Top 10 Career Suicides

[Jesse]

I made this list up a long while ago and can't find it! I figured I would start the thread and maybe that would either force me to find my list or force me to come up with a new one! Either way, it's a fun topic. And a tough one. One must consider the fact that most musical hey days, even for some of the most successful artists, only last about 5 years. Even artists we consider legends, pretty much faded from the charts and sold out tours in less than 10 years. So one must realize that some careers came to an end through no fault of the artist, but rather the natural cycle of things (Think about how many '70's bands were killed off by MTV, or '80's bands killed off by the Grunge movement of the '90's). Still, some artists shoot themselves in the foot and go from topping the charts and headlining arenas to playing small theaters and clubs rehashing the old hits in less than a year. THESE are the artists I'm looking for. One's who did something stupid and cut their hey day short by, at least a year. When I find my list, this will make more sense. Until then, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with.

[spacel0rd]

The first thing that popped into my head was the Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines experiment.

[Speedy]

KISS - The Elder

Priest - Turbo

Billy Squier - Rock Me Tonight Video

Accept - Firing UDO and trying to become a Hair Band

CCR - Siding with the record company instead of John Fogerty

Kurt Cobain - shooting himself

Rob Halford - T2O

Maiden - Splitting with Dickinson

Bruce Dickinson - leaving Maiden

I gotta agree with the Chris Gaines thing...maybe the dumbest idea EVER.

[bucky]

I almost hate saying these 2 but I'm going to pick at my 2 favorite artists...Kiss & Alice Cooper circa 1980. First off I do like those early 80's Cooper albums especially 'Flush the Fashion'...& I did eventually grow to like 'Unmasked' & 'The Elder' by Kiss (I guess we can even date back to 'Dynasty' from '79) but I always felt these 2 artists totally missed the boat on these releases. Alice seen New Wave hitting big on the scene & the directions Kiss went musically with Unmasked & the Elder both totally missed their mark. While those 2 artists were doing that... Metal led by Judas Priest, The Scorpions, & now Iron Maiden were beginning to hit it. Even though Alice & Kiss were trying to keep up with the times they were both past their prime & basically not many people cared. How they didn't see metal as an option I don't know. They weren't the only artists past their prime...another artist who one would have thought was past his prime made a huge impact on the metal scene performing the similar villainous publicity stunts which helped make Alice Cooper a household name nearly a decade earlier & this rocker was also around during those days...Ozzy Osbourne. The aging rock star put together a great band & jumped on the metal scene gaining more fame & notoriety than ever. I used to get pissed back then saying "C'mon...This is the direction Cooper & Kiss should have taken". Eventually, both bands did jump on the predictable metal bandwagon but I don't think either reached Ozzy's popularity (possibly Kiss did when they first reunited in 1996)

[spacel0rd]

Danzig- Going industrial
Billy Joel- His writer’s block and alcoholism

[Jesse]

I found my list and, wow, some of you already mentioned some that were on my list! I forgot about the Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines thing. I have a couple Country artists on my list, but not him.

[spacel0rd]

How about Van Halen hiring Gary Cherone?

[Jesse]

Jul 9, 2013 10:05:12 GMT -5 spacel0rd said:

How about Van Halen hiring Gary Cherone?

I dunno, they filled the Spectrum in Philadelphia WITH Cherone. May have lost some fans, but the juggernaut goes on selling out arenas whoever Eddie and Alex decide to put into the band and usually get airplay with any new music too.

[Jesse]

I found my list, but I'm gonna change it up a little, because I've changed my mind.

10-Ted Being Ted. As in Nugent. He was on top of the world in the late '70's and early '80's, but he was a dick. He treated his bandmates like toilet paper, added wang-related pussy-eatin' lyrics to every dumb lick he came up with in rehearsals and call it an album (several times in a row, I might add), ran his mouth as a loud Conservative in an industry full of loud liberals, seemed to care more about hunting and fishing than rehearsing with his band to make for great tight shows and....well, