10 musical heroes that became villains

Phil Collins

No one’s in the record business to make only tiny percentages for the rest of their lives. As much as people like to wear their credibility like a badge of honour, there isn’t a soul who plays a dingy club who wishes they could be at the top of the musical food chain and playing stadiums around the world. But when Phil Collins finally reached the heights that many people dream of, he managed to stay a bit too long at the party before he even had a taste of what real stardom was.

As soon as Invisible Touch came out, people were already casting stones in his direction for ruining Genesis. Despite the prog giants still having an adventurous side, Collins was forever the scapegoat for what many people saw as them selling out to the masses. That would have been one thing, but if you combine that with his solo career and his starring roles in movies and working with other bands at Live Aid, Collins had every piece of overexposure he could have asked for.

That ultimately may have been a good financial decision, but looking back at the next generation, his mushy ballads and lighthearted goofy tunes were what made him reviled once the 1990s kicked in. He could still sell out stadiums around the world, but there was a reason why his biggest projects were soundtracks to films like Tarzan, whereas Oasis were making some of their most iconic headlines out of dragging him through the mud whenever they could. His time was up in their minds, and it was time for some real rock and roll to take over.

Eminem

Most people would need a good case to consider Eminem a true hero in his prime. 8 Mile did a great job at painting him as this sympathetic underdog everyone could root for, but when all he did in his music was talk about the most controversial things any human being can say, it wasn’t shocking when people started to get turned off when they heard something that made them uncomfortable. If anything, Eminem’s was hip-hop’s greatest anti-hero, and it only took a few more years before the angry young man became the bitter old dad.

Then again, it’s hard to say when Eminem truly went off the rails, because his rapping style has been fairly consistent ever since the days of Relapse. While that record in particular had its fair share of cringy moments, it wasn’t until Revival that people started to realise how far he had fallen, from the lacklustre features from people like X Ambassadors to forcing rhymes by having some of the most vomitous dad jokes of all time, like comparing himself to the the ginger bread man because of his involvement with Ed Sheeran.

It’s fun to listen back to tracks on The Eminem Show and The Marshall Mathers LP for a brief whiff of nostalgia, but some pieces were never going to work as he got older, and he seemed not to get the memo about it. Some of his bars would have come off as charming nowadays if he were putting together his first mixtape, but given that he’s considered the GOAT by so many, the fact that he’s riding momentum off of puns is more than a little bit disheartening.

Billy Squier

It’s impossible to overstate how much music was changed with the advent of MTV. The entire world seemed to tune into the television instead of the radio stations, and now everyone’s image had to be as well-known as their guitar riffs half the time. While many artists like David Bowie and Michael Jackson were practically made for this kind of medium, Billy Squier went from an up-and-comer to someone that no one ever wanted to talk about for the rest of their lives within the span of four minutes.

Whereas Squier’s music was far from the biggest thing in the world in the early 1980s, tracks like ‘Everybody Wants You’ and ‘The Stroke’ put him in the same category as the REO Speedwagons of the world. But once he got the treatment for ‘Rock Me Tonite’, all of his goodwill went out the window when he was writhing on the floor in what looked like his sister’s clothes and trying to play himself up as one of the sexiest things to hit the station.

Suffice to say, most people didn’t agree, and looking back at how cringy the entire operation was, it didn’t take long for the rest of the world to throw out all of their Squier albums and move on to more new and exciting acts like Def Leppard. It’s one thing to be a villain of rock and roll, but rarely has someone broken the speed record for the quickest fuck-up in music history.

Van Morrison

Most people weren’t coming to every musician looking to be taught a lesson. It’s easy to go into a project by Rage Against the Machine knowing what you’re in for, but when someone was born and bred in the world of singer-songwriters, they’re normally looking to give their perspective on life rather than telling everyone else how they should live theirs. But while many people can see past political songs if they have the opportunity, Van Morrison makes it impossible to avoid his point of view.

That’s not to say that all of his “hot takes” are even that bad. Having a song like ‘Why Are You on Facebook’ does feel like a steep drop in quality from the person who brought us Astral Weeks, but the thought of someone being chronically online for too long does hit a few nerves in someone on the verge of becoming a phone zombie. But looking at everything else he has said, it only gets worse as you go along.

From talking about how everything in the music world is terrible to going at the government for the most miniscule of grievances, Morrison has made sure to look like one of the crankiest musicians still working today, which came to a head when releasing songs like ‘This Has Gotta Stop’ with Eric Clapton complaining about all of the mask mandates right in the middle of COVID. Congratulations, everyone! We have now found the nastiest granddad still working in the music business.

Bono

U2 have always been a divisive band since they started. There are many people who took issue with the way that they used their platform to talk about their beliefs, but there was never a second when you couldn’t feel that their hearts were behind what they were talking about. If there’s one thing about their music that is bipartisan, though, it’s that Bono can come off as a bit of a tool when he starts spending too much time on the soapbox.

Because outside of being an all-star frontman, the voice behind U2 seems like he’s trying to be a global ambassador of all things charitable more often than he plays music. There are many times where he can preach the good word of rock and roll whenever they play live, but it also gets to be a bore when every single banter onstage is about reminding everyone why the song is important and how their music may very well have the power to change the world.

Granted, their music has changed the world for the better in many respects, but it gets harder to take seriously when the songs lose their lustre, especially when they reached the 2010s and started making the muzak versions of their material on Songs of Surrender. It used to be easy to defend every time Bono’s head inflated to three times its original size, but when he doesn’t have the tunes to back it up, the kinks in the armour become a lot more apparent.

