For some reason a lot of Def Leppard stuff has been popping up in my Youtube feed and one of them was a short doc on Def Leppard. It covered the up to Hysteria. I learned something that I had never heard before which got me thinking about what might have happened to bands/artists if key events happened differently.

Obviously, Hysteria became a massive hit for Leppard, but I was not aware that Mutt Lange was not initially available to produce so they were going with Jim Steinman (Meat Loaf and Musical fame) and he actually worked with them for almost 2 months. Were it not for Rick Allens accident, they may never have hooked back up with Lange and produced the version of Hysteria that was released. They apparently have tapes of those sessions that they vow to never release.

Even after getting rid of Steinman, I wonder what kind of album would have been produced had they not been able to get back with Lange and would it have been anywhere near as big as Hysteria was.

So what other bands history might have been different if a key event for them had been different?

What if Cliff Burton never died in 1986 ?

What if Geddy Lee produced Master of Puppets ?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/rush...lee-interview/

What if Ozzy did not fire Chris Tsangarides as producer on Blizzard of Oz ?

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news...s_furious.html

https://www.rocknrollinsight.com/201...-diary-of.html

Wow, I'm a diehard Rush fan and never heard of this. That would have been interesting. I don't know which way it would have gone.

What if... Cliff Burton didn't die in a bus accident?

What if... Metallica had kept Dave Mustaine?

What if... Randy Rhoads didn't get on the airplane?

What if... Van Halen didn't shitcan David Lee Roth after 1984?

What if... Andy Wood didn't die of a heroin overdose?

If Cliff didn't die, there's a good chance that Lars would have been kicked out of the band when they got back from their European tour. And man, if Dave wasn't kicked out, Cliff didn't die and they got a more versatile drummer to replace Lars, the mind boggles of what Metallica would have ended up sounding like. Sure, then there would be no Megadeth, but what if some of that stuff got incorporated into Metallica?

If Randy had lived, I'd be surprised if he would have done more than one further Ozzy album.

What if Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison lived past 30?

Maybe Morrison would have become a solo artist.

A Hendrix and Prince duet?

Buddy Holly died approximately 5 years before the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. I think that, had Holly lived, the world of popular music would have looked a lot different in 1964 and the Beatles might not have been seen as such a revolutionary band,

-What if Ace and Peter cared more about the business/money making side of KISS
-What is Gene and Paul cared more about making good rock music/creative side of KISS

Where would countless Artists be if the Music Industry, from day one of the industry's creation, had always signed New Artists to fair, equitable, and non exploitive deals?

... Malcolm McLaren didn't sack Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols?

Buddy was creating and experimenting almost literally till the day he died. His in-laws were exposing him to Latin music, and he was already interested in other styles on his own.

Rock and roll would be very different if that plane hadn't crashed.

The obvious one:

...if Hilly Kristal doesn't open a nightclub in the Bowery for country, bluegrass, and blues?

Hetfield, Burton, Mustaine, and Hoglan? We'd definitely be looking at a very different animal.

Even playing the "What if" game, I don't see Mustaine lasting in Metallica without imploding the band. Even Megadeth has always been a revolving door; even Junior has been let go twice. I don't think Mustaine would have lasted past two albums or 1986, whichever came first.

And I've heard the rumor that they were considering firing Lars for years, but I'm not sure I buy it. He's always been the face of the band, and basically managed the band, so I don't really see how they fire him in the late 1980s. If they did, they probably wouldn't have achieved the superstardom they did a few years later and just remained a popular thrash metal act.

Yeah, I've heard that he probably wasn't going to stick around in Ozzy's band much longer, and it would have been interesting to see what he would have done after one or maybe two more Ozzy albums. One wonders what "Bark at the Moon" and "The Ultimate Sin" might have been like with the Blizzard/Diary band still intact.

They might not have imploded as quickly, but I doubt they would have lasted into the 80s. I don't think Johnny would have stuck with the band and gone off to his thing. They definitely wouldn't have achieved their level of notoriety without Sid.

That's interesting one. Would acts like Patti Smith and the Ramones have just settled on a different venue(s) and still achieved the same thing? Take away one step, and does the whole thing fall apart? Or do they just breakout playing at places like Max's Kansas City?

I have had conversations with friends about whether you'd rather have what Foo Fighters is or what Nirvana could have been? But the conversation gets dropped because at the end of it all, we're talking about the potential impact of whether or not someone completed suicide and none of us want to go there.

Where would they be if ... music producer Terry Melcher had signed Charles Manson to a record deal instead of turning him down?




Where would they be if ... Glenn Frey hadn't overheard Don Felder's flippant remark to Senator Alan Cranston prior to their fundraising concert in Long Beach?












Eh... I'll go there.

I think Cobain probably would have flaked by around late 1996 and walked away from the band. He would have had a briefly successful solo career, but eventually faded away into self-exile and semi-obscurity. Grohl probably would have started up a project that looked at lot like Foo Fighters. Might have been more of a supergroup with some stray punk/metal/grunge/alternative musicians than what Foo Fighters ended up being, though. Novoselic would probably bump around with a handful of unsuccessful/abortive projects for a few years then retire and live off of royalties like he's doing now.

There was already a lot of tension between Felder and Frey/Henley before that incident, which was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

If it wasn't that, it would have eventually been something that broke up the band. I don't think they would have made far it into the 1980s.

Where would they be if ... Aunt Susan hadn't invited The Kelly Affair to a party at Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell's house?




Where would they be if ... Dirk Diggler and Reed Rothchild were able to buy back their demo tapes from Sound City Recording Studios?







What if Klaus Nomi had lived.

The mind boggles with that line up, especially adding Hoglan to the mix.
Good point, Dave was (is) quite mercurial, so yeah, there would have eventually been problems with him anyway.

Maybe true, but I would have been ok with the bolded.


Those two albums would have likely been very different with Rhodes and not Jake E. Lee, I'm guessing Ozzy didn't have much musical input other than some of the lyrics.

Agreed, I can't see Johnny sticking around. If anything, having Sid join the band may have made him stick around longer, as Sid (mess that he was) was from his circle, while Glen was not.

I was thinking that maybe Max's Kansas City (or even The Coventry) could have become the focus instead. The whole thing started with Television managing to convince Hilly to allow them to play at CBGBs, but the scene was really starting to bubble with a lot of artists, and it probably would have broken out somewhere, it was inevitable with that much talent and creativity practically screaming for a public outlet.

I think they might have lasted a little longer, yes, maybe even into the '80s, seeing how bands like The Clash surged in popularity. They'd have to be free of Malcolm though; the Matlock sacking and replaced by Sid let them all know the whole thing was just a, well, swindle.

I do agree that Johnny wouldn't have lasted though.

I'm not as knowledgeable on the non-CBs venues of NYC, this all happened when I was in elementary school. It's nice to imagine Smith, the Ramones, Television, Blondie, all would have eventually found a willing venue, and maybe they would have. But it was also a revolution that took time to take hold (see Ramones documentaries about how DJs were literally apologetic when they played Blitzkrieg Bop without hearing it first; some lifted the needle almost immediately, others played the first three songs before realizing it wasn't the same song) and it's possible only someone like Hilly had the patience to let people become accustomed to such a radical shift in what rock and roll could sound like.