10 Rock Bands That Fell Apart At The Top Of Their Game

After the first wave of grunge died a pretty ugly death in 1994, the rock world didn't really have a clear direction of where to go next. At a time when the pop punk explosion was starting to happen in the States, we also had the Britpop movement rapidly gaining traction thanks to people like Blur, Oasis, and Pulp leading the charge. If there's any band that should have been the kings of the genre though, it should have been the La's.

Arriving on the scene almost 5 years too early in 1990, the songwriting of Lee Mavers seemed tailor made for Britpop, having the same amount of pop smarts while also having clever songwriting tricks up his sleeve. Before it had even come out though, there were problems, like Mavers absolutely hating the mixes and trying to perfect the album so much that he was driven almost to the point of madness.

By the time the album was eventually released, you had Mavers slagging it off, saying that it didn't live up to its potential and trying to polish what other material he had for the next record. Although John Power always stood by Lee's side through it all, the overanalyzing became too much for him as well, getting into a fight with Lee onstage and then striking off on his own in the band Cast. If anything, the Britpop movement just feels like a sad reminder of what Mavers had become: the tortured artist who was never able to create the sounds that he heard in his head.