The 10 most desperate attempts by bands to sell out
The most unholy word in the English language for any rock and roll fan is the word ‘sell-out’. As much as people like staying current with whatever the zeitgeist is working with, it’s impossible to step into a completely new genre without some fans being more than a little bit angry. It works if it’s a genuine artistic venture, but bands like Aerosmith made the whole thing look absolutely ridiculous when they tried to reach the big time by getting someone else to work on their tunes.
Granted, the idea of working with other people isn’t always a bad thing in the music world. Everyone needs a different angle to help keep things fresh every time they play music, but when you start digging into someone else’s catalogue to try to mine your sound, there’s a fine line between trying on a new sound to see how it fits and doing a mediocre impression of someone that’s already dominating the charts.
And while it would be easy to throw in every hair metal band that tried to go grunge in the 1990s, there’s much more to it than that. There are many opportunities where bands can try their best to make something work for a short period of time, but even if the songs are still there, it’s hard to listen to them over the production value or every other artist that they want to crib from during the making of the record.
There may be a few home runs to come out of the record, but it’s a lot more satisfying when the band themselves can realise when they screw up. It’s easy for people to move on and ignore the black sheep of their catalogue, but at least some of these bands have the good sense to not step into the same shit twice.
The 10 most desperate attempts to sell out:
Darkhorse – Crazy Town
Yes, you read that right, and I’m sorry. Although many people haven’t had the displeasure of living through the nu-metal era of the 2000s, Crazy Town was always destined to be the kind of flash in the pan that people were supposed to throw out the minute that the lyrics ‘Come my lady’ from ‘Butterfly’ found themselves falling off of radio speakers. But there was a lot more left in the tank for the California transplants, and that meant them getting a whole new makeover once the dopey pop song faded from view.
When looking at Darkhorse, it’s hard to tell that the band did anything but one thing during their time away from the limelight. Considering the three years in between their debut and sophomore release saw the rise and domination of Linkin Park on the radio, this album is one long thrill ride of them trying to repeat what Hybrid Theory did, even going so far as to have their lead single be ‘Drowning’ instead of ‘Crawling’.
But there’s only one Linkin Park, and while Crazy Town should be commended for taking a swing at the big time, it’s impossible for them to make that transition. Because not only are they pissing off Linkin Park fans who could tell exactly what they were doing, but they were actively leading their audience away from the fun-loving sound that they build themselves on. There was a place for nu-metal to be goofy, but this was one step too far into melancholy.
Dynasty – Kiss
There isn’t a soul on this Earth who could have escaped disco in the 1970s. Even if every rock fan knew better than to strap on a pair of sequined pants and strut up and down Studio 54, there was much more wiggle room for artists to make something new with that four-on-the-floor rhythm. While Kiss’s larger-than-life persona should have fit like a glove in the era of Donna Summer, Dynasty was the first time that one of their albums felt a little bit toothless by comparison.
It was a Herculean task to sell the rock world on a bunch of superheroes, but considering Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park was already one of the biggest flops of their career, bouncing back with songs like ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ was only going to make people mad. Although Paul Stanley is a damn good pop songwriter, songs like ‘Sure Know Something’ are fantastic on their own but were bound to upset the fans that only knew him for songs like ‘Love Gun’ and ‘I Stole Your Love’.
Which is strange because the back half of the album is actually fairly solid, with Ace Frehley coming into his own as a songwriter and making some of the heaviest tunes that they had worked on during this period. But since Peter Criss was halfway out the door before the record even hit shelves, it was clear that whatever version of the rock and roll superheroes everyone knew and loved had picked up a bad case of dance fever that some fans couldn’t recover from.
America – 30 Seconds to Mars
As the 2010s were dawning, everyone had to come to the same conclusion that they knew but never wanted to admit: rock was no longer the leading genre in the world. The pop charts had been overtaken by everything from pop to hip-hop and everything in between, and unless you were a band that catered to the classics like Greta Van Fleet, there was no shot at getting anywhere close to rock radio. But there was a way to get back into everyone’s good graces, and Jared Leto found that by mooching off of whatever rock-adjacent bands were out there.
