First I don’t necessarily mean this in a bad way. Looking for an artist or band however that made the biggest career left turn in music style for the sole reason of selling records. Not necessarily looking for one-off “larks” like Cyndi Lauper doing a country album or Snoop Dogg doing reggae.
My favorite example is punk rocker Billy Idol of Generation X within a few years re-packaged as a teen idol singing pop songs. Don’t get me wrong, his songs were great and I even saw him in concert, but he would have never sold as many records fronting a punk band, there’s no question he reinvented himself to sell records.
For better or worse, who are the biggest sellouts in music history?
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Sonny Bono didn’t have that far to fall, and was a phony hippie/establishment shill from the get-go, but he did start out singing about peace, love and groovy, and he did end up as a Republican congressman. He gets my vote…for this.
I came in to say Metallica, but of course that was answered in the first response.
My next thought is Genesis. They started out making some of the best progressive rock the world has ever seen, and morphed into a Top 40 machine. They don’t fit the criteria perfectly, though, as there wasn’t a sharp left turn. The change was gradual, over a few albums.
I wish that had worked for me. But per the thread, I’ll propose Bing Crosby, who went from hot jazz improviser to staid senior sellout. Yawn along with Der Bingle.
Two albums that, IIRC, their respective artists mentioned were an attempt at mainstream success after being underground for long enough:
Liz Phair by Liz Phair Love You to Death by Tegan and Sara
I haven’t heard the former, although I wasn’t as repulsed by the lead single as some people in my social circle seemed to be at the time. (It probably didn’t hurt that I unironically liked Avril Lavigne.) I wasn’t a big fan of the latter, but it’s not like they came into my house and burned my copies of The Con and Sainthood.
I’m not as up on their history as I should be, but didn’t their shift from progressive to pop coincide with Peter Gabriel’s departure and Phil Collins’s ascent? Was that gradual, or kind of sudden?
Aerosmith: Starting with Permanent Vacation in 1987, outsider writers (e.g., Desmond Child, Jim Vallance) were brought in as they transitioned to a more heavily-produced pop-rock sound. It worked. While their prior two albums went Gold, Permanent Vacation went 5X Platinum. The next two (*Pump *and Get a Grip) both went 7X platinum. But the sound and quality were a far cry from Toys in the Attic.
Heart: similar story. All the singles on their eponymous 1985 album - ‘What About Love’, ‘Never’, ‘These Dreams’, and ‘Nothing at All’ - were penned by outside writers. After their prior two albums failed to reach Gold status, *Heart *went 5X Platinum. Their next two albums Bad Animals and *Brigade *went triple and double Platinum, respectively.
Chicago: it took a while, but the addition of Peter Cetera preceded a long slide toward a slicker, poppier sound.
I would say it coincided more with the departure of Steve Hackett than Peter Gabriel. After Gabriel left they still put out a couple of proggy albums, but “And Then There Were Three” was an album full of short-ish, more pop-sounding songs.
My submission for the thread would be Journey. Started out as a pretty decent Santana clone but then Steve Perry joined…
I add Ozzy Osbourne to the list of biggest “sellouts” in music history. Not for a change in musical styles though for becoming a joke and a punchline for doing the reality show The Osbournes.
Roxy Music - who began as the very spirit of the avant-garde.
Eric Clapton - from blues wizard to just bland mainstream pop.
Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne - I mean, The Move were always pop, but all I’ve seen of Wood in decades is a seasonal reappearance of I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. And the Electric Light Orchestra started off much as the name suggests, before morphing into a pop machine.
Also, I don’t know a lot about him, but didn’t Garth Brooks have the reputation of being a rather rootsy act before morphing into a Country Superstar?
Is KISS the wrong answer here? I guess they were designed to sell out in the first place, or where they ever pretending to be a real band that has artistic value?
I mention them because they sell just about every kind of licensed item you can imagine and will do almost anything to sell themselves out to anything.
Musician, yes; popular, not so much. I left a genre-busting band a few months before their huge yet brief success. Avoiding the maelstrom probably increased my lifespan.
On-topic, I’ll point to Elvis as an incandescent starburst tamed by his manager to produce profitable schlock.
In spite of being a big Cheap Trick fan, I can’t argue with you. Even CT themselves weren’t too happy with “The Flame” (at the time of the album’s release). And it put them on the road to albums like Special One, where the first side is basically ballads and the second side is decent rock more similar to their early albums like In Color.
Of course, they’ve always been the American Beatles.