One case where the band kept the name, but it was a profoundly different band was Pink Floyd. The first album was largely the work of Syd Barrett. I’m not much of a fan, even though I’m a huge fan even of “the wilderness years” (I’ll explain). Syd was lead guitarist, lead vocalist and primary songwriter. They created a couple Beatles-like, catchy pop tunes (Arnold Layne, See Emily Play), but when they got their record contract, the songs Syd chose were just pain wierd and pretty terrible. (The Gnome, Flaming, Bike, Matilda Mother, etc.; although I kinda like Lucifer Sam, a silly song about how naughty his cat is.) Syd went crazy and killed any hope of the U.S. catching onto their work by staring at the camera doing nothing for their big, live TV introduction.
Singles Attempting to imitate Syd were disastrous (Paint Box, Point Me at the Sky). They spent several albums trying to find who they were, and gave up trying to write pop songs and instead pretty much deconstructed and rebuilt their understanding of songwriting from the ground up. Several successive albums hit #1 before they were introduced to the American audience again, just as they nailed their sound and perfected their songwriting.
But the band they became bore little resemblance to Syd’s.
One case where the band kept the name, but it was a profoundly different band was Pink Floyd. Try Fleetwood Mac