10 albums that bowed out gracefully
No one is meant to play rock and roll forever. As much as it might be fun trying to outdo yourself every time you go out on the road, there comes a moment when everyone needs to slow down and start assessing where they are in life. It’s never an easy decision to hang it up, but artists like David Bowie made the end of the road look like a walk in the park once they released their final albums.
When you really think about it, though, a band overseeing their own breakup makes much more sense. Since they are the ones who know their capabilities better than most, they should be the ones to make the final call, saying they can’t do it anymore, creating one of their finest albums so they let their audience know that they went out at the top of their game.
Then again, the biggest bands tend to fall out under morbid circumstances as well, with many of the biggest stars of the band passing away before they had the chance to make another record. Even though time has been known to bring the most impressive bands to a halt in an instant, their final statements to the world ended up being hauntingly prophetic or a nice closing chapter to their legacy.
Outside of the occasional reunion tour for a handful of artists, none of the bands in question ever ventured far past their final product, practically telling everyone that there wouldn’t be another go-around in the studio with the classic lineup. This was going to be it, and in just a handful of tracks, some of the biggest bands in the world created a photo finish to their time in the spotlight.
10 bands that bowed out gracefully:
10. Pink Moon – Nick Drake
Nick Drake is the classic case of a star that burned out way too quickly. While his music is only relegated to a handful of studio albums, those sonic statements contain some of the most emotional folk music in rock history, featuring strange guitar tunings no one had touched on. Even though Drake gained the respect of his peers, his internal demons led to his masterpiece Pink Moon being released posthumously.
After performing most of the songs for the album, Drake checked himself into a mental facility before eventually taking his own life. Although most of the songs on here reflect his tragic state of mind towards the end, you wouldn’t know it for the music, featuring some of the most ethereal guitar work ever made and making the listener feel like they’re floating through the air as they hang on his every word.
The lo-fi recording of everything also makes the album feel that much more personal, as if you’re Drake’s confidante as he tells all of his intrusive thoughts in song. Drake may have put the guitar down for good shortly after releasing this album, but judging by the way he sang, music was always the best way for him to exorcise his demons.
9. Loaded – The Velvet Underground
No part of The Velvet Underground was meant to last very long. Since Lou Reed was constantly shifting his sound and approach to songwriting throughout his career, it only made sense that the band he started called it quits eventually. Although Doug Yule would keep the corpse of the band alive on the album Squeeze, Loaded is the closest thing to a commercial rock album that the art rockers would ever create.
Given that every Velvet Underground album was both innovative and abrasive in equal measure, Loaded is the kind of record you get when they try to make pop tunes, featuring amazing tracks like ‘Sweet Jane’. Despite the band not being on the best of terms, this is one of the few times where they sound like they’re having fun in the studio, riffing off each other as if they knew it would be one of the final times.
While Reed would fold most of his brilliance into his solo career later, he never sounded more in tune with the sounds of mainstream rock than this album. He may have rallied against the status quo at every opportunity, but when he sings ‘Rock and Roll’, it’s easy to see why he loved the genre in the first place.
8. Band of Gypsys – Jimi Hendrix
There’s no telling what Jimi Hendrix could have given the world had he lived to see the rest of the 1970s. Given that he was one of the few rock musicians who got the nod from Miles Davis, his flirtations with jazz were just on the horizon, waiting to blossom into a true rock and roll alien before his tragic overdose. While Band of Gypsys was never supposed to be released, it remains a haunting portrait of a musician on fire.
Since Hendrix wasn’t around to okay the release of any more material, this live album is a collection of jams that he had done that was released to fulfil the rest of his contract. Despite moving on to outlandish soundscapes on Electric Ladyland, the five songs on this album are the blueprint for what Hendrix could do live, practically predicting hard rock with songs like ‘Power to Love’.
And even if it never ended up finding a home on a studio album, ‘Machine Gun’ is still one of Hendrix’s most compelling songs, telling the story of a soldier in The Vietnam War with only a few lyrics and the sounds of a guitar screaming out in pain. Hendrix may have existed in his physical form for only a short time, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that he was truly at one with his instrument.
7. American IV – Johnny Cash
By the 2000s, Johnny Cash had gone through more lifetimes than any other musician before him. Others may have had the mythic status associated with them, but Cash’s ‘Man in Black’ persona had only made him more captivating over time. Now with Rick Rubin at his disposal and seeing a career resurgence, American IV was crafted as the last goodbye from Cash to his fans while still among the living.
Even though the American series of albums is primarily made up of covers, the tunes chosen for Cash to sing are some of the most gripping performances he ever gave. From restructuring tunes by Depeche Mode and the Eagles to making solemn country tunes like ‘Give My Love to Rose’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’, Cash practically sounds like he’s sitting in a rocking chair watching the world go by, still having the same magic he had in the beginning.
Outside of the familiar favourites, ‘Hurt’ is the real landmark moment that most artists can only hope for during their career. Cash may have been frail compared to his previous work, but none of that musical muscle was gone. For all his body may have been failing him, Cash was ready to look death right in the face and plead his case to be let into heaven.
6. MTV Unplugged in New York – Nirvana
The entire final year of Nirvana was marred by absolute chaos. After they had achieved the greatest milestones that any band could have hoped to make during their lifetime, Kurt Cobain was spiralling towards a brick wall throughout the tour for In Utero, eventually being flown to a rehab facility between two legs of the tour. By the time he was found dead in his home after escaping, the future of Nirvana and the alternative rock scene had come to a heartbreaking end.
