How Long Do Bands Stay Together: Measured Album by Album, 28 to 56 Years
How long do bands stay together? Across seven of my discography maps the answer runs from 28 years to 56, measured from first album to last rather than from formation. Each map draws the albums as stations and every credited musician as a named line, so the span is something you can see rather than something you have to be told.
The figures below all come from my own research sheets, the same spreadsheets the artwork was drawn from. I counted the first release date, the last one, and how many lines run the whole way through without a break. That last number is the interesting one, and it does not behave the way you would expect.
The Seven Career Spans, Longest First
- Hank Marvin and the Shadows: 36 albums, The Shadows (1961) to Without a Word (2017). 56 years. One unbroken line.
- The Who: 22 releases, My Generation (1965) to Who (2019). 54 years. Two unbroken lines.
- The Cure: 14 studio albums, Three Imaginary Boys (1979) to Songs of a Lost World (2024). 45 years. One unbroken line.
- Simple Minds: 20 releases, Life in a Day (1979) to Direction of the Heart (2022). 43 years. Two unbroken lines.
- Lloyd Cole: 17 albums, Rattlesnakes (1984) to On Pain (2023). 39 years. One unbroken line.
- The Fall: 31 studio albums, Live at the Witch Trials (1979) to New Facts Emerge (2017). 38 years. One unbroken line.
- R.E.M.: 15 studio albums, Murmur (1983) to Collapse into Now (2011). 28 years. Three unbroken lines.
Two of those counts need a footnote. The Who and Simple Minds maps carry live albums and other releases alongside the studio records, which is why I have written releases rather than studio albums for those two. The other five are studio runs only.
The Longest Careers Have the Fewest People Left in Them
Line up the seven and a pattern falls out that I did not expect when I started drawing them.
R.E.M. has the shortest span on this list, 28 years, and the most unbroken lines: Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills are all credited on every one of the fifteen albums. Hank Marvin has the longest span, 56 years, and exactly one line runs the whole way. Bruce Welch and Brian Bennett both reach twenty stations and both stop at Reflection in 1990, leaving the final twenty-seven years to one man.
The Cure does the same thing over 45 years. Robert Smith is on all fourteen. Simon Gallup is on thirteen, and the single station he misses is The Top in 1984, where my sheet simply says LEFT. One gap in 45 years is close to the record on this list, and it is still a gap.
So the honest answer to how long bands stay together is that the band and the career are not the same thing. The career carries on. The band is whoever is standing at the station when the record gets made.
The Fall Kept Going the Longest With the Most Turnover
The Fall is the extreme case and the reason I find this question worth asking at all.
Thirty-one studio albums in 38 years, and 56 musicians named in my research. Mark E. Smith is on all 31 and nobody else comes close. Steve Hanley and Craig Scanlon carry long stretches of the middle, Karl Burns comes and goes repeatedly, and after the mid-nineties the roster turns over almost entirely more than once.
Set that beside R.E.M., which made half as many albums in a slightly shorter time with three people credited on every single one, and you have the two ends of the same question drawn in the same visual language.
A Long Span Is Not the Same as a Busy One
Span and output pull apart badly once you look at the numbers.
The Fall averages an album every fifteen months across its 38 years. The Cure averages one every 39 months across 45. Hank Marvin sits between them at roughly one every nineteen months, which for a catalogue spread across two bands and a solo career is a considerable rate to hold for over five decades.
I have written separately about how often bands record albums, which is the frequency question rather than the span one. The two answers rarely point at the same band.
Where the Gaps Come From
A long span usually contains at least one silence, and the map has to decide how to draw it.
On the Lloyd Cole map, Blair Cowan plays on the first five records, stops in 1991, and comes back in 2010. Nineteen years. I draw that as one line with a hole in it rather than two separate lines, because two lines would imply two different people. On the Simple Minds map, Derek Forbes leaves after Sparkle in the Rain in 1984 and returns on Neapolis in 1998, fourteen years later.
Those returns are why a span is worth measuring at all. A career that runs 43 years with the same two people at the front, and a bass player who steps out for fourteen of them and steps back in, is a different shape from a career that simply runs.
What the Map Cannot Tell You
I measure from first album to last, which is not the same as from formation to split.
Bands form years before they record. They tour long after their last studio record, and several of these still do. The Who released Who in 2019 and were formed in the early sixties, so the 54 years on my map understates the distance between the first rehearsal and the last session by some margin.
What the map measures is the recorded career: the part that left documents behind, with names attached. That is the only part I can draw honestly, so it is the only part I count.
A2 or A1, and Which of These Reads Best Small
Span affects the size decision more than album count does. A career drawn across 56 years has to fit the same sheet as one drawn across 28, so the long ones run tighter.
The A2 at 420 x 594mm handles the shorter, denser runs well. R.E.M. at fifteen stations and The Cure at fourteen both read clearly at that size, and they start at £42.00.
The A1 at 594 x 841mm is the one for The Fall and Hank Marvin. Thirty-one and thirty-six stations respectively, with heavy turnover, means a lot of short lines starting and stopping, and those need the room to separate out.
Both sizes come unframed or in a black wood frame, ready to hang. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival and acid-free, with the detail on the print and frame specification page.
Questions About Spans, Gaps and What Gets Counted
How long do bands stay together on average?
Across these seven maps the recorded careers run from 28 years to 56, with a middle around 43. That is a small sample of one catalogue rather than a general figure, and it is weighted towards bands who lasted, because those are the ones worth drawing as a map.
Which band on your maps has the longest career?
Hank Marvin, at 56 years, counting the 21 Shadows albums and the 15 solo records together on one route: The Shadows in 1961 through to Without a Word in 2017.
Do you measure from when the band formed?
No. I measure from the first album to the last, because that is what the credits document. Formation dates are often disputed and leave no paperwork I can map.
What counts as an unbroken line?
Someone credited on every album on that map, with no missing station. Three people manage it on the R.E.M. map. On most of the others it is one person, and on two of them it is the band's own name.
What is not on these maps?
Live albums and compilations, except where a map carries them by design, which is the case for The Who and Simple Minds. Anything released after a map was drawn is not on it either, and where that applies I state it on the product page.
The Seven Maps in This Piece
Each of these is a separate print. The long-span pair are the Hank Marvin discography art print and the Who discography art print. The high-turnover pair are the Fall discography art print and the Simple Minds discography art print.
The other three are the Cure discography art print, the R.E.M. discography art print and the Lloyd Cole discography art print.
If you want the album lists rather than the spans, The Cure albums in order, R.E.M. albums in order and Lloyd Cole albums in order each set out the run in full.
Choosing One as a Gift
If you are buying for somebody who has followed one band for decades, the span is the thing to pick on. A 56-year route says something a fifteen-station print cannot, and a fifteen-station print with three unbroken lines says something a sprawling one cannot.
The full range sits in the music art print collection, in A2 or A1, unframed or in a black wood frame, from £42.00. If you would rather let them choose the band themselves, there is a gift card for music fans.
