You may have heard that the Avalanches are “officially back together,” hitting the road for festival dates and a tour. It ends one hell of a hiatus, and marks the only concrete piece of news surrounding the group since 2000's Since I Left You. Since I Left You was a unique, beautiful debut, a record so warm and euphoric you could pretty much put it on for anyone and make them smile. We called it the 10th best record of the 2000s, but yet, fifteen and a half years later… that’s still it. An update in 2009 first mentioned that a new album was in the works and they were just “clearing samples.” In 2011 the band told the Aussie radio station Triple J that the record “just needs to be arranged a bit and mixed.” A year later we teased an “album update” in 2012 claiming the album would be out by year’s end. No dice. If the Avalanches were a software company, their album would fall under the category of “vaporware,” joining other never-to-materialize wonders such as Duke Nukem Forever and "Project Xanadu."
And yet here we are, and the Avalanches have at least reunited, a wonder in itself. So, in honor of the Eagles’ Don Henley, who allegedly stated in 1980 that “hell will freeze over” before the band would get back together again (but then did in 1994), here are 10 Instances Where Hell Froze Over in the past sixteen years since the last Avalanches record.
1) The Beach Boys Smile Was Finally Released After 40 Years... In Not One But TWO Official Versions
Smile was originally meant as the follow-up to Pet Sounds in the mid 1960s. The story (which grew legendary over the years) went that band leader Brian Wilson’s obsession for perfection led to a breakdown; the project was abandoned and the band receded from both critical and commercial glow, and by the '90s was deemed to be on permanent vacation. But then, in rather abrupt fashion, Wilson suddenly announced in 2004 that he’d decided to record the whole thing with a new band and poof, there it was. As if that wasn’t enough, seven years after that they decided to release the whole damn original as The Smile Sessions, with one disc constructing the album and four others comprising all the sessions. It was an improbably heartwarming ending to one of pop music’s greatest “lost albums” of all time.
2) Guns N’ Roses Finally Finish Chinese Democracy… AND The Band Finally Played Together Again
Drug problems, changes in public taste and the fact that the band was overseen by verifiable maniac Axl Rose made it surprising to no one when G n’ R fizzled out and collapsed after the covers album “The Spaghetti Incident?” Axl fired the whole band in the mid ‘90s and spent the next 15 years promising to release his opus, bearing the ridiculous name Chinese Democracy. It was already a myth by the time Since I Left You came out in 2000; but after most of us had given up on it entirely, eight more years and $13 million dollars later, Axl and a hired crew finally managed to get Chinese Democracy out the door. And just this month, another 8 years later, most of the original band—Axl, Slash, Duff and Dizzy—reunited to play shows together for the first time in 20 years.
3) The Real Pink Floyd Came Back (If Only For One Half-Show)
When Pink Floyd broke up at the turn of the ‘80s, it seemed pretty certain the band would never share the stage again. Guitarist David Gilmour said getting back together would be akin to "sleeping with your ex-wife" and bassist Rogers Waters seemed to more or less hate them all. However, Live Aid creator and star of Pink Floyd’s film The Wall Bob Geldof was able to accomplish what the band never could on their own in getting them to reunite for a one-off performance at Live 8 on the twentieth anniversary of the event. Amazingly, the band sounded great despite 20 years apart. Wright died in 2008, and with him died any further reunion hopes.
4) J Mascis and Lou Barlow Make Up After 15 years, Tour, Release THREE albums, And Are Still Together 10 Years Later
In the year 2000, there were few rock bands better known for having its founding members hate each other than the original incarnation of Dinosaur Jr. J. Mascis kicked Lou Barlow out of the band in 1989, and Barlow nursed a grudge for years, suing Mascis and writing a classic song, “The Freed Pig” about their mutual enmity. In a weird bit of irony, J Mascis even produced a version of “Freed Pig” by The Breeders for the Head to Toe EP in 1994.
Few expected they’d voluntarily occupy the same room again, let alone reuinite in 2005 and record new music together, or that the music would be awesome, or that they’d do it twomore times after that—all while continuing to tour on and off for the next 11 years.
5) Dr. Dre Finally Put Out A Long-Awaited Third Album (Though It’s Not Detox)
After releasing the classic The Chronic in 1992, Dre waited seven years to follow it up with the confusingly titled 2001 in 1999. In January 2002, he began work on his third record Detox, which producer Scott Storch in 2004 called“the most advanced rap album musically and lyrically we’ll probably ever have a chance to listen to”. Another ten years passed and nothing but awkward coughs and silence. His claim “look out for Detox” became a punchline. Then, suddenly and miraculously Dre finally dropped a third album...though it was not Detox but instead an original soundtrack to his film Compton. At the same time, he announced what we all already knew; Detox was never coming out. Sadly, we will never get a chance to test Scott Storch’s claim.
6) Guided by Voices Broke Up... Stayed Dead For Eight Years, Got Back Together And Put Out 11 Albums from 2000-16
By 2000, Guided By Voices had been performing as a Robert Pollard band vehicle for almost 15 years and seemed like they could go on forever. When Pollard announced in 2004 that the band was ending forever, it really seemed like it. He even brought a traveling bar on-stage for the band’s farewell tour that year! But six years later, course was reversed and Pollard announced that he was reuniting the original band, first for shows and then more albums.
And as an aside, Guided By Voices managed to release 10 albums since The Avalanches last released their lone record—and they didn’t even exist from 2004-10!
7) MP3 Killed the CD via the iPod, Changing Music Forever
In November 2000, the music industry was huge and CDs absolutely dominated the landscape, representing 89% of all music sales. Digital music did exist, lead by Napster, a young but thriving peer-to-peer filesharing network for MP3s. But few could envision that the CD goliath was on the verge of getting struck down, because no one had yet imagined a desirable way to make the MP3 portable, nor anticipate the way that consumer behavior would change so completely (going from “buy what you can” to “take what you want”).
Enter the Apple iPod in October 2001, which suddenly made music tech both beautiful and useful. As expensive as it was, it was a lot easier to digest dropping $300-400 on a music playing device when you no longer worried about paying for music. Now in 2015, physical music makes up only 28.8% of sales and the millions of people (like myself) no longer own a disc-playing device in their homes.
8) Record Labels Allow People to Listen to Unlimited Amounts of On-demand Music For A $10 Monthly Subscription
Seriously, of all these “When Hell Freezes Over” scenarios, this one might have been the most laughable to imagine sixteen years ago. When a single CD in 2000 ran you around $13.50, the idea that the record industry would sanction you owning or listening to whatever you wanted for $10 bucks a month would have been just unfathomable. But somehow Spotify (with help from other players) managed to bulldoze their way in and it’s clear now that things are never going back.
9) Vinyl Rose From the Dead with 10 Straight Years of Sales Growth
At the turn of the millennium, vinyl was a more-or-less irrelevant medium, a relic for fetishists and Dad’s (or Grandma’s) basements. Yet, if the death of the CD was hard to predict in 2000, that’s nothing compared to the rise of vinyl. After years of tapering off to near-vanishing, vinyl sales began climbing in the mid ‘00s to the point that LP/EP sales rose 32% in 2015 to $416 million, their highest level since 1988.
10) Hell Froze Over
In Jan 2014, the tiny town of Hell, Michigan saw temperatures drop to -20 F, leaving vehicles and stranded and making the town uninhabitable.