While no one could blame Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic for retiring the name Nirvana and moving on to separate projects, MTV Unplugged in New York was a perfect way for the world to see Cobain one last time. Filmed a few months prior to Cobain’s suicide, much of the concert features beautifully introspective takes on his classic tunes, either making completely different arrangements or covering personal favourites from Meat Puppets and David Bowie.
Above all else, this night helped people recontextualise Cobain’s role as one of the leaders of grunge rock. He may have been heralded as the leader of his generation, but underneath that impressive scream was an earnest songwriter who was head and shoulders above every one of his peers.
5. Clockwork Angels – Rush
For decades, Rush seemed to be the one prog band that could not be stopped under any circumstances. Whereas bands like Yes and Genesis had their fallings out due to infighting or not wanting to work together anymore, the Canadian power trio worked off each other like it was second nature, braving the kind of trendy albums that should have killed any other band. Despite soldiering on throughout the 2000s as a stadium-rock mainstay, their final offering turned out to be their most ambitious undertaking yet.
Since Neil Peart had always been known to write songs with dense stories that stretched out over 20 minutes at a time, why not write an entire concept album around one theme? Coming with a novella of the same time, Peart crafted an expertly-paced rock album based around a loner kid who gets thrown into a steampunk environment and tries to find ways to fit into the world with his big dreams.
Outside of the storyline, many songs on the album seem to reflect the mindset of the band as well, with ‘Headlong Flight’ feeling like the best way to sum up how far the band have come since their inception as a wayward Led Zeppelin-style outfit. Rush had nothing to prove to anyone anymore, but after decades in the business, it’s only fitting for their last album to have them pushing themselves to their limits one more time.
4. Brainwashed – George Harrison
For the second half of the 1990s, George Harrison was practically living with a death sentence. After being diagnosed with cancer and surviving a harsh attack at his home in Friar Park, Harrison knew that there was only a certain amount of time he had left on this planet before he moved on in his astral body. All that was left was to make one last album, and Harrison’s son Dhani and ELO frontman Jeff Lynne oversaw Harrison’s most compelling set of songs in years.
Recorded off and on whenever Harrison was up for it, Brainwashed was an eclectic mix of tunes centred around Harrison’s signature takes on philosophy. While many of us want to picture Harrison’s final statement being with The Traveling Wilburys, hearing him speak sage-like wisdom on tracks like ‘Rising Sun’ and the title track shows how in tune he was with his personal beliefs before moving on.
This is also Harrison’s most spiritually inclined album by a mile, making his guitar practically speak on the song ‘Marwa Blues’ and ending the entire album with the kind of Hindu chant to see himself into the afterlife. Harrison had spent much of his later years trying to affirm his relationship with his creator, and by the sounds of Brainwashed, he wasn’t a man living with too many regrets by the end.
3. Made in Heaven – Queen
There will never be another frontman with one-tenth the charisma that Freddie Mercury had. Outside of being one of the biggest onstage attractions in the entire world, Mercury was an equally strong musician over the course of his time with Queen, penning the songs that would go down in rock history as the most accomplished feats of musical ecstasy ever committed to tape. Even when he was diagnosed with AIDs and given just a few years left, Mercury was not going to let a measly disease stand in the way of him and his music.
While it would have been understandable for the group to release the album Innuendo as their final statement, Made in Heaven is the kind of album assembled from the last that Mercury had left to give. Recording up until the day he died, Mercury decided to give all of his final demos to his bandmates for them to assemble a new album, resulting in songs that feel like a love letter between every collaborator.
Despite the band doing a fine job at fleshing out the arrangements, Mercury is still the lone star on the project, putting just as much enthusiasm and grit into songs like ‘Mother Love’ as he did when he was in his prime. Wherever he is now, Mercury should be proud to leave such a massive undertaking in his wake.
2. Abbey Road – The Beatles
For a brief period in the late 1960s, The Beatles had practically broken up without anybody knowing it. They might have been able to make one of their most adventurous albums on The White Album, but the massive infighting amongst the Fab Four led to the album Get Back being shelved due to it not being good enough. Fans would eventually get that album as Let It Be later, but Paul McCartney convinced the band to get back together to leave their audience with one final gift.
Returning with George Martin back to produce, Abbey Road is everything that a Fab fan could have asked for, featuring John Lennon and McCartney going back and forth creating masterpieces like ‘Come Together’ and ‘Oh! Darling’. For all of the great music they were making, George Harrison walked away with the best songs, creating the ultimate declaration of love on ‘Something’ and the folk-pop masterpiece, ‘Here Comes the Sun’.
The first side might be the “hits” from the record, but the medley that closes out the project is still among the best pieces they ever put together, featuring every band member showing their skills before going their separate ways. A few more decades of stellar solo work lay ahead, but this is the last time that every member of the band could feel happy working off each other.
1. Blackstar – David Bowie
There are only a handful of people still alive today who could tell you what the real David Bowie was like. He may have been able to reinvent himself into different characters every time he got into the studio, but good luck trying to find that version of Davey Jones that started years before the rock and roll alien fell to Earth. Bowie was always an enigma, but his final album was where he took off as many masks as he could before he left us.
Knowing that he was fighting a losing cancer battle, Bowie spent the last years of his career working away on his final statement, using whatever musicians he could to realise his vision as a dark rock and roll star who was burning out. While many artists have made albums at the end of their careers, Bowie turned his own demise into a surreal art project, talking about how the public would see him and what might lay in store for him on the other side.
Compared to the millions of other things that should have been on his agenda, Bowie was ready to face death alongside his fans and wanted to give them a look at how he was embracing that one final trip that we all have to face. So when you listen to Blackstar, don’t look at it as the sad farewell from a dying musician. Look at it as the brave face of a man looking at death, refusing to back down from anything in his way.
