The Demise of Bloc Party

0 Thursday November 3 2011 Written by flyprints
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Guest Post written by: Wes (http://twitter.com/wesfoster95)

Recently Kele Okereke (Lead Singer) began to work on his solo project, ‘The Boxer’ his first delve into the uncharted waters of electronica/house. It still has slight elements of Bloc Party within the songs, (I especially like ‘Tenderoni’). With song writing skills equal to that of Bloc Party I’m surprised that this album didn’t do better than it did. How ever while in New York he saw his then still band mates enter a rehearsal space and shortly after he announced this had happened, I think he was promptly kicked out of the band, in a surprising and almost unjust move by his band mates. Then in recent revelations it appears it was all just, a bit of a ‘fluke’ in order to grab some quick publicity for the band and may end up back together again.

However it does beg the question: Is it right for a member of a band to pursue a solo career without the band and still expect for them to wait for him? Or should the band just do without him?

The list of musicians who leave or take a break from bands to pursue a solo career is almost endless, they all do it. Perhaps it is just their ego, or perhaps it is just from the want to make more music than was possible with the band. A lot of the more pop solo sensations however have done staggeringly well, for example Gwen Stefani (No Doubt), Brittney Spears (The Mickey mouse Club), James Brown (Maceo Parker & others). Apart from No Doubt, non of these bands were particularly successful, so to go solo may seem a much wiser career path for someone, but is it right if you already have a very successful, respected band more like Bloc Party, which does have the ability to make all the music Kele began to make?

Bands like The Boomtown Rats (Bob Geldoff), The Stooges (Iggy Pop), NSync (Justin Timberlake) obviously gave their solo artists their fame, but they must somewhat feel betrayed by their band mates now, especially only being a tenth as famous as the artists in question. But what about when established bands like Pink Floyd give us solo artists (Syd Barrett) or The Velvet Underground (Lou Reed).

It’s an unfortunate situation, but is it also unanswerable? Do musicians have the right to try their hand at being a solo artist or should they be loyal and stick by their band no matter how well/badly their doing? What do you think?