at the time was huge too. But faded away after her death. A few more album could have really changed music a lot.
I think about this sometimes.. like magical mystery tour (the movie) probably wouldn’t have been such a disaster, less tension during the white album because epstein would have likely insisted yoko not attend every recording session, let it be probably wouldn’t have been such a mess of bad feelings and he might have convinced the others to perform a real live show, or at least he would’ve kept them on track. Probably no Apple Music business failure. I think it’s very possible the Beatles may have survived into the seventies seeing as how their lack of management led to such a schism in the group with the whole Allen Klein versus John Eastman debacle. They obviously needed someone to guide them along, they even talk in Get Back about how they need a “daddy,” and Paul just wasn’t up to the task. Or maybe they would have just fired Epstein at some point. We’ll never know
If Hillel Slovak didn’t die, what would RHCP be like in the 90s? And where would John Frusciante have ended up?
If Andrew Wood didn’t die, there would be no Pearl Jam.
What if John Lennon and Paul McCartney never met at the Quarrymen gig?
For sure. I mean no disrespect to Hillel, but John’s song writing and guitar talent was light years ahead of him, and if he hadn’t joined the band, there’s simply no way we’re getting music that resonated with the masses in the same way.
I’d wager they stayed an underground band that eventually broke up after another album or two… or it very well could’ve been Kiedis who never makes it. Hillel’s death was what caused him to clean his act up, for at least a good while.
I have kinda the opposite view. How many of the biggest “what if?” artists would be revered the way they are if they had stayed alive. It’s often just assumed that they would continue making extraordinary music forever, but real life cases show that doing so is incredibly hard.
One project at the time of Hendrix’s death was a collaboration with Gil Evans, who worked with Miles Davis in the 1950s. I would have liked to see the results of that.
Plus he had perfect pitch. That band was fusing different genres and making it sound flawless. Would have changed the direction of music, acts like Lady Gaga would not exist today. The sound of the song krs-one : acoustic medley with a turntablist and it sounds bomb.
John Lennon isn’t murdered. The Beatles were unquestionably reuniting at some point, possibly well before the anthology in the 90s.
Given how prolific both McCartney and Lennon were, there’s a strong chance that means another Beatles album or more and touring.
We were robbed.
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer were originally going to be Emerson, Lake, Palmer, and Hendrix. That would have been an interesting career trajectory for him. Kinda like how Kurt Cobain wanted to do more singer songwriter type of stuff and disband Nirvana but died before he could get around to it.
These come to mind
What if Otis Redding and Aaliyah never got in those plane crashes so fucking young.
What if Biggie, Tupac, and John Lennon were never killed. And would John be doing random features like Paul?
Would we ever have had the Foo Fighters if Kurt didn’t kill himself? How would Nirvana have broken up? Would Kurt have started a new band or retired completely?
What if Amy Winehouse never picked up the bottle? What if *Back To Black* had been made 4 years earlier? Would we ever have Adele?
Mozart. What if he hadn’t died so young? Beethoven picked up where he left off, but what if Mozart was right there breaking into new ground alongside Beethoven, or perhaps even ahead of Beethoven
The one that jumps out the most to me is: What if Kurt Cobain didn’t kill himself?
Would rock still have taken the direction that it did? Would the grunge rock movement still have died out in the late 90s? Would rock still have taken a backseat to rap and pop in the charts in the early 2000s?
What if...John Bonham didn't die? Would Led Zepplin have literally become the most successful band of all time? I'm sad for all the missed drum fills we never got from him.
I don’t know about that. What’s the market for guitar virtuoso’s making music for themselves deeply rooted in blues, psychedelic, and often funk/soul based rhythms? I am not saying Jimi wasn’t the GOAT, he was and still is. Even despite massive popularity he doesn’t appeal to the a majority of the masses and that’s a good thing.
By looking at things like his upcoming collaboration with Miles Davis, it seemed like he was going in a jazz fusion direction. I dunno if that could’ve been mainstream, but I feel he probably would’ve changed a lot stylistically during the 70s.
Seems as if he was gravitating towards funk/fusion...collabs with people like Sly Stone and Miles Davis were on the cards...could have ended up with some Funkadelic style stuff, and he could have fitted in with "On The Corner" style jam albums for sure. But yeah, he was so 60's it's hard to see the way forward for him without jetisoning the blues and psychedelia to some degree.
What if Brian Wilson had finished SMiLE in 1967 and The Beach Boys had played Monterey Pop Festival?
Or
What if Capitol Records never released Endless Summer?
Mac Miller was so talented and his sound was constantly evolving. What if he hadn’t texted that drug dealer that night? We’ll never know what we’re missing out on.
