Nitpick: wrong Highwayman; it was Waylon Jennings, in his first job in the biz, as Buddy’s bass player, who lost the coin flip for the seat on the plane.
It can work the other way too. If you had told me back in 2008 that Katy Perry would still be a major star in 2015, I never would have believed it. I figured she would be the prototypical one hit wonder.
I agree, but I lean more towards completely forgotten. A lot of people talk about what a huge star she was going to be, but I don’t think she was really all that big at the time of her death. I was in college at the time, and she was just not that prominent.
Just for perspective:Aaliyah burst onto the scene in 1994. That same year, all of the following acts had #1 hits on the Billboard charts:
All-4-One
Boyz II Men
Ace of Base
Lisa Loeb
Ini Kamoze
Heard from any of those guys lately? Didn’t think so.
Then again, Mariah Carey is still popular. So, maybe Aaliyah would have had staying power, too.
You just don’t know.
Some great comments, thanks!
Re Queen of the Damned, that was a terrible, terrible movie, and she is made to look like a fool with awful costumes, dialog, and presumably direction. Her acting is awesome in RMD. Sadly, those are her only two movies.
As was pointed out, Aaliyah was already a star with #1 hits, so it’s just a question of whether she could have maintained that level, or at least something close to it. My guess is that she would have been a dominant musical personality of today.
It’s hard to say if Buddy Holly would have adapted with the times, but I think his level of musical talent and intelligence would have kept him relevant.
Of course, as has been pointed out, there’s no real way of knowing these things…
It really depends on the people around her in that business. Someone like Ashanti or Brandy should be topping the charts today, but they failed to adjust to a changing musical scene and are essentially just genre performers, whereas Rihanna and Beyonce are riding current trends to the top of the charts regularly. Aaliyah could have been marketed to be as good as either of them, but whether that actually would have happened would be more about the business side of Aaliyah, Inc. than her talents.
Ahhh… right. Congratulations, you win the test. :rolleyes:
I know Lisa Loeb only from a really crappy low-budget ad about the joys of going to camp that is a filler ad on older Hulu stuff. (Along with the weird, really low-res ones for fringe-y save-the-earth groups.)
Today? My alternate timeline calendar says she’s in the studio working on another album. Sunday she has a concert in Houston.
Good answers given by most everyone here, again with people who died early one is left with “What if” and the answers are endless.
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She could have faded away music wise like contemporaries from the 1990’s such as Brandy and Monica.
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She could have been more successful, though compared with the likes of Beyoncé her music is more “street” or “hood” for lack of a better term. Aaliyah’s music was more “hip hop”, something Beyoncé never was.
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She could have been more successful in terms of movies and even stopped making music, basically the female equivalent of Will Smith.
This is true, but not all these artists should be compared with one another, the only thing they have in common is the fact they are black women.
Ashanti is more in line with Aaliyah than Beyoncé or Rihanna. Even then Ashanti;s peak was in the early 2000’s, having several #1 singles in 2002. Aaliyah died in 2001 right before the 9/11 attacks.
Rihanna came far later than any of these artists, and has little in common with the late singer.
I agree with your premise.
There is also (IMVHO) a huge difference between a singer/performer, and a singer/songwriter. The former are of so little value that they perform or starve, even during what’s considered a fabulous career; look at Whitney Houston.
Why does it matter if we heard of any of those guys lately? We’re talking about Aaliyah, and she had two successful albums after 1994.
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I merely meant that talented, successful musical artists fall off the face of the Earth all the time, and there isn’t always a logical explanation.
Who really KNEW back in 1984 that Madonna would still be a star 30 years later and Bananarama would be pretty much forgotten? Who really KNEW 30 years ago that Jon Bon Jovi would still be a star today and not Rick Springfield?
[/QUOTE]
The entries here are reminding of this thread from last year.
That’s a good point. She truly had acting talent. Although, great, beautiful black women tend to get ripped off by Hollywood in the role department (Jada Pinkett, Nia Long, Gabrielle Union, the list goes on). But I do think she’d be working regularly in movies or TV, even if she couldn’t reach A-list status.
She had already outlasted all of those acts at that point. Boyz II Men are the only ones on the list who weren’t a 1-hit, 1-album, or short string of singles wonder . I think even they were pretty much done as a big hit act at the time of her death- though they hit it big around 1991 and still play big shows (at least in nostalgia packages) today.
Aaliyah had hits up until her death and the last music she put out- 7 years after the debut, was a # 1 album with multiple singles that had radio and video play when those things mattered.
Even if her later career seemed to coincide with working with Timbaland’s peak production heyday, and he has since fallen off in popularity, his magic hit touch continued for several more years after her death and got more poppy/mainstream- she probably could have had her choice of music from all those mid-2000s Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado hits.