After all, there were still people who qualified as “rock” in the broad definition, so America is what Leto sounds like after he listened to the entire discographies of Twenty One Pilots and Imagine Dragons and was told to churn out an album. It does sound pristine and shimmering while it lasts, but when the album is over, there is little to no substance behind it for a second, especially when Leto’s voice is processed through God knows how many effects.
And given what Leto was doing in the background during this tour, America feels like a travel brochure for the strange cult experience he was selling alongside his life as a musician and actor. It’s easy to appreciate the massive amount of overdubs, but this is the equivalent of trying to make a hamburger out of lard. You might be able to appreciate the fact that it sustains you, but when you bite into it, you are left with absolutely no flavour.
Ringo the 4th – Ringo Starr
There’s always been a strange curve that everyone looks at when listening to a Ringo Starr album. No one ever expected Starr to be the most successful of his former Beatle bandmates, but as long as he had some halfway decent tunes to back him up, hearing him sing along with his best mates was more than enough to keep the good times rolling whenever an album came on. But the moment he decided to be cutting edge, he fell apart when he forgot to accept that little help from his friends.
Since Ringo the 4th came out before Saturday Night Fever dropped, Starr could have been the poster child for disco and rock working together, but by shooing away any outside songwriters, the entire album feels way too ramshackle to work. ‘Drowning in the Sea of Love’ was the big single that could get people in the seats, but even then, something’s off, with Starr straining as hard as he can to reach those high notes at the end of the tune.
The rest of the album isn’t much better, either, with ‘Tango All Night’ sounding like something off a variety show and the few original tunes that Starr wrote himself making ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ sound like a stroke of musical genius. It’s far from Starr’s worst album and has some decent moments, but in terms of selling out, this is probably the closest that any Beatle came to sounding completely lost.
Bad Reputation – Kid Rock
Not thinking too hard is almost a requirement to enjoy any Kid Rock album. Even though Devil Without A Cause did have some heinous moments throughout its tracklist, it was a lot easier for people to get absolutely wasted and sing along to tracks like ‘Bawitdaba’ or even enjoy some of Mr Rock’s more subdued material like ‘All Summer Long’. But like all clowns of the music industry, Rock made a critical error when he begged people to take him seriously in a time of political upheaval.
Because from the minute that ‘Don’t Tell Me How To Live’ comes on, the whole point of the album is to offend the left and give the Trump administration a shot of adrenaline. It might be admirable if Rock at least made some good points across the rest of the album, but all he seems to do is say all the right buzzwords that will make the MAGA crowd happy and throw something resembling a hook on top of everything.
It’s hard to consider this selling out on the same level as the rest of the albums here, but since the album comes with a ‘snowflake advisory’ warning, it’s clear that what he’s doing is more than leading with passion. This was a case of him trying to get the support of an entire political movement on his side, but like most of the actions of the party in question, it’s not well thought-out, it’s horribly ignorant of people who might actually like it, and it’s way too high on its own hubris to realise that it’s doing something wrong.
Raditude – Weezer
No one really needs to expect anything too polarising out of Weezer. From day one, they seemed like the lovable brand of nerdy goofballs that once in a while would write a catchy song for the radio, and far lesser things could come from a band that tried to be the ironic take on The Cars. But once the radio dried up a bit too much for Rivers Cuomo’s taste, it was time for him to throw caution to the wind and see if he could reach the same level as Ke$ha and Katy Petty on the charts.
That’s not to say that Raditude sounds like those aforementioned artists. No, most of the album tends to go back to the traditional guitar/bass/drums setup, but what Cuomo chose to write on top of them was some of the most milquetoast pop-rock ever conceived. There was still room for pop-punk on the charts, but this is the kind of music that even Boys Like Girls wouldn’t be caught dead with, featuring a horrifically cringy Lil Wayne verse and Cuomo making songs with such thoughtful subjects as ‘In the Mall’.
There are pieces of the album that could be salvaged into a decent EP if you pulled everything together, but when it came to authentic pop-punk, no one wanted to put up with the Disney Channel version of what Weezer was supposed to be. Because where they ended up was either Fountains of Wayne without any of the charm or The Jonas Brothers if they occasionally sang about sex.