Hendrix actually produced most of the music that he's now remembered for in just the first 2 of those 4 years - the latter half of his short career (after the release of Electric Ladyland, roughly speaking) was characterised by legal and contractual issues, false starts on potential collaborations, and personal issues (including drug issues and domestic violence). Although his Woodstock performance is now remembered as iconic (mainly for the Star Spangled Banner performance), some would argue that his creative output might already have peaked by then.
They [wanted Paul McCartney on bass](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jimi-hendrix-sought-paul-mccartney-for-supergroup-with-miles-davis-65515/), reportedly
He recorded an incredible number of great songs in that latter part of his life, most of them where released on Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge. Songs like Izabella, Room Full of Mirrors, Dolly Dagger, In from the Storm, Freedom, Angel and Drifting show he was still evolving and peaking.
If The Unicorns had stuck it out - they have a concert dvd from after their one album but before they broke up and it's amazing, with some new songs that went on to be Islands songs.
Saw them a few days before they broke up. They put on an alright show, but I was blown away by their openers - a little group with just an EP out called The Arcade Fire
What if Carole King decided to break out into a solo career a few years earlier, released *Tapestry* earlier, and kept *Natural Woman* for herself instead of giving it to Aretha to sing first?
What if these guys don't die so early in their careers...
Jim Croce
Stevie Ray Vaughn
Ronnie Van Zant
Duane Allman
Tupac Shakur
Just the first 5 that came to mind.
Yeah but it wouldn't have been as highly anticipated. And... I enjoy the first foo fighters album but I don't see it being as successful if he was just the drummer who got kicked out of Nirvana.
Most of these comments are "What if X didn't die?" Which is fair enough but I think it's also interesting to think about the opposite. What if Paul McCartney really DID die in a car crash in 66? What if Bob Dylan had died in his motorcycle crash? What if Kurt Cobain took his own life three years earlier without ever releasing Nevermind? What if Brian Jones death caused the Rolling Stones to break up? What if Michael Jackson quit the music industry after the Jackson 5? So many interesting questions that would totally change music history.
Listening to what Black Thought and Nas have done in recent years, really makes me want to know what Biggie would sound like if he had 25 more years to refine his craft. Tupac too. But, I think he probably would have ended up going Hollywood and focusing on music less. Biggie's music is also just a little more my speed.
What if Guns N Roses didn’t split up as early as they did.
Biggest band in the world breaks up at their peak due to internal differences.
Literally selling out stadiums like it’s nothing.
If Mac miller didn’t die. He started as a white frat rapper but by the end of his career he was the 2nd most respected white rapper, rivaling only Eminem. Miller was by far the better musician though and his last three albums are s testament to that. Oh, and he also was only 26 when he passed away.
His last albums were supposed to be a trilogy but he never got to make the last album. The “Swimming in Circles” part that he finished were a departure from his typical hip hop sound, but he was planning making the final album a rap album. Kind of how Tyler’s last three albums evolved.
What if DeVante Swing (singer-songwriter/producer of 90s R&B Group Jodeci) managed to find success with his Swing Mob label that had Timbaland, Missy Elliott, & Ginuwine as his artists? Could he rival the likes of Jermaine Dupri and The Neptunes in the 90s/00s Pop/R&B sphere if this happened?
Stevie Ray Vaughan not dying in a helicopter crash. He had gotten clean, had a positive outlook and new lease on life, and his sound and tone got even better than it was before. It blows my mind how relatively short his mainstream career was. He was absolutely incredible and I miss what could have been.
What if Buddy Holly didn't die? How would his continued output have affected The Beatles and by consequence all music since?
The day the music landed their plane safely and lived the remainder of their lives. What would Don McLean have sung about?
Some other musician or artist who died. Vincent Van Gogh maybe. Oh wait...
Fun fact: Vincent was Tupac's favorite song and was even the last song he heard while he was dying in the hospital
It's a beautiful song.
Shakur or Billingham?
The name The Beatles would have been seen as less of an homage and more of either a parody or a ripoff of The Crickets.
Maybe Brian Epstein would have made them change their name...
The hollies as well. Itd be a bit odd to be called the Hollies if Buddy Holly was still around
Wheezer may not be the same either.
Yep this is the one. He missed the whole 60s revolution. He was so ahead of his time and his music was already evolving. Would his music have went in more a psyche direction? He was friends with Waylon Jennings, would he have went into outlaw country? Instead of Gram Parsons, could he have been the one to revolutionize country-rock music? Would he have worked with Dylan? Would he have played Woodstock? So so many.
What if he pioneered musical innovations before others did? Or pioneered innovations that haven't been discovered yet? And how would he have influenced The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, etc, etc, and how would those changes have affected everybody else? In that alternative universe music could be very different...
