Don't Pull Your Love Out On Us, Baby

Random Memorandum™ to Messrs. Hamilton, Joe, Frank & Reynolds: When Brian Jones departed the Rolling Stones, the remaining bandmates didn't change their moniker to the Rolling Rocks™ (which is a good thing, as it's trademarked by the Latrobe Brewery in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin). When Sydney Barrett checked out of The Pink Floyd — and into the bloody insane asylum — they didn't reinvent themselves as The Pale Blue Howard. Reinvention — or "rebranding," as the marketing asswipes would have it — is tricky business, ill-advised excepting in the case of divorcing housewives, professional actors and/or wrasslers and radio disc jockeymen named Sky. "Musical chairs" is part and parcel of rock 'n roll. A line-up change ought not have had you gents rethinking the bloody name that took you so long to come up with in the first place. While 'twas sad that Tommy Reynolds packed up his drum kit and pleasant, but nonessential background vocals for ports unknown, we, your legion of fans, hoped upon hope that your inimitable soft rock stylings would carry-on unchanged. We wanted reassurance, not reformation. No slight on Tommy's replacement, Alan Dennison, but renaming the band that we so delighted in seeing atop the charts seemed an act of defiance from which we never forgave you and the band never recovered. Or did Hamilton Joe Frank & Dennison score a Billboard® hit of which I am unaware?