was van hagar still good after they replaced diamond dave? i think new order might be the most successful. i guess its not the same since they technically changed their name from joy division, but when the singer died the guitarist took over vocal duties and they added a keyboard player. mike patton was not the original singer from faith no more, but they did not really break until he was in the band. ronnie james dio in black sabbath...some of the stuff with him stands up with the best of the ozzy era.
AIC isn't too bad with new singer since Cantrell is still there, obviously he's not Layne but concert I saw recently was still pretty good. Their first album after Layne was decent, the recent one not as much iirc. I mainly went to concert more to see Cantrell still play, but I agree on blind melon/sublime/stp since the frontman was their most important piece, I just think AIC as having 2 main guys since Cantrell wrote a lot of the big songs (just look at Dirt and you'll see what I mean regarding Cantrell writing). Don't get me wrong Layne wrote some popular ones too, but Cantrell and Layne made AIC, so half is still there. Now if Cantrell was gone as well I'd agree for sure.
It's not so much about the behind-the-scenes stuff as it is that voice. You cannot replace that voice. No one can recreate Shannon Hoon or Layne Staley. I know Cantrell is behind much of the writing and some of the singing. I just can't stand to hear another voice singing what is probably one of my 5 favorite songs of all time, "Don't Follow" off of Jar of Flies.
Not sure how the Cars fit in, since they shared vocals afaik, as long as there were the Cars. Dio Sabbath was just a pale imitation of the real thing. Not that Dio wasn't awesome in his own right.
All my favorite cars songs are mostly sung by Orr but I think towards the end, and in there most successful album commercially ? was maybe Heartbreak City, I don't remember Orr singing on any of those songs, or if he was still even in the band ? ... don't remember him in any of those mtv videos. Love all Sabbath but a lot of my favorites with Dio , hardly would call Heaven and Hell a "pale imitation" ? Heaven and Hell ,Neon Knights ,Die Young ...all epic and arguably some of the best in the Sabbath catalog.
STP died off a long time ago. Their music and lyrics/style were very era specific. There is no STP without Weiland. Their time has come and gone..... listening to them always remind me of the sex, drugs, apathy, fun that I was part of and that they captured so well.
OK, your story checks out. The Cars are a maybe? and Sabbath can replace Van Halen in my initial short-list along with Genesis and AC/DC. Weren't the 90's great?
No doubt, I mean his voice definitely can't be replaced and I do miss his style, especially knowing there's not going to be another like him. I still regularly rotate all of their original albums (prior to his hiatus/passing). I remember seeing Cantrell live in concert a few months after Layne's passing (during his Degradation Trip tour for his solo group), and you could tell AIC wasn't ever going to be the same, he was already testing the new eventual singer then, but were only using it as dedications to Staley and playing some original AIC. One thing I did think that was at least somewhat cool, was it took 7 years to get a new album, but you're right on it not being Staley, and Cantrell has said as much, new material has that guitar riff for AIC but it's different. I really love AIC though, so... It's something I've accepted, but like I mentioned earlier stp without Weiland and sublime without Bradley, or even soundgarden w/o Chris (if they attempt to do it) all are just really bad. On a side note, I'm thankful I got to see Soundgarden with NIN before Cornell passed. He could still sing, great show for sure.