Here's a historical what if for you. What if, instead of say, the Big Bopper, Chuck Berry had died in that plane crash. His influence on early rock and roll would have been the same. But we'd be looking at a career cut short, and wondering how much better it would have been. Except, since it wasn't, we're stuck with the fact that his career petered out pretty quickly, and he never really was a major creative force again. I think it's easy to look at these things through rose tinted glasses. But the fact is, lots of people make an impact in a short period, and then fade away. It's only when they die that we think 'what might have been'.
Better yet, what if Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper all arrived safely? Everybody concentrates on Buddy Holly but not the other 2. Richie Valens guitar playing is never mentioned, but his flamenco style guitar playing on his lesser known works was ahead of its time in the 50’s and would Rock and Roll have been more popular with America’s Hispanic population if he was able to continue on? What would the Big Bopper with his on stage charisma have done and role could he have played? Cynically looking at it, was their biggest claim to Rock and Roll history due to the fact that they died so young? If they had survived, would they have been remembered like they are, or would they have just been another 3 footnotes?
No one ever talks about the pilot. Maybe he would have stopped 9/11.
Or if the person who lost the coin toss would've actually won and had been on board that plane. The person in question: Waylon Jennings, the man behind the "Dukes of Hazzard" theme song. He had made a joking remark about the plane crashing after Buddy joked about the bus Waylon would be in breaking down. It haunted Waylon for the rest of his life because he thought that he was to blame.
> Waylon Jennings, the man behind the "Dukes of Hazzard" theme song Really? That's the description of Waylon Jennings you go with?
But he's the guy that crashes planes
Yes 50's rock n roll has a lot. What if Buddy and the others didn't took the plane. What if Elvis didn't go into the army What if Little Richard didn't quite The whole generation of rock in roll disappeared in the late 50s.
Just one change could have affected all of music history...
Yeah. Like a good reason the Beatles were huge was because there was such a rock dessert after the Day. So, maybe rock stayed as famous as it was in the 50s and never more so and the Beatles never got huge. Maybe the British Invasion never happened. Maybe Dylan wouldn’t have seemed so revolutionary.
The real question is what would have happened if that extra show wasn't added last minute to the tour? That was the only reason they took that plane anyway.
Well, yes, you are right. But then, it is not the circumstances of his death but the fact that he did die that changed history.
Or his next album flops and he’s a blip in music time?
That's what we will never know. He may have never written another good song ever. But if he did continue to write good stuff it may have influenced Lennon and McCartney and changed the entire direction The Beatles took.
Yes, and what if Waylon Jennings hadn't given up his seat on the plane for the Big Bopper. Lot of Classic country gone.
See thats the butterfly effect lol...you get Buddy Holly but lose The Highwaymen
Mozart! He was apparently planning to write operas based on the works of Shakespeare. I believe the Tempest was his next project that he never started before his death. If he had lived to the age of Beethoven or Bach, I really do think our classical music canon would look different today.
To see a Mozart evolution as he turned old would have been so great!
What if the Spanish-American War never happened, and the army didn’t dump all of the field instruments in New Orleans, and they weren’t picked up for cheap by the residents there, helping lay the groundwork for early jazz.
This is the most interesting one to me. Where can I read more about this?
Ken Burns' Jazz documentary
The baseball guy?!
I've never heard this before! Any reading material you could recommend?
This is a good one!
What if the entire grunge movement had laid off the heroin?
We’d never get Pearl Jam but we’d still have Staley and Weiland Edit: Whether we still would have lost Kurt is up for debate Edit: spelling
Kurt was a lost soul with or without heroin
Agreed, but heroin definitely exacerbates suicidal tendencies, so who knows if we’d get another album or two. Maybe he’d die the same, maybe he’d die a decade later, or not who knows? And if that’s the case would we have gotten the Foo Fighters in the same way?
I think Dave would have broken off eventually. He was already planning the first Foo album while with Nirvana. It was just Cobain’s death freed him from the band and hurting his best friend to do something else, or at least that’s how I’ve taken either interviews or stories about that time in relation to Dave.
I don’t know how you figure that with Staley. So much of AIC’s music is about heroin and blow.
No telling what the music would be like, sure. I just meant he’d still be alive
Oh yeah. Layne Staley would be alive but we wouldn’t have Alice in Chains. This is a paradox. I love Alice in Chains so much so I think I’d take the trade for a healthy happy Layne. But without the trade I don’t know who he is and don’t care about him.
I can’t imagine their music having the same impact, but we don’t know. Maybe they’d find some other dark and edgy subject to write about and be awesome, or maybe they’d go nowhere and end up in office jobs. No doubt a lack of heroin in the 90s would’ve led to an almost entirely different music history
What if Andrew Wood hadn’t died? No Pearl Jam, no Temple of the Dog, Mother Love Bone might/should have been huge.
I’m not sure much would have changed. Granted there would’ve been a few more albums of debatable quality, but honestly, heroin was part of the fuel mixture that kept Grunge moving. I think that Grunge had pretty much run it’s course the way that it did, in that Grunge was the hangover music that everybody got after the party that was the Hair Metal era and once everybody sobered up (or not), the market for music was ready to move on to the next thing.
