Following on from other threads such as artists who changed their style to become more popular - how about artists etc who radically changed their styles etc against the grain of commercial sense or even appeared to deliberately (or not) commit commercial or artistic suicide.
eg:
Lou Reed Metal Machine Music
Kevin Rowland’s solo LP of covers as a transvestite.
Cat Stevens becomes Yusuf Islam
It’s my understanding that the Prince to Symbol thing wasn’t a “leave commercial cares behind” so much as “try to wiggle out from under my label”.
George Carlin had some mainstream television success early in career, but then ditched it to become a counter-culture performer.
Mike Patton of Faith No More. They were a huge band back in the day, but after that band broke up he eschewed fame and fortune and went back to fronting bizarre alt/art-rock bands. He even released several albums consisting solely of him grunting and humming; they actually sold relatively well.
Yeah, Prince had quite a few hits while his name was a symbol, most prominently his only UK number one hit, ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’. I’d still say he fits into this category however, just at a different point in his career - somewhere just after The Gold Experience in the late nineties, where he was releasing boring, confusing triple-albums and an album called The Rainbow Children which didn’t even make the US top 100. He had a bit of a career resurgence with Musicology and 3121 from 2004-2006 and although he still debuts high on the charts with albums, he hasn’t had a hit single or a proper, blockbuster hit album in a long time.
Edit: I should add that he doesn’t try for hit singles anymore so this isn’t just a case of a fading popstar - it’s the general consensus that he has left all commercial pursuits behind and is now just making the music he wants to make and putting it out when he wants.
Ironically, Peter Gabriel went strongly against the grain with his “melting face” album-number III I think (which one reviewer called “stark & obsessive”). Yet it was his best-selling solo album of the 3.
Does Radiohead count? After their big first single (“Creep” – reaching #34 on Billboard’s Hot 100, 1992) they seem to be going out of their way to ensure nothing they release will end up on Top 40 Radio ever again.
Yet they remain insanely popular.
Yep some artists can seem to be cutting their commercial throats yet still remain popular or even more so. Radiohead virtually “gave away” a recent album in its pay what you want policy…
I’n thinking also of those who could have taken the easy way and kept doing the old stuff they were known for , but kept innovating.
I’d say both the Bends and *OK Computer *were both (mostly) commercial albums, each with several top-100 hits. After that, you’re spot on.
In the late 60s & early 70s, Jorma Kaukonen & Jack Casady were super-stars as the lead guitarist & bass player for Jefferson Airplane. In 1970, they began releasing records under the name “Hot Tuna” that were mostly just the two of them playing traditional blues standards. In '72, the pair quit the Airplane (a much higher profile band) for good and went full-time with Hot Tuna. From the start, the pair insisted on playing mega-long concerts - three hours on average. Many reviewers have commented that had Jorma & Jack not insisted on playing three or four hour shows, and perhaps played a few short sets as the opening acts for more commercial acts such as Led Zeppelin (who reportedly were big fans), they might’ve become a more well known act.
More recently (well, the late 80s/early 90s), Tracy Chapman had had a top ten hit song (“Fast Car”) and record, but largely walked away from the spotlight. Reportedly, she didn’t like all the record company exec’s pressuring her to look & act ‘more commercially’ (including insisting she hide her lesbianism.)
Ani Difranco could arguably fit this topic. She was the “it” girl with numerous offers from big labels during the early 90s, but refused to sign to any of them - preferring to release records on her own small indie label.
Oh, Kate Bush, definitely. She was one of the most famous singer/songwriter/musicians in the world (excluding America) and she could have become even more famous but didn’t care about that, she just cared about the music and did her own thing. From wildly experimental genius bizarreness to taking 12 years off for the hell of it to raise a kid, she’s never had interest in the trappings of fame. She did a bunch of publicity, some of it dubious (posters showing nipples, for instance), in her first couple of years but then took control of her career and said fuck all that.
Of course, having a major record company behind you, garnering massive publicity, having hits and becoming famous at the start means you can afford to do whatever you want later on. There are amazingly talented world-class artists who could easily be world famous, but can’t afford the time and effort. They never had commercial cares to leave behind. Sigh.
Janis Ian is another one who had hits at the start, and at the pinnacle of success, pretty much gave up the spotlight on purpose.
Lyle Lovett and Natalie Maines had sweet gigs as mainstream country artists, which they discarded for (mostly) artistic reasons.
I’m not sure what derailed Elvis Costello’s commercial career, but his stuff never stopped being a worthwhile listen.
Neil Young had a massive commercial hit with his Harvest album, and Heart of Gold was a number one US single. He could have kept on releasing sweet country-rock songs and having hits with them, and continued working with CSNY and having hits with them too.
Instead, he released the Ditch Trilogy and played crazed heavy rock with Crazy Horse.
A decade later, after a return to popularity followed by a series of more “difficult” albums he was sued by Geffen (his then record company) for making music “unrepresentative” of himself.
Singer Al Green (R&B) went to Gospel music and working as a full time pastor. In the past ten years or so; he’s come back to commercial R&B work.
Linda Ronstadt left rock behind to do Broadway, torch songs, and Latin music.
Are we limiting ourselves to musicians? Because Bill Watterson stopped doing Calvin and Hobbes long before it became unsellable, and never licensed any merchandise for it at all. It was just never about the money for him.
Captain Beefheart abandoned any pretense of commercialism after his first album (which wasn’t all that commercial to begin with – certainly the least commercial album in the history of Buddah Records).
I’m not saying he did it for money reasons, but Carlin’s decision to change his act was hardly commercial suicide. It was 1970 - being part of the counter-culture was hot. Carlin may have lost a few jobs because of his new act but he was soon more popular as a “hippy” comedian than he had been as a traditional one.
Then in 1982, when his experimental music appeared to be on the verge of breaking through, he decided that had become too commercial and quit music entirely and retired to painting. And when his paintings started to sell, he began destroying them as he finished them.
This is a man who is dedicated to rejecting popular acclaim.
How about Joaquin Phoenix becoming a rapper?