Hot Space – Queen
Throughout their history, Queen were nothing if not great businessmen when it came to their music. They were always willing to experiment with different sounds and work with new ideas, but if something made a lot of money, it wasn’t hard for it to find its way onto one of their records. And since ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ gave them one of the greatest hits of their career, what would an album sound like if it were nothing but that one song extended for an entire album?
While no album with a song like ‘Under Pressure’ on it could be considered all bad, it’s clear that their David Bowie collaboration only existed as a bonus track for the fans. Because on the rest of the album, we are treated to some of Freddie Mercury’s most lacklustre melodies and tunes that might have made for easy background fodder at Studio 54 when the rest of the dancers got a drink.
Songs like ‘Back Chat’ might work well enough, but the heart of the album is far too flimsy for them to make any reasonably good hook out of. Queen might be willing to experiment at every chance they get, but no band is perfect, and judging by what turned up on Hot Space, it was clear that they either needed a break from each other or a bit of a course correction before giving their fans The Works.
Pop – U2
When U2 made Achtung Baby, they didn’t need to answer criticism from anyone ever again. They were the band that represented everything big and lavish about the 1980s, so when they found a way to remain even more relevant through the 1990s when Nirvana picked up steam, Bono could have easily could have done nothing but farted and burped in a certain key and still sold millions of records. But Pop proves that just because you can do that doesn’t mean you should.
Then again, it’s not like people didn’t see this kind of move coming. Zooropa had them experimenting with different soundscapes, but some of the worst moments on Pop feature Bono being processed so hard that most can’t even make him out in the mix. And when the album does eventually die down to ballads, it feels like the band is either retreading what they have done before or trying to take whatever they can from the Britpop hype train going on at the same time.
It’s nice that Bono looks at the album as a risk that didn’t come together, but it’s not necessarily all bad, either. There are parts of it that are halfway listenable, but for a band that was always known for being their most authentic selves and switching to a cartoon version of a rock band, Pop was like trying to put irony on top of irony. It may have sounded good at the time, but they ultimately end up cancelling each other out.
Generation Swine – Mötley Crüe
Most of Mötley Crüe’s sound wasn’t built for the 1990s. The band lived and died by their habits on the Sunset Strip, so when that was ripped away from them as grunge hit, they should have been on life support for the foreseeable future. But you’d be wrong. They actually did have a solid transition into something different, but when that didn’t work, it was back to the same old schtick with an edgy coat of paint on it.
Whereas Mötley Crüe was a decent record with new singer John Corabi, bringing Vince Neil back into the band was both a blessing and a curse. All the fans were clamouring for him to come back, but if all they were going to do was make a 1990s hard-rock album, the frontman was never going to fit. But that’s before looking at the album itself. Because, realistically, if you can tell the good listeners what genre this album is in under 20 seconds, you deserve to be a musical scholar.
Throughout the entire album, the band goes through everything from Britpop soundscapes to U2-style irony to Marilyn Manson theatrics to punk to old-time rock and roll to piano ballads, so it’s not like they were completely sure of what they were doing. While this inclusion doesn’t have the best connotations, this is an album to be looked at with a certain degree of respect. Because as much as it fails to live up to its hype as the band’s comeback record, rarely has any other album managed to cram as many ideas into one album. They may not have worked, but you can’t dock it for lack of creativity.
Just Push Play – Aerosmith
Every single part of Aerosmith’s comeback story felt like it was ultimately leading to ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’. As much as the band had nothing to do with the Diane Warren ballad, getting them in the studio and cranking out this fantastic song for the Armageddon soundtrack did give them their first-ever number-one hit. But whenever someone kisses the sky like that, they will want to come back for more.
And while Just Push Play did sell incredibly well, it was clear that Steven Tyler was chasing after that kind of fame all over again. Certain songs introduce new elements to the band’s sound in a different way, but considering the people on the charts were Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Tyler seems to be shooting for that kind of audience and ending up sounding like a creepy old man next to everyone.
What’s even more tragic is the fact that the band would have been in good shape if they had simply not had that number-one hit. It’s one thing to follow your heart to the nth degree, but once it starts to consume you, you’ll reach the uncanny valley and never be able to return. And since Tyler was still chasing it well after the album was finished on ‘Girls of Summer’, he was waiting on that massive smash that was never going to come.