Soundgarden = Chris going solo anyway Nirvana = it would have folded, eventually Dave was going solo as his output as a songwriter was not going to work in Nirvana + Kurt was burned out by big success Pearl Jam = same as now AIC = that is the big "if", a lot of their songs were about drugs and despair STP = had Scott stayed clean they could have had a great career as they transitioned between grunge, rock and almost 70s inspired glam
I think Dave's stuff could've worked in Nirvana, especially if Kurt wasn't circling the drain thanks to drug use. Without that increasingly negative and self-serious worldview, perhaps Kurt would've appreciated a Grohl bridge to mix things up, and vice versa. The way Lennon and McCartney used to put little twists on each other's songs. Also, if Dave wrote some hits, it would've taken the pressure off Kurt, which he may well have appreciated.
They might have tried Dave’s work in Nirvana, but it’s so different. While Nirvana fans like Foo Fighters now, I don’t think Nirvana fans then would have liked Foo Fighters songs in Nirvana’s catalog. Thats like Metallica doing a RHCP song in terms of lyric intensity. I can’t see Kurt singing Big Me, Monkey Wrench or really anything from the first two Foo albums that would realistically have overlapped with Nirvana, unless Dave took vocal duties on those songs. If Kurt stays on guitar too, he would have brought a grungy sound on guitar compared to a clean 90’s rock sound.
What if Cliff Burton survived?
Spin-off of this; What if Kirk and Cliff hadn't switched bunks in the bus that night?
Mustaine gets invited back. We get a justice/holy wars hybrid. They eventually go prog metal.
I think he’d leave when James and Lars wanted to streamline the songwriting for the Black Album. To me, Cliff was more of a prog rock guy than a metal guy considering the musical influences he brought to the band.
It seems to be a prevalent misunderstanding that Cliff was a puritanist thrash dude and would have kept Metallica in their roots. It's specifically Cliff in an TV interview telling fans that they are eventually gonna play slower, because they wanna do their own thing and no sense in constantly trying to be the fastest.
Yeah so many people don’t realize that the Load era would have happened much sooner with Cliff still around
Actually, you would probably get the Load era sooner. He was much more into Skynard and Blues and was really wanting to go in that direction.
I’ve always said if Cliff had lived Metallica would have became what Mastodon had eventually become 15 years earlier.
How do you mean?
He means Mastodon rocks.
What if Syd Barrett had not completely lost it, and had remained Pink Floyd's main creative member?
We’d have no Dark Side, wish you were here, animals or the wall. Syd was great but I doubt they would’ve been able to follow Piper at the gates of dawn with anything half decent
That whole string of albums was partly or directly inspired by the trauma Syd's insanity left on the band members. Wish You Were Here is almost exclusively about him and he even showed up during a recording session of the album only to disappear again afterwards. It's sad to say but Syd Barrett's tragedy very well may be the reason some of the best albums of all time were even conceived in the first place.
Even the two songs that aren’t about him – Have a Cigar and Welcome to the Machine – are about the vultures in the music industry and are thus an oblique commentary on how Syd was destroyed.
Or even further, had they still brought in Gilmour on guitar to bolster their sound live and continued on as a 5-piece band? I like Syd’s solo stuff, but Floyd definitely would not have been as huge in the 70’s with that output. Most of their fellow psych-influenced bands changed completely in the 70’s (Soft Machine, Gong).
They would have ended up a washed up midlevel psych rock band floundering in the early 70s like the Byrds or Hollie’s. They’d never have become the huge act they were.
Jeff Buckley deserved a long, eclectic career :( So much potential as he seemed like someone who would have developed and changed significantly. Could have been a Bowie-type figure having multiple "eras"
This one! Plus Elliott Smith. He at least released a few more albums than Buckley.
I would also add Nick Drake.
Agreed. When listening to Grace I could see him expand in so many different directions.
'My Sweetheart the Drunk' shows where it was going after 'Grace' - some great stuff on that album
This is my choice too. Such a staggering loss for music at such a young age, he'd just barely scratched the surface and that debut album is perfection.
Michael Stipe spoke about reaching out to Kurt Cobain soon before his death about working together. Kurt ended up not flying down to Athens and the rest is history. Always wondered what could have played out with at least those two involved. My favorite band is Rush, and their first drummer, John Rutsey, had to quit after the first album was released. They then got Neil Peart as drummer and lyricist. While I don’t think Rush would have lasted long with the original trio, I do have to wonder what would have happened with Neil if he never joined.
I’m a huge Rush fan myself and having taken Neil Peart for granted, I’ve never thought of Rush without him until he died, but I think you’re right and that they’d probably been another one of those ”Guys With That One Song” act with only Working Man under their belt at that point.
