Great music isn’t always born of careful planning.
Sometimes it emerges from missed chances, technical mishaps or spur-of-the-moment decisions that no one could have predicted. From last-minute festival substitutions to genre-defining sounds created by accident, these unlikely turns of fate reveal how luck has played a quiet but decisive role in rock music’s biggest stories.
Rock music’s luckiest breaks
1. The Stones do it in their sleep (1965)
You might think the iconic riff from the Rolling Stones’ 1965 breakthrough hit ‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)’ was a carefully produced masterpiece – but not a bit of it. Guitarist Keith Richards actually came up with the deathless melody in his sleep. He woke up in the middle of the night, the eight-note riff in his head, and grabbed his Philips cassette recorder to play the tune on his guitar, before falling back asleep.
2. Bob Dylan ‘plugs in’ (1965)
At the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan shocked folk purists as he performed with an electric band, all playing electric instruments. The artistic choice wasn’t universally enjoyed, with some booing the performance. In fact, this continued to happen in subsequent tours. In Manchester in 1966, a member of the crowd shouted ‘Judas!’ at Dylan for his use of electric guitar.
This artistic break from the acoustic folk scene helped establish Dylan’s later sound, bringing together the lyrical depth of folk music with the power of rock.
3. Pulp to the rescue (1995)
In 1995, The Stone Roses were due to headline Glastonbury Festival – but guitarist John Squire broke his collarbone in a cycling accident just a few weeks before the Pyramid Stage set, leaving Glastonbury organisers scratching their heads. Pulp were scheduled to play the much smaller NME stage on the Friday, but they were promoted to the main stage as replacements for The Stone Roses.
In what is still regarded as one of the best Glastonbury sets in history, Pulp’s performance cemented their Britpop stardom and propelled them to the mainstream.
In 2025, they returned to the Pyramid Stage in another unexpected set, performing under the secret alias ‘Patchwork’ following the release of their new album More, their first in 24 years.
We named The Stone Roses' self-titled debut album as one of the best 1980s album covers.
4. U2 ride the storm (1983)
In June 1983, U2 were set to perform at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado to film their first video release. They’d invested a great deal of money in filming the set in the hope of promoting their music to US audiences. But the weather had other plans. A violent rainstorm meant that the opening acts cancelled, and only between 4500 and 9000 people attended, despite the show selling out.
U2 still decided to go through with their set, a choice that ended up playing in their favour. The rain, fog and dramatic storm transformed the concert into an epic cinematic spectacle. The video footage not only became the defining image of the band; it was also picked up by MTV, which had enormous promotional power in the early 1980s.
We named U2's October among rock's famous second album flops.
5. George Martin takes a punt (1962)
In 1962, The Beatles had already been rejected by several major labels, including Decca, who had told them that guitar bands were ‘on the way out’. Things weren’t looking good for the Liverpudlian lads, until their manager Brian Epstein showed a tape of their unsuccessful Decca audition to George Martin.
Martin worked for EMI’s Parlophone, a relatively minor label at the time, and had previously been mainly known for producing comedy and novelty records, working with the likes of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. He wasn’t initially all that impressed by The Beatles. He didn’t think they were great musicians – but he saw that they had personality, so decided to take a risk.
In time, he used his expertise to transform their raw ideas into the records – so much so that he was often referred to as ‘The Fifth Beatle’ – and helped them become the band we remember today.
6. Hendrix heads for London (1966)
Before Jimi Hendrix moved to London in 1966, he was a gigging musician in the US, working particularly in the R&B circuit. In a New York club, he was spotted by Linda Keith, the then-girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who was captivated by his playing. She introduced him to Chas Chandler, former Animals bassist and aspiring manager. Chandler brought him to London to launch his solo career, forming the Jimi Hendrix Experience and catapulting Hendrix to global stardom.
We named The Jimi Hendrix Experience's album Electric Ladyland as one of the best farewell albums in history.
7. Nirvana stumble on an anthem (1991)
Kurt Cobain created the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ riff not in the hope of creating a pioneering new sound – he was actually trying to rip off the Pixies. Even after the song was released, the band were worried the sound was too Pixies-esque.
Even the song’s title was an amusing misunderstanding. Cobain’s friend Kathleen Hanna (lead singer of Bikini Kill) wrote the phrase ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on his bedroom wall, referencing the popular deodorant brand Teen Spirit. At the time, Cobain’s girlfriend used the deodorant, so Hanna was riffing on the idea that Cobain smelled like his girlfriend. Cobain was entirely unaware that the deodorant brand existed, and took the phrase as a powerful slogan, only learning its true origins months after the song became a hit.
We named Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' in our round-up of 15 songs that sound like nothing else.
8. Van Halen ‘Erupt’ (1978)
‘Eruption’ is perhaps an unlikely track to appear on a debut album, a 1:42-minute guitar solo performed by Eddie Van Halen and the second track on Van Halen’s self-titled 1978 debut. It wasn’t initially supposed to appear on the album – it was simply a solo Van Halen performed live in clubs. But record producer Ted Templeman overheard Van Halen rehearsing it in the studio for a later club date, and decided it had to be included on record.
Van Halen himself wasn’t even that happy with the performance of it on disc – now considered to be one of the greatest guitar solos in history. ‘I didn’t even play it right,’ he says. ‘There’s a mistake at the top end of it. To this day, whenever I hear it, I always think, “Man, I could’ve played it better”.’
The power of ‘Eruption’ on the record showed the true virtuosic power of Eddie Van Halen, and has gone down in history as one of the greatest guitar tracks on record.
We named Van Halen's dissolution as one of rock's messiest breakups.
9. Sabbath's Tony Iommi finds a new genre at his fingertips
Black Sabbath’s unique guitar sound came through a not-entirely-happy accident. The band’s guitarist Tony Iommi lost the tips of the middle two fingers on his right hand in an accident at a sheet metal factory when he was 17, and was forced to wear prosthetic fingertips from melted plastic (from a Fairy Liquid bottle) and leather while playing the guitar.
As a result, he preferred to use lighter strings and lower tunings, using his other two fingers to lay down chords and then adding vibrato to thicken the sound. When paired with the effect of his custom fingertips, this created the dark, heavy sound that came to define Black Sabbath – thereby contributing to the resulting heavy metal movement.
Top pic: Van Halen by the pool, 1979.
All pics Getty Images
