Jump the Shark - Music Style

Jump the Shark, or in this case, Jump the Stage.

In the spirit of the great website Jump the Shark.com, I wanted to start something new. Well, not really new... I've since seen it on Wikipedia. Anyway, I wanted to put a couple thoughts of my own on this site, since no one really reads it anyway.

First, Jump the Shark is a site that has an extraordinary deep list of TV shows and people vote as to when it started to turn south. In case you didn't know, 'jumping the shark' is a reference to when Fonzie (uh, from Happy Days) jumps a shark while on water skis, signifying a memorable moment when the show turned for the worse. Most TV shows have one or several (sometimes NONE) of these such moments that define the collapse of the show.

My thought is that the same is true for a lot of bands. Here's a short list of possibilities:

Metallica: 1) When Cliff Burton died, 2) When they released their first video, 3) When the Black album came out, 3) When they cut their hair, 4) When Jason Newsted left, 5) Never jumped.

Van Halen: 1) Jump, 2) When David Lee Roth left, 3) When Sammy Hagar came aboard, 4) When Eddie cut his hair, 5) When Sammy Hagar left.

U2: 1) Rattle & Hum, 2) Impossible to live up to expectations after Joshua Tree, 3) Never jumped.

Bob Dylan: 1) Full band, 2) Saved, 3) Traveling Wilbury's, 4) Never jumped.

Kiss: 1) Beth, 2) Peter Criss leaves, 3) Make-up comes off, 4) Make-up back on.

That's just a few off the top of my head. I hope to slowly put together a better list. Please vote or add your own thoughts. I'll try to keep adding them here.

Final thought: The Beatles never jumped.