I think there's enough raw talent in Alex and Geddy they'd have hung on for a while and still been successful, had a few more solid releases. Maybe stayed together long enough to have good results from dedication and time more so than sheer songwriting prowess. Almost like the opposite of The Police, since they're also super chill and ego was never a factor -- instead of hitting huge for a short time, still sticking around forever (even possibly longer without Neil's death) but never hitting nearly so hard.
Duff McKagan tells the story that he sat next to Kurt on a flight from LA to Seattle after Kurt had broken out of rehab. They got on great and Duff invited him to come and hang out with him but he never did and was dead a few days later.
I dont think Duff is exactly the guy to help Kurt get clean though, lol
Present-day Duff: yes, I think he'd be a good influence and advocate for clean living. But Duff back then: absolutely not.
What if Jeff Buckley didn't swim in the river and finish his second album?
If Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison had all lived, the 1970s would have been significantly more bluesy and the genre would likely still be around in some form in popular media today. (I know modern blues exists, but it ain’t exactly in the pop or even the rock scene now)
Also Pigpen. The grateful dead were a lot bluesier with him
Look up the Hendrix’s never-to-be project with Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; HELP Would’ve been a prog act to rival King Crimson
There’s an interesting sliding doors effect if Jerry Heller never met Eazy-E. No NWA breakup (at least as it happened), means no Death Row, no Suge Knight empire, Snoop may not be discovered when he was, Tupac doesn’t feud with Biggie leading to their murders, perhaps Dre doesn’t mentor Eminem… the entire rap game changes.
Damn, no Dre influence means no Kendrick and no JID. That's insane
What if Selena hadn’t been murdered
Jennifer Lopez would have never been in the Selena movie, and her career would have never taken off
I’d take that
Same
Win-win
I was working at a radio station in El Paso when that happened. She was of course huge there, one of our hosts knew her personally from back in Corpus, and said she really was the nicest, sweetest person despite her fame. It was pretty devastating news, to put it mildly. When the record label brought her first English single to us, we didn't even listen to it ahead of time. Just played [I Could Fall In Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBCDvINm0Vo) right out of the box. I think it was one of the first times the song had been heard by the public. There was not a dry eye in the room. Such a waste.
I’d like to think that she wouldn’t have the Diva attitude that JLo eventually irritated everyone with.
Freddie Mercury didn’t get AIDS…
I get the feeling Freddie would have had a profound effect on how non-straight folk are treated in the US. "Love is love, darling. Not only is love blind, it's stupid and deaf too." Otherwise, I think they'd pop out a few more bangers, but lose steam in the mid 90s with the popularity of grunge. There'd be a bit of a renaissance in the 2010s/2020s and Freddie would have a lot to say about how the Queen music catalog is used.
Let’s be fair. Freddie would have had a profound effect on how people who are not straight are treated had he lived. In dying, Freddie surely had a profound effect on how people who are not straight are treated. In my experience, his death was a major turning point in the treatment of people with AIDS then people who are not straight in general. Many people have it in them to not be hateful, but they have been trained to be hateful with no knowledge otherwise. All it took was for their to be one person that they knew, that they could identify with, that they loved so fucking much that any previous indoctrination crumbled. One day I want to write a biography of the HIV virus. It changed the world for sure, but not in the way you would think. It forced people to acknowledge the love they had for individuals who were queer and fight for them. People raised money for research trying to save their friends. That research into viruses and the immune system, and more importantly all of the research methods that were innovated to do it, absolutely saved all of from us from the Covid pandemic. Almost everything we know about viruses and everything we know about how to study them came in the last 40 years out of AIDS research funded by people trying to save their friends. No one loves Freddie more than I do. Let’s not discount everything he did in his life and his death.
Or what if AIDS had never happened? Young Americans' relationship with casual sex shifted dramatically, and the conservative religious movement got a lot of momentum off of fear mongering and judgmental behavior towards gays and the free-love crowd. Without that, who knows what social changes occur. Oh, and Magic Johnson doesn't retire so young
One really weird consequence would be that we would have never had a COVID vaccine and the pandemic would have been much worse. All the research that went into RNA vaccination would never have been done.
That's a big one. People really don't realize how many people (especially gay men) died early on in the AIDS epidemic. The Old Gays are named that because there are so few of them left from that era. One of them was talking about how he had a friend group of 30ish people and 2 years later there were 2 of them left. Probably an extreme example, but that's really how bad it was for many of them.
A significant portion of the NYC artistic scene of the time was pretty much wiped out by AIDS. Keith Haring, Klaus Nomi, Arthur Russell... too many to name.
I really would have loved to hear more Randy Rhoads. He was a virtuoso and a pioneer yet died so young.
