10 artists that shamelessly followed trends
Any artist usually needs to keep up with the times to stay relevant. As much as people like to follow their use whenever they go to make a record, not fitting in with the new school is normally when artists either get dropped or start to go through the rough patches of their history. Although they might have made the small business move by catering towards trends, acts like Elton John didn’t leave with their dignity intact that often.
At the same time, there’s nothing wrong with going along with the program if the trend works. David Bowie, for example, was always at the forefront of changing trends and managed to get better with every release, but when looking at their “new” material, it’s like watching bands try their best to wear music like a costume.
Compared to the new kids in town who did what came naturally to them, many of the tunes across these projects feel like first drafts of potentially great songs with whatever trend was popular at the time. Whether it was the rise of disco, the alternative revolution, or even the nu-metal movement starting up again, nothing was off the table for any act as long as they saw dollar signs at the end of the tunnel.
Even if they got a few hits out of the deal, the damage had already been done, with many of them either looking like they were severely behind the times or trying to desperately pander to whatever the new flavour of the day was. Most artists can only hope to age gracefully, but never before has anyone been seen ageing in real time faster than this.
10 artists that shamelessly followed trends:
10. Chaos and Disorder – Prince
No industry suit was going to get in the way of what Prince wanted to do at the best of times. Even though he had a track record for creating some of the greatest music ever made at an alarming pace, seeing him speedrun his way out of a record contract shouldn’t contain that many albums that were still, at the very least, decent rock and R&B. Right in the middle of his run, though, Chaos and Disorder marked the moment where he tried to compete with the alt-rock kings of the world.
Although Prince doesn’t strike anyone as the kind of person to rock a flannel shirt, hearing him keep up with the likes of Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots is surprisingly refreshing coming out of him. Outside of the fact that the album was released for no good reason, songs like ‘Dinner With Delores’ could have been a great lead single for any prospective alt-rock band trying to get their feet wet.
Not everything necessarily lands, but you have to give it to Prince for being able to master a genre this quickly. Because where most albums of this calibre reek of “sell-out”, leave it to ‘The Purple One’ to put out the kind of obligation album that actually gets better the more you listen to it.
9. No Jacket Required – Phil Collins
Phil Collins was never someone desperate to have a solo career. He seemed fairly content behind the drums in Genesis, and even when he started getting behind the microphone, he was more than happy to be a part of the band rather than hog the spotlight. While Face Value thrust him into primetime almost by accident, No Jacket Required was the moment where he started to lean a bit too far into pop territory.
While most would argue that ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ should take a spot like this, it’s easy to tell that one was still coming from a genuine place. But by the time the needle dropped on ‘Sussudio’ back in the day, Collins seemed to scrub all of the progressive tendencies from his DNA and make the kind of record that no one needed to think all that hard to enjoy.
Despite his invention of the trademark 1980s snare sound, the fact that some of the lyrics ended up sounding too goofy for their own good made him look like every dad’s favourite superstar rather than someone who was hip with the kids. And given Noel Gallagher’s constant biting comments regarding Collins’s music, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was talking about this album directly.
8. Mania – Fall Out Boy
The turn of the millennium marked the beginning of a dark time for rock and roll in the limelight. Even though the nu-metal and pop-punk waves were still going strong, the 2010s saw a lot of bands either fall into obscurity or retake the indie charts as their main vehicle to the mainstream. No matter how much people like a slow burn, the top 40 is always tempting, and when Fall Out Boy returned, they made one of the most unlistenable records any 2000s band has ever released.
Whereas most artists were returning to their old ways and trying to hone their craft in the 2010s, Pete Wentz was convinced that the way forward was copying the same formula Imagine Dragons had been doing. Even on that horrible logic, it doesn’t take more than 45 seconds of ‘Young and Menace’ to realise something’s wrong, especially when the chipmunk vocals kick in and sound like nails on a chalkboard.
Despite recovering from it decently on their recent material, no one will ever forget this kind of pandering for a long time. It showed up trying to sound like the hip kid at Coachella, but it ended up closer to that 40-something who still has his skinny jeans on trying to sell you some stale vape juice.
7. Ringo the 4th – Ringo Starr
Most Beatles fans know to tamper their expectations when entering a Ringo Starr album. Although Starr has more than enough charisma to carry an album of his own, the guest list is normally starstudded for a reason when looking back on some of his more celebrated records. Starr might have believed in the message he sang about in ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, but without his buddies, he should have had the foresight to know that he was heading towards the brick wall known as disco.
Although disco isn’t inherently bad by any stretch of the imagination, hearing Mr Starkey try to shake his groove thing on Ringo the 4th is downright embarrassing to look at. The whole reason why Starr was so endearing was because of him being the humble drummer behind everything, so hearing him try to play up his image as a smooth lover man sounds like everyone’s lovable uncle trying his hand at being The Bachelor.
And when it’s not trying to hop on the disco bandwagon, there are tunes like ‘Tango All Night’ that sound like they belong on the set of some bad variety show that comes on in the middle of the day. Starr was more than capable of making an album of his own, but he was far better suited to pull from his past than from KC and the Sunshine Band.
6. Tusk – Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac was never a band that needed that much outside influence. Each of them had their own musical background, but what better way to find inspiration than hammering away at each other’s emotions whenever it was time to hit record? While Rumours is damn near close to perfection, Lindsey Buckingham somehow got convinced that the winning formula needed to be fed through the new wave of rock and roll.