Axl Rose

At the end of the 1980s, rock and roll needed a band like Guns N’ Roses to stay afloat. There was no point in trying to be another hair metal act from LA, and when songs like ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ took over the world, fans got a listen to their new favourite band within a matter of seconds, combining everything from punk to blues to old-school rock and roll under one big umbrella. It felt like the most badass music ever made, but it turned out Axl Rose had a few different ideas for the follow-up.

The band could have logically followed things up with another kickass record, but the Use Your Illusion albums and tour cycle was where every toxic trait Rose had came to the surface. Outside of insisting on bringing the piano to the forefront, Rose did everything he could to make sure that everyone was blocked out of the room, whether that was throwing lavish parties on the road, forcing his bandmates to give up the rights to the band name, or not even bothering to show up until the stars were aligned in just the right way.

And while Chinese Democracy only served to mythologise Rose’s reputation as this eccentric rock and roll frontman, that didn’t stop him from improving with age, to the point where he seemed to be on good enough terms to get Slash and Duff McKagan back in the band. It’s nowhere near the same as the good old days, but it’s nice to see a villain start finding his feet and trying to be good again.

Fred Durst

Even in Limp Bizkit’s prime, it was a little bit cool for someone to try to clown on Fred Durst. He already looked like every single high school bully from a high school comedy, but part of the charm was that kids could look at him and love the music specifically because it annoyed their parents. As soon as the band descended onto an open field in 1999, though, people got a good look at the kind of person he really was, even if it wasn’t entirely his fault.

Despite Woodstock 1999 being its own version of hell for many people who came to those shows, Limp Bizkit’s performance is especially notable for being the moment where a generation of kids lost their innocence. The minute that Durst told everyone to get all of their negative energy out, some wastes of humanity figured that would be a good time to start wailing on every single person in the crowd and sexually assaulting any female that was within their gaze.

And what was Durst doing in this situation? Not a goddamn thing. Hell, he even got in on the fun by surfing on the plywood that people were getting from tearing down the sides of the stage. Although Durst has since apologised and has admitted to being the scapegoat in a greater problem that was happening, it doesn’t get him off the hook for being complicit in one of the more despicable acts to happen at a concert that didn’t end in tragedy.

Mike Love

It’s hard to think of anything too offensive when it comes to The Beach Boys. The whole point behind Brian Wilson’s music was to make those suburban hymns of rock and roll that pushed music forward, and even if it was a little chipper, it would always leave you with a smile on your face. And once Brian wasn’t at the helm, everyone had to deal with whatever milquetoast version of boomer nostalgia that Mike Love had to take everyone on.

From day one, Love always wanted to stick to the formula when it came to their albums, and that meant making sure that the songs about cars and girls kept coming no matter what. That wasn’t what Brian was inspired by anymore, and despite Pet Sounds becoming one of the most revered albums in the history of music, that didn’t stop Love from adding his two cents where it didn’t need to be, like insisting that he change the words of ‘I Know There’s An Answer’ to make sure they weren’t too drug-influenced.

When looking at some of the actions that he made later when cutting Brian out of the equation and making songs like ‘Summer of Love’, though, it’s not hard for people to go back to those old rock and roll classics and realise that this preppy douche that Love seemed to grow into has been there since the beginning. And given that Brian doesn’t want to be in a band with him anymore, Love is doing something bigger than tainting his new material; he’s somehow finding a way to make his old songs look that much worse.

Gene Simmons

No one in their right mind was looking at a band like Kiss and expecting them to take everything seriously. This was clearly an exaggerated take on rock and roll meant to bring the genre into the circus atmosphere, so no one was watching Gene Simmons and expecting him to become soft and introspective underneath that Demon makeup. But it turned out that the ‘Demon’ character he personified whenever he stepped onstage was much closer to reality than what many bargained for.

Compared to the typical rock songs about sex, Simmons has gone from being a creepy lyricist to someone who is generally unsavoury to come across. He remains an astute businessman and ever the professional when talking about the reasons to promote Kiss, but there’s also a good chance that he’s looking at every woman he comes across as a sex object, given the fact that he’s proudly boasting about being behind such poetic lines as ‘Christine Sixteen’ and ‘Nothin’ to Lose’.

But, really, the hardest pill for most people to swallow when it comes to Simmons is his admission that everything is more or less an act in his eyes, including the music he writes. There was no question that the band were far from the animated personas they wore onstage, but this is the musical equivalent of finding out the truth about Santa Claus and being reminded of it repeatedly.

Drake

Some of the biggest names in music often feel like they can never be brought down. No matter how often people try to dent the legacy of acts like The Beatles or Michael Jackson, there will always be people willing to stand in their control because their fanbase is much stronger than anything in its path. For Drake, though, there has never been a more stubborn ass-kicking that an artist has withstood, which only gets more hilarious as time goes on.

While Drake was never the most competent MC compared to his peers, seeing Kendrick Lamar take him to school on many of his diss tracks felt like watching an exposé on him set to music. It’s hard to say what’s fact and fiction about what was said during the beef, but given Drake’s uncomfortable proximity towards younger women and suspicious bars about teenage girls, it’s enough for the public opinion to start to sway a little bit when it comes to what he’s doing after his shows.

But the real moment he showed his true colours was his vain attempts to take the rap beef to court. It’s one thing not to be able to take an L, but the way that Drake tried to weasel his way out of things by getting his opponent in trouble is plain embarrassing, especially considering the ramifications that would have happened had he been taken seriously in court. Anyone can be a fan of Drake and have a couple of songs in their playlists that he’s involved with, but just remember that he was ready to take the entire world of hip-hop down if it meant he was in the clear.