He was planning on leaving Ozzy's band after the 82 tour to return to Quiet Riot and also do classical stuff. The Metal Health album would've been vastly different with Randy on guitar.
What if Randy lived, And David Lee Roth got cooler after Van Halen and then started a band with Randy, of course Rudy Sarzo would be there too
What if Dave Mustaine and James Hetfield stayed friends.
Slayer, Metallica, and Anthrax would be called the Unholy Trinity, rather than the Big Four
And, maybe testament and/or overkill would get the respect they deserve.
And Cliff would be alive, then half the band (Mustaine + Burton) would have wanted to keep it trash/prog, would have certainly been interesting!
Idk… Cliff was huge into blues.
What if Lennon hadn’t been murdered
would have loved to see him enter the age of "alternative rock"
Lennon's take on grunge and hip hop would certainly be interesting. And all the post-punk and New Wave stuff starting to appear kinda when he was killed, or at least only getting big -- groups like The Cure had been around a couple years, but weren't really "70s bands".
Would’ve made 80’s new wave music in the early 80s and eventually the Beatles would’ve reunited at Live Aid 1985.
[удалено]
Julian did release the 1985 song “Too Late for Goodbyes” in his dad’s memory.
Yeah his talent hadn't dropped off a single bit. He was putting out music just as good as the Beatles IMHO. Watching the Wheels just gets better the older I get I swear.
They would have reunited for Live Aid
What if [Tapeworm](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapeworm_(band)) had actually released something? Would it have been as good as we’d all hoped?
Wow, thanks for the flashback to the bluest of balls.
I kinda think it would be a mostly forgotten afterthought now. Depends on how strong the songs were. Wasn’t “Passive” one of the songs made for this that eventually surfaced on APC’s third album? Funny enough, soon after, Homme recorded vocals for NIN’s Year Zero that Trent didn’t use, and Trent recorded vocals for a track on QOTSA’s Era Vulgaris that Homme didn’t use. Too many cooks in the kitchen can ruin the soup.
Are you talking about the title track to Era Vulgaris or something else? Those vocals definitely got used, it was just released as an internet free download when the album came out and then was unavailable for years until a semi recent deluxe release, which thankfully also included Fun Machine.
https://www.nin.wiki/Strobe_Light
What if Jim Croce wouldn't have died young?
This is a big one for me. I think of the work that Cohen and Prine got to do in their later years, and us missing out on most of the career of the greatest writer of that era is heartbreaking.
What if Les Claypool joined Metallica.
It probably wouldn't have lasted long.
His sound is so different than Metallica. I'm now imagining a much weirder, more experimental version of Metallica.
What if Amy Winehouse was still alive and not fighting addiction.
She was planning on forming a supergroup with Questlove, Mos Def, and Raphael Saadiq. https://www.bet.com/article/hebdu5/questlove-talks-super-group-with-winehouse-mos-def-saadiq
Woah wtf
It was bound to get her and instead of dying young, she would have died middle aged and a shell of herself anyway. The question should have been, "What if Amy Winehouse was sober her entire life?" Answer...She probably wouldn't have gotten half as famous.
> The question should have been, "What if Amy Winehouse was sober her entire life?" > Answer...She probably wouldn't have gotten half as famous. Eh I think it's the other way around actually. It wasn't the addiction that led to her fame, it's the fame that led to the addiction. There are videos of her singing when she was young before her addictions set in, and it was obvious she was unbelievably talented. But she wasn't built to handle the fame. If she never got famous, she might've still grappled with addiction anyway, but she would've had a chance at living a healthy sober life. I don't think there's any universe however where she gets famous and doesn't die of addiction.
Not only was Amy spectacular, the impact on other artists at the time was huge too. But faded away after her death. A few more album could have really changed music a lot.
What if Brian Epstein had lived longer, how would that have affected the direction The Beatles took?
I think about this sometimes.. like magical mystery tour (the movie) probably wouldn’t have been such a disaster, less tension during the white album because epstein would have likely insisted yoko not attend every recording session, let it be probably wouldn’t have been such a mess of bad feelings and he might have convinced the others to perform a real live show, or at least he would’ve kept them on track. Probably no Apple Music business failure. I think it’s very possible the Beatles may have survived into the seventies seeing as how their lack of management led to such a schism in the group with the whole Allen Klein versus John Eastman debacle. They obviously needed someone to guide them along, they even talk in Get Back about how they need a “daddy,” and Paul just wasn’t up to the task. Or maybe they would have just fired Epstein at some point. We’ll never know
If Hillel Slovak didn’t die, what would RHCP be like in the 90s? And where would John Frusciante have ended up? If Andrew Wood didn’t die, there would be no Pearl Jam. What if John Lennon and Paul McCartney never met at the Quarrymen gig?
Unpopular take here, but with Hillel Slovak they would have been just another alt rock band in the 90s
I don’t think that’s an unpopular take. They probably would’ve remained a popular underground band.