Whereas a good half of Tusk is the long-awaited follow-up to Rumours that most people wanted, hearing Buckingham take the reins sounds like them competing with Devo. And given his reputation for being ruthless in song, hearing Buckingham get nasty on ‘Not That Funny’ or ‘What Makes You Think You’re the One’ feels like him aping a Talking Heads groove and winding up somewhere close to a Weird Al impersonation of the art-rockers.
While it does lead to some cool moments, like on the title track, Tusk is remembered more now for being a scattered mess than anything substantial. There’s a good album hiding somewhere in here, but the minute that you think you’ve found it, it goes off on a completely different tangent.
5. America – 30 Seconds to Mars
Remember when Jared Leto was trying to be a musician? Granted, it was a long time ago, but when 30 Seconds to Mars first hit the airwaves, they seemed like a decent space-themed rock act on albums like A Beautiful Lie, even if the production was rough around the edges. Right around the time that Leto picked up his Oscar and signed on for Suicide Squad, though, all the vicious sides of himself got scrubbed clean when he gave us his version of America.
It’s not like most of us didn’t see this coming. Love Lust Faith and Dreams was a bit of a step down from their previous work, but this was the dive off of a cliff when ‘Walk on Water’ became a hit, which sounded like a marketer’s dream of getting Twenty One Pilots and Imagine Dragons to somehow make a song together.
And since the rest of the album only features Jared and his brother Shannon playing most of the instruments, do yourself a favour and forget that this is 30 Seconds to Mars. There once was a band who went by that name, but if their latest record is any indication, they took every interesting part of their sound out of their DNA.
4. Victim of Love – Elton John
Say what you will about Elton John, but at least he knows when he screws up. Throughout his life, he has made no bones about singling out some of the spotty moments in his back catalogue, even calling his 1980s album Leather Jackets one of the worst things he has ever made. You can blame a lot of the nasty moments of that album on his cocaine habit, but Victim of Love is wear the cracks in his greatness started to form.
Considering the astonishing run of albums that came before, this foray into disco territory is one of the most misguided steps of his career. Throughout the entire project, the lyrics from Bernie Taupin are sorely missed, and especially on the cover of ‘Johnny B Goode’, John turns one of the greatest rock songs of all time into one of the most underwhelming dance tunes made by human hands.
It may have been impossible to escape disco then, but there had to be a better way for the glam-rock superstar to change his sound than this. He may have looked the part as a disco mainstay, but hearing this after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the musical equivalent of Joni Mitchell going from Blue to the next Diana Ross.
3. X – Def Leppard
No hair band was safe after the Seattle grunge scene turned everything on its head. For all the work that acts may have played on the Sunset Strip, it was all in service to the kind of music that seemed like nothing but a bunch of pretty boys neutering rock and roll. Def Leppard may have had the tunes to carry them through the 1990s easily, but after getting a second wind with Euphoria, X marked the moment when they listened to every pop artist of the 2000s.
Whereas the last album had decent pop-rock tracks like ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Promises’, many of the backing tracks on here wouldn’t feel that out of place on a Nelly Furtado record from around the same time. Even when they kick up the distortion, the guitars still sound far too clean on tracks like ‘Long Long Way To Go’ and especially on ‘Unbelievable’.
And as sad as it is to see a band with ‘rock’ in nearly every one of their hits transition to pop, the biggest crime is that it’s played fairly well. Even though there are pieces that don’t quite work and should have been forgotten, there’s an alternate timeline where Joe Elliott got the second wind that Steven Tyler had when making ‘I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing’.
2. Shaken N Stirred – Robert Plant
It’s pretty much impossible to consider anything made by Led Zeppelin uncool. Compared to every other blues rock act coming out of the 1970s, the supergroup’s willingness to experiment led to some of the most forward-thinking music in classic rock history, with many recordings holding up to this day. If In Through the Out Door marked the moment we knew they were fallible, Robert Plant’s solo career took all those bad ideas to heart on Shaken N Stirred.
Then again, should we be all that surprised? ‘Percy’ had said time and time again that he never wanted to live in the shadow of Zeppelin, but hearing him borrow from Talking Heads didn’t seem like the right fit either. When the record isn’t bogged down by 1980s production, many of the songs sound like first drafts of what could be decent new wave songs with a blues singer trying to shout over the top of everything.
Even though Plant has never stopped experimenting, it’s nice to see that he’s found a better niche playing folk-flavoured rock and roll with Allison Krauss in recent years. Because if this had succeeded, God help anyone subjected to whatever his equivalent of Stop Making Sense would have been.
1. Generation Swine – Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe always seemed like a band destined to die when the clock struck midnight on December 31st, 1989. The alternative wave hadn’t started yet, but the kings of LA had been synonymous with 1980s rock, so there was no way that they would fit in amongst the Nirvanas of the world. While mixing things up with a new singer wasn’t that bad an idea, Generation Swine showed them picking up some new bad habits and relearning some old ones, too.
Since U2 had already traded in their posturing for post-modern irony, Nikki Sixx’s attempt at doing the same thing is laughable coming out of Vince Neil’s mouth. Even if some of the songs have potential, none of them can settle on a theme, whether that’s ripping off Stone Temple Pilots, Marilyn Manson, The New York Dolls, Oasis or every one of them all at the same time.
It’s not like the entire band was on board, either, with Neil and Mick Mars saying that they didn’t want to be there whenever they went into the studio. You can’t fault an album for having a lot of ideas behind them, but while the worst hair metal albums sounded like they weren’t trying, this record feels like them trying everything they can get their hands on and falling flat on their face.
