Which musicians never worked with any featured artists?
For musical dynamics to work, you have to have the right chemistry. It’s part of the reason why people love working with Rick Rubin so much – he just knows how to get the best out of his collaborators, even if they’re a tough nut to crack.
The same also applies to featured artists, because whenever one musician pairs up with another, whether for a song or a collection of material, it helps if they already share the same instincts and vision to make it work, and everyone’s heard those stories where two artists just couldn’t see eye-to-eye in the studio, and it usually comes down to differing opinions on how to get the best out of each other.
There are, of course, the odd cases where the issue wasn’t chemistry at all, and instead stemmed from another, far less avoidable issue, like when Freddie Mercury attempted to work with Michael Jackson, but decided to call it when the Bad hitmaker brought his pet llama to the studio every single day.
Sometimes, even when musicians make it to the finish line, their work backfires and attracts more criticism than they expected, like Lou Reed and Metallica’s major flop Lulu, or Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Ebony and Ivory’. Or worse: Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy’s trippy convergence on ‘Whatzupwitu’ (if you haven’t already seen the video, go and do it now).
All of this probably adds up in the minds of those who never, not once, collaborated as a feature alongside another musician outside of their own teams – a rarity, but one that makes sense when you look at the types of characters involved, and those who were more focused on a solo vision than entertaining ideas from anybody else. Plus, there’s also a hefty amount of timing involved to make schedules work, and sometimes, it’s better to work alone.
Which musicians rarely collaborated with others?
It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that, across history, few musicians have ever collaborated with any of their peers as a feature. Even those who were mostly focused on their own music collaborated with others in some way once in a while, as many saw it as the perfect opportunity to link up and create something that would guarantee longstanding numbers and withstand the test of time.
However, a few never took the leap, for various reasons. For instance, it’s a rarity for Adele to do any features, whether as part of someone else’s song or vice versa. On her studio albums, she never includes any collaborations, likely preferring to work on her own and maintain her solo artistic vision without any tampering with the sound from outsiders.
Prince seemed like an entirely independent category considering that he always worked alone but occasionally featured on other musicians’ songs, similar to others who focused primarily on their own craft, like Kate Bush, Fiona Apple, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, who worked with others on a handful of projects but never exercised a collaborative culture or actively involved themselves as ‘featured’ artists.
In the modern pop sphere, most figures have collaborated with one of their peers in one way or another, even the strong, towering solo figures like Taylor Swift. In fact, it’s interesting that one of the only singers who seems to be entirely adverse to the idea is Harry Styles, who, outside of his time in the band and live sets, has never once performed as a featured artist or included any artists in his solo work.
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