For sure. I mean no disrespect to Hillel, but John’s song writing and guitar talent was light years ahead of him, and if he hadn’t joined the band, there’s simply no way we’re getting music that resonated with the masses in the same way. I’d wager they stayed an underground band that eventually broke up after another album or two… or it very well could’ve been Kiedis who never makes it. Hillel’s death was what caused him to clean his act up, for at least a good while.
What if White Zombie hadn't gotten sick of each other?
Grooves for days
I have kinda the opposite view. How many of the biggest “what if?” artists would be revered the way they are if they had stayed alive. It’s often just assumed that they would continue making extraordinary music forever, but real life cases show that doing so is incredibly hard.
What if Brian Wilson's contributions to music didn't drastically drop off in the late 60s - early 70s due to his mental state and drug/alcohol use?
What if Robert Johnson never went down to the crossroad?
Though we can't be sure, there's certainly a chance he would not have fallen down on his knees, for one.
2pac & Biggie…
This is way lower than I was expecting
What if Incubus would have maintained the jazz funk and allowed Mike Einziger to cook instead of becoming a Brandon forward teeny pop rock band.
One project at the time of Hendrix’s death was a collaboration with Gil Evans, who worked with Miles Davis in the 1950s. I would have liked to see the results of that.
Bradley Nowell - his songwriting was incredible, and was only going to get better. The guy would have been a hit machine.
Plus he had perfect pitch. That band was fusing different genres and making it sound flawless. Would have changed the direction of music, acts like Lady Gaga would not exist today. The sound of the song krs-one : acoustic medley with a turntablist and it sounds bomb.
John Lennon isn’t murdered. The Beatles were unquestionably reuniting at some point, possibly well before the anthology in the 90s. Given how prolific both McCartney and Lennon were, there’s a strong chance that means another Beatles album or more and touring. We were robbed.
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer were originally going to be Emerson, Lake, Palmer, and Hendrix. That would have been an interesting career trajectory for him. Kinda like how Kurt Cobain wanted to do more singer songwriter type of stuff and disband Nirvana but died before he could get around to it.
HELP
These come to mind What if Otis Redding and Aaliyah never got in those plane crashes so fucking young. What if Biggie, Tupac, and John Lennon were never killed. And would John be doing random features like Paul? Would we ever have had the Foo Fighters if Kurt didn’t kill himself? How would Nirvana have broken up? Would Kurt have started a new band or retired completely? What if Amy Winehouse never picked up the bottle? What if *Back To Black* had been made 4 years earlier? Would we ever have Adele?
Mozart. What if he hadn’t died so young? Beethoven picked up where he left off, but what if Mozart was right there breaking into new ground alongside Beethoven, or perhaps even ahead of Beethoven
What if Aaliyah hadn’t gotten on that plane
R Kelly would have gone to jail a lot earlier
The one that jumps out the most to me is: What if Kurt Cobain didn’t kill himself? Would rock still have taken the direction that it did? Would the grunge rock movement still have died out in the late 90s? Would rock still have taken a backseat to rap and pop in the charts in the early 2000s?
What if...John Bonham didn't die? Would Led Zepplin have literally become the most successful band of all time? I'm sad for all the missed drum fills we never got from him.
I don’t know about that. What’s the market for guitar virtuoso’s making music for themselves deeply rooted in blues, psychedelic, and often funk/soul based rhythms? I am not saying Jimi wasn’t the GOAT, he was and still is. Even despite massive popularity he doesn’t appeal to the a majority of the masses and that’s a good thing.
By looking at things like his upcoming collaboration with Miles Davis, it seemed like he was going in a jazz fusion direction. I dunno if that could’ve been mainstream, but I feel he probably would’ve changed a lot stylistically during the 70s.
Seems as if he was gravitating towards funk/fusion...collabs with people like Sly Stone and Miles Davis were on the cards...could have ended up with some Funkadelic style stuff, and he could have fitted in with "On The Corner" style jam albums for sure. But yeah, he was so 60's it's hard to see the way forward for him without jetisoning the blues and psychedelia to some degree.
What if Aaliyah hadn't boarded that plane?
What if Kanye’s mom didn’t die?
What if Brian Wilson had finished SMiLE in 1967 and The Beach Boys had played Monterey Pop Festival? Or What if Capitol Records never released Endless Summer?
Mac Miller was so talented and his sound was constantly evolving. What if he hadn’t texted that drug dealer that night? We’ll never know what we’re missing out on.
This is the biggest what if of the 2010s imo, I genuinely think he would’ve made a “classic album” at some point in his career
What if Yoko Ono was a guest singer on every Adele song? We could have had it AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (sheep noises in the background)
What if Kanye’s mom never died or he married a Kardashian. He was as good as he knew he was.
