Anticipated album from Famous Rock Bands that were never released
The Beatles - concept album about Liverpool/sequel to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/follow up to Abbey Road - Before The Beatles gave us Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the band considered doing a concept album about Liverpool. The Beatles recorded two tracks, Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane during the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band sessions which were both set to appear on the album but instead were released as a double A side single instead. The Beatles then worked on a sequel to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with one track, One of the Beautiful People, which was reworked and rewritten as Baby, You're A Rich Man. In late 1969, three of The Beatles were at a meeting (Ringo Starr was absent as he was at the hospital) and discussed plans to record a follow up to Abbey Road, despite intending Abbey Road as their final studio album (Let it Be was not yet released at the time but was mostly recorded before Abbey Road). John Lennon said he wanted to abolish the John Lennon/Paul McCartney songwriting credit going forward and suggested recording more of George Harrison's songs. Paul McCartney wasn't too keen on the whole idea. The whole thing may well have been a Batman Gambit by John Lennon and George Harrison, who were both eager to move on from The Beatles, proposing things that they knew Paul McCartney wouldn't like.
Led Zeppelin - follow up to In Through the Out Door - Led Zeppelin planned a follow up to 1979's In Through the Out Door before John Bonham's death. The album was to be a return to the band's hard rock roots. The compilation album Coda and the In Through the Out Door outtakes are possibly the closest on how the album would have sounded.
Pink Floyd - Household Objects/Dune film soundtrack - Pink Floyd's originally planned follow up to The Dark Side of the Moon was Household Objects. Household Objects was an album recorded entirely on items such as pieces of string and kitchen appliances. After several months with only eighteen minutes of material to show for it, the band scrapped the project. Music played on tuned glasses of water, which was used as the intro to Shine on You Crazy Diamond is the only bit that survived. Pink Floyd also considered recording the music to the soundtrack to the Alejandro Jodorowsky directed Dune film, which was originally going to be in collaboration with the bands Magma and Henry Cow before it was decided that the band would have done all the music. There's also a bit of coconut effect going on as well since the David Lynch version not only got Toto and Brian Eno (not too many degrees of separation from the band) to do the soundtrack for the 1984 movie but independent composers have attempted to extrapolate what the band might have done (the film project was axed before the band attempted to compose anything). Music inspired by Dune is now almost associated with a pastiche of new age and space rock and neither the formulaic sci fi thematic style nor the pseudo Middle Eastern themes that you would expect, given the setting. In a possible nod to this, the first trailer to Denis Villeneuve's Dune is set to a moody cover of Eclipse from The Dark Side of the Moon.
The Who - Rock is Dead - Long Live Rock - The Who planned to record a second concept album, which was abandoned, Rock is Dead - Long Live Rock. The album chronicled the band's history and was worked on in 1972. Tracks salvaged from the piece included Join Together, Relay, Long Live Rock (all of which were released exclusively as singles), Put the Money Down (which later appeared on the 1974 B-Sides and rarities compilation Odds & Sods) and early versions of Is it in My Head?, The Punk and the Godfather and Love, Reign o'er Me (all of which later appeared on Quadrophenia).
U2 - Songs of Ascent/dance album - U2 planned to release an album titled Songs of Ascent as the sequel to No Line on the Horizon in 2010 with Every Breaking Wave as the first single but the band decided to retool the project into Songs of Innocence. U2 was also working on a dance centric album produced by David Guetta, RedOne and will i am at the same time which the band discarded to focus on working on Songs of Innocence.
Nirvana - follow up to In Utero - Nirvana planned a follow up to 1993's In Utero before Kurt Cobain's death. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. said that the band's fourth studio album would've been softer and folkier with some string arrangements similar to R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People. Michael Stipe also badly wanted to collaborate with Kurt Cobain partly as an excuse to get Kurt Cobain away from drugs. Reportedly, Kurt Cobain cancelled with Michael Stipe right before he went into rehab.
The Clash - 2003 reunion album - The Clash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and confirmed in late 2002 that the band would reunite as a band to perform at the induction ceremony. The Clash's reunion show was not going to be a one off show and the band was planning to tour and record a new studio album in 2003. Joe Strummer died in December 2002, ending the possibility of a reunion.
Black Sabbath - 2001 classic lineup reunion album/second Heaven & Hell album/follow up to 13 - Black Sabbath recorded a studio album in 2001, with all four original/classic members for the first time in 23 years, but it was never released as Ozzy Osbourne was called away to finish tracks for Down to Earth. After 2009's The Devil You Know, the Heaven & Hell line up considered doing a second studio album. Needless to say, Ronnie James Dio's unfortunate death shattered any hope of this ever happening. A follow up to 2013's 13 was considered but it was ultimately scrapped due to the band's focus on their farewell tour.
Van Halen - follow up to Balance/2000 album with David Lee Roth - After 1995's Balance, the band was tapping Glen Ballard to produce their next record with Sammy Hagar. Due to behind the scenes manipulation though, Eddie Van Halen had Glen Ballard (a prolific songwriter himself) rewrite lyrics that Sammy Hagar wrote, which made Sammy Hagar absolutely furious. Glen Ballard didn't take kindly to being lied to like that, obviously and quit on the spot after finding out. The 1984 line up tried to record together in 2000, only for David Lee Roth not to help things. The resulting demos were even among the ones dug up for A Different Kind of Truth.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - second album with Dave Navarro/pre-Stadium Arcadium, Greatest Hits era studio album - The band's second barely started Dave Navarro album Circle of the Noose was called off because John Frusciante wanted to return and they had stylistic differences with Dave Navarro. The title track and a jam session eventually leaked but it is likely the band would have gone off in a more psychedelic direction. Both Flea and Dave Navarro have spoken fondly of Circle of the Noose previously and both consequently were happy when it leaked. Before they worked on Stadium Arcadium, the band recorded sixteen songs for a follow up to By the Way and planned on releasing it for a 2003/2004 release but the label asked for a Greatest Hits instead, resulting in Fortune Faded and Save the Population to be included on it and Bicycle Song and Runaway to be included in the iTunes release of By the Way instead. Rolling Sly Stone, Leverage of Space and Mini Epic were performed live with the first two appearing on Live in Hyde Park and the latter eventually appearing on the official downloads of their Cardiff and Rock am Ring shows. Whilst initially, the group said they would rerecord the new songs for Stadium Arcadium, John Frusciante had little interest in doing so due to the evolved style he developed across his 2004 solo releases, there are hints that Desecration Smile, Hump de Bump and A Certain Someone originate from this period too. A further outtake, an instrumental called 50/Fifty leaked.
Green Day - Cigarettes & Valentines - Green Day planned to record a new studio album titled Cigarettes & Valentines. The album was to be the originally planned follow up to 2000's Warning that was supposed to be a return to the band's old sound - a return to the band's pop punk roots. They recorded the entire album in 2003 but the master tapes were stolen before they could release it. Instead of rerecording everything, they decided to write an entirely new album, which became American Idiot. In 2016, the band confirmed that they managed to recover the stolen master tapes of the album and that they're using them as song ideas but said that there are no plans to release the album. They eventually played some of the songs from the album on the 21st Century Breakdown tour. The title track, which is featured on the live album Awesome as Fuck, sounds like it would be right at home on Kerplunk or Dookie.
The Police - follow up to Synchronicity - The Police were still together at that point. When the band got together in 1986 for one last ditch attempt at recording, Stewart Copeland broke his collarbone in a horse riding accident the day before and couldn't play the drums. Andy Summers admitted that they lost the opportunity to dampen hostility by just jamming around and they ended up disbanding for good.
KISS - Rockin' with the Boys - After the failure of 1980's Unmasked, the band started to work on an album called Rockin' with the Boys, which was supposed to be a return back to their hard rock roots and included the songs Partners in Crime, Nowhere to Run and an an early version of Asylum's Love's a Deadly Weapon. However, they ended up with Bob Ezrin and produced instead one of the less liked albums overall, Music from "the Elder" which sold even worse than Unmasked.