For the most part, musicians don't really retire. A great deal simply keep playing until they're physically unable to go on (see: the Rolling Stones). However, there are some artists who more or less vanished from music altogether, and some never returned. Here are six alternative musicians who vanished from the music business.
1. Jeff Mangum
Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was already great enough on its own to become a classic, but the fact that singer/guitarist Jeff Mangum went into seclusion after its release only adds to the album's mystique. Mangum disbanded Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998 after the tour to support the album, and stayed out the public eye for a decade until 2010, when he began performing solo sets regularly. As of 2013, Neutral Milk Hotel has reunited and is currently touring.
2. Greg Norton
Out of the three members of Husker Du, bassist Greg Norton is by far the least famous. Though the band's primary songwriters Bob Mould and Grant Hart went on to pursue solo careers, Norton left music behind in 1991, when he chose to open his own restaurant in Minnesota. In 2006, however, Norton formed a new band called Gang Font feat. Interloper.
3. Ronald Jones
Throughout its thirty-year career, the Flaming Lips have gone through a great number of line-up changes, and one of its most talented members was guitarist Ronald Jones, who joined the band in 1993. Jones eventually left the band in 1996, allegedly due to his intense agoraphobia, though some in the band believe it was due to drummer Steven Drozd's heroin addiction. Jones hasn't played music publicly since he left the band.
4. Moe Tucker
As massively influential as the Velvet Underground was, the band's initial commercial performance was so dismal that it didn't exactly pave any roads for its members. After drummer Moe Tucker quit the band in 1971, she stayed away from the music business for nearly twenty years, with only the occasional unnoticed solo album to her credit. Tucker finally returned to the public eye when the Velvet Underground did a reunion tour in the early '90s. In recent years, the most press Tucker's received was when she was unexpectedly interviewed at a Tea Party Rally (in support of the Tea Party).
5. Bill Berry
Though in my opinion R.E.M.'s music had already begun to decline while drummer Bill Berry was in the band, his departure is where most fans draw the line. In 1995, Berry suffered a brain aneurysm on stage in Switzerland, and ultimately left the group, and the music business in general, in 1997, choosing to become a farmer in Georgia instead.
6. Vashti Bunyan
British folk singer Vashti Bunyan is a classic example of an artist whose work was only appreciated long after it was released. Her debut album Just Another Diamond Day was released in 1970, but when few people noticed, Bunyan retired from music and spent the next thirty years living in Ireland. However, after prominent indie folk artists such as Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective cited her as an influence in the early '00s, Bunyan finally returned to music, with her second album Lookaftering being released in 2005.
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