Let’s start this off with a piping hot take: Supergroups are 99% terrible.
Sure, you can whip off examples like CSNY, the Traveling Wilburys, or the Monstars Anthem. Here in Canada, Broken Social Scene and the New Pornographers continue to coast on their successes, and some people even seem to like their music. Heck, we can give some shout outs to Wild Flag or the lesser known Minuteflag, Scott Walker + Sunn O))) or the unfairly derided Loutallica.
Yet outliers aside, the majority of smash ‘em up collaborations featuring multiple “well-known” artists (relatively speaking) range from lazy, late career money grabs to outright crimes against humanity. With the recent headlines on Hollywood Vampires (Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, and pals) and the “EDM-nodding” Dead & Company (members of the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, and John Mayer), there’s no time like the present to look back at the worst offenders in supergroup history.
Note: This list avoids the low hanging fruit like Velvet Revolver, ELP or NKOTBSB (and sorry to say it, but several members of the AUX writing staff ride hard for Zwan). Instead, we’ve chosen to focus on the all-time barrel-scraping cream of the crap. Click through the gallery above for 11 circles of supergroup hell.