Rock's Unanswerable Questions

[Reverend Rock]

The idea for this thread is to list the "what if" questions that most bug you in the annals of rock history. Here's my first one:

Why wasn't "Sunday Morning" a hit top 40 single for the Velvet Underground???

 

[Zombeels]

Why wasn't "Sunday Morning" a hit top 40 single for the Velvet Underground???

Great song. My guess is that the album let alone the song got no promotion or advertisement and that calibre of song just wouldn't cut it for AM radio.

I have another question. Why did certain top 10 hits from the UK didn't even chart in the US and vice-versa?

 

[Reverend Rock]

Great song. My guess is that the album let alone the song got no promotion or advertisement and that calibre of song just wouldn't cut it for AM radio.

I have another question. Why did certain top 10 hits from the UK didn't even chart in the US and vice-versa?

...But my contention would be that "Sunday Morning" would most definitely cut it for AM radio in the '60s--especially in early '67, when the first Velvets album was released.

As for your question, Zombeels, a lot would depend on what time period you're talking about. In the 60s, there were no "multi-national" record companies, so UK records were distributed in the US by different companies than the companies that made them, and vice-versa. Each of these various companies decided what singles to release, and quite often the singles released in one country were not released in another country. For instance, there are Beatles songs which were chart hits in various parts of Europe that were never even released for radio airplay in the US, so we only know them as album tracks.

 

[AboutAGirl]

Mine are pretty simple...

What would Kurt Cobain have done with the rest of his life if he decided to live it?

What would Led Zeppelin's next album have been if Bonzo hadn't died?

What music would Jimi Hendrix have made if he was still alive today?

What would it be like if The Rolling Stones had quit in the early 70s, and The Beatles kept going on for the next 4 decades?

 

[Zombeels]

Mine are pretty simple...

What would Kurt Cobain have done with the rest of his life if he decided to live it?

He would be serving life in prison after killing Courtney.

What would Led Zeppelin's next album have been if Bonzo hadn't died?

It would have sucked, neither Page or Plant have done anything decent since the demise of Bonham.

What music would Jimi Hendrix have made if he was still alive today?

He would have gone through a jazz stage, then a contemporary stage and then like many other bands continue to have sellout concerts because of the their earlier work.

What would it be like if The Rolling Stones had quit in the early 70s, and The Beatles kept going on for the next 4 decades?

Stones would be considered the best band of all time and the Beatles would be today's biggest joke.

 

[Reverend Rock]

Mine are pretty simple...

What would Kurt Cobain have done with the rest of his life if he decided to live it?

If he'd gotten some help, he might be a harder edged version of Sting...in other words, a solo artist with a unique style and a lot of substance.

What would Led Zeppelin's next album have been if Bonzo hadn't died?

I agree with Zombeels. They had already lost their edge when Bonzo died.

What music would Jimi Hendrix have made if he was still alive today?

I think this is the great unanswerable question of the rock era. Personally, I think Hendrix would have been incredible in the 70s, and I agree with Zombeels that he would have done jazz; in fact, at the time of his death he was already heading into a jazz period. I think the entire jazz-fusion movement of the early 70s owes a heck of a lot to Hendrix anyway, and he would have been a leader in it. But I don't agree that he would have ever rested on his laurels. I don't think Hendrix was even capable of that. I think he would have emerged from jazz-fusion a much more refined musician with a lot of artistic ambition. It's my opinion that Hendrix was the one artist from the late 60s who had it in him to go beyond rock into other realms, and completely reinvent the musical landscape of the late 20th century. The loss of his early death is impossible to overstate.

What would it be like if The Rolling Stones had quit in the early 70s, and The Beatles kept going on for the next 4 decades?

It simply couldn't have happened. I can't even imagine it.

 

[eccentric man]

i'd say cobain would have been more like a neil young rather than a sting type. i don't think cobain could have ever pulled off sting level cheese even as a joke hehehe

i'm also totally down with what rev. rock said about hendrix. couldn't have said it better.

 

[Martha Washington]

What would Kurt Cobain have done with the rest of his life if he decided to live it?

well, I don't know about the rest of his life but I think he was headed towards the sort of thing R.E.M. was doing on "Out of Time". I think Cobain was a pretty original guy but I think that live album showed he was REALLY open to other influences and I remember him saying, in an interview, that he thought R.E.M. was really on to something.

so... I guess I think he would have mellowed out quite a bit, at least for a while.

What would Led Zeppelin's next album have been if Bonzo hadn't died?

well, if he hadn't died, he still would have been pretty screwed up. I'm not sure it wouldn't have been 'Co/da' anyway. they say Plant was a real pill on "...out door" about "not repeating" themselves. I think maybe zep had run it's course by that time. Page was pretty out of it. Maybe 'co/da' with a couple more tracks.

What music would Jimi Hendrix have made if he was still alive today?

I agree that he was headed for 'fusion' but, I have a hunch he would have put out a 'disco single' like the Stones and Rod Stewart did.

What would it be like if The Rolling Stones had quit in the early 70s, and The Beatles kept going on for the next 4 decades?

the Stones would be icons and people would be saying "when are the Beatles going to give it up???"

 

[Reverend Rock]

You know, I really can't imagine Hendrix doing a disco single. He's the one artist of that generation that I can't imagine that of (and yes, I know just about everybody else who survived did one).

 

[AboutAGirl]

Well, Hendrix did do a Christmas single. Although.... it was a guitar solo! So I guess he might have done a disco single.... that was a guitar solo.

For Kurt Cobain I feel like he might have been one of few like Syd Barrett who actually would just quit. If his suicide note is to be believed, he didn't like performing much anymore. Another really cool possibility is if he had just gone completely underground... supposedly he said he wanted to put out his 4-track demos on an indie label under an alias. The only thing that troubles me about that scenario is.... I'd probably never find the alias and even if I did I wouldn't know it was him.

Of course, considering how Kurt apparently couldn't just say "no, **** off" to everybody (again reffering to his suicide note), I imagine another Nirvana album coming out in '94 or '95 with Pat Smear on some tracks, headed by somewhat less traditional, dark songs like You Know You're Right and Nobody Knows I'm New Wave. Kurt then refuses to tour and hires a bunch of symphonic musicians to make music with him. He makes an album of quirky symphonic rock headed by a song done with Michael Stipe.... .... and if everybody who says they were trying to reach him when he died was being honest, it'd also have tracks with Neil Young, Iggy Pop, and others. Then Nirvana, having never officially broken up, reconvienes to make an album with more than half the songs having been written by Dave Grohl. Dave & Krist recruit a drummer and tour the album without Kurt. Kurt drops out of the scene for a handful of years, occasionally showing up as a guest on random records, and doing gigs with mercenary musicians for a few benefit concerts. He appears live singing back-up for Hole in 1998, trying to save the failing band. He returns in 2002 with a 2-disk Leadbelly influenced, Neutral Milk Hotel-esque album he recorded on a 4-track home recorder. It gets slammed by critics as being typical, long, and uninspired. Kurt gets pissed and records a Brittney Spears cover album, but then doesn't release it. Kurt releases an album of studio jams ranging from Nirvana studio jams to him and Courtney doing a capella vocal solos in their basement, it's called "Jam It In My Butt." Kurt does a tour with Neil Young and The Pixies in 2010, his first tour in more than 15 years. Nirvana reunites in 2024 for their induction into the Hall of Fame and they record three new songs for the 4th Nirvana greatest hits album, including a cover of Eye of the Chicken by the Butthole Surfers. Nirvana then tours with The Rolling Stones' farewell tour, but then The Rolling Stones tour for another 20 years. Heheheheh.