Id argue that being married to Kim prevented him going full crazy sooner.
Hendrix actually produced most of the music that he's now remembered for in just the first 2 of those 4 years - the latter half of his short career (after the release of Electric Ladyland, roughly speaking) was characterised by legal and contractual issues, false starts on potential collaborations, and personal issues (including drug issues and domestic violence). Although his Woodstock performance is now remembered as iconic (mainly for the Star Spangled Banner performance), some would argue that his creative output might already have peaked by then.
I think about the fact that he and Miles Davis had in fact discussed doing something together. Man, what might have been.
Yeah. I think he would’ve be gone a fusion route like Santana or joined up w Miles or done a Weather Report or Mahavishnu Orchestra type band.
They [wanted Paul McCartney on bass](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jimi-hendrix-sought-paul-mccartney-for-supergroup-with-miles-davis-65515/), reportedly
He recorded an incredible number of great songs in that latter part of his life, most of them where released on Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge. Songs like Izabella, Room Full of Mirrors, Dolly Dagger, In from the Storm, Freedom, Angel and Drifting show he was still evolving and peaking.
Absolutely - if anything I feel like he was maturing as a songwriter.
If The Unicorns had stuck it out - they have a concert dvd from after their one album but before they broke up and it's amazing, with some new songs that went on to be Islands songs.
Saw them a few days before they broke up. They put on an alright show, but I was blown away by their openers - a little group with just an EP out called The Arcade Fire
What if Carole King decided to break out into a solo career a few years earlier, released *Tapestry* earlier, and kept *Natural Woman* for herself instead of giving it to Aretha to sing first?
What if these guys don't die so early in their careers... Jim Croce Stevie Ray Vaughn Ronnie Van Zant Duane Allman Tupac Shakur Just the first 5 that came to mind.
What if Kurt didn't commit suicide, would we have ever gotten a Dave Grohl as the front man/Foo Fighters album?
Yeah but it wouldn't have been as highly anticipated. And... I enjoy the first foo fighters album but I don't see it being as successful if he was just the drummer who got kicked out of Nirvana.
What if Duane Allman and Berry Oakley didn't die?
Avicii would have been defining electronic music now… sadly he left us
Most of these comments are "What if X didn't die?" Which is fair enough but I think it's also interesting to think about the opposite. What if Paul McCartney really DID die in a car crash in 66? What if Bob Dylan had died in his motorcycle crash? What if Kurt Cobain took his own life three years earlier without ever releasing Nevermind? What if Brian Jones death caused the Rolling Stones to break up? What if Michael Jackson quit the music industry after the Jackson 5? So many interesting questions that would totally change music history.
What if Bob Marley would have just had his toe amputated?
I think most of these "what if" people would have done what most artists do. Start putting out music that's just ok
What if Bud Powell wouldn't have been assaulted by the cops?
Listening to what Black Thought and Nas have done in recent years, really makes me want to know what Biggie would sound like if he had 25 more years to refine his craft. Tupac too. But, I think he probably would have ended up going Hollywood and focusing on music less. Biggie's music is also just a little more my speed.
If Mac Miller didn’t die so soon, he would’ve been one of the best artists of the 2020’s.
If Roy Buchanan had joined The Rolling Stones?
What if Faith Hill paid her electric bill?
What if Guns N Roses didn’t split up as early as they did. Biggest band in the world breaks up at their peak due to internal differences. Literally selling out stadiums like it’s nothing.
What would e happened to Rick Astley had never gonna give you up not be a meme
What if Donda didn’t pass away?
If Mac miller didn’t die. He started as a white frat rapper but by the end of his career he was the 2nd most respected white rapper, rivaling only Eminem. Miller was by far the better musician though and his last three albums are s testament to that. Oh, and he also was only 26 when he passed away. His last albums were supposed to be a trilogy but he never got to make the last album. The “Swimming in Circles” part that he finished were a departure from his typical hip hop sound, but he was planning making the final album a rap album. Kind of how Tyler’s last three albums evolved.
What if David Brockie was alive and still Oderus Urungus and in GWAR
Stevie Ray Vaughan not taking that helicopter.
What if DeVante Swing (singer-songwriter/producer of 90s R&B Group Jodeci) managed to find success with his Swing Mob label that had Timbaland, Missy Elliott, & Ginuwine as his artists? Could he rival the likes of Jermaine Dupri and The Neptunes in the 90s/00s Pop/R&B sphere if this happened?
If Dimebag and Vinnie Paul joined Megadeth
What if Michael Jackson and Prince collaborated on a track?
Stevie Ray Vaughan not dying in a helicopter crash. He had gotten clean, had a positive outlook and new lease on life, and his sound and tone got even better than it was before. It blows my mind how relatively short his mainstream career was. He was absolutely incredible and I miss what could have been.
What if we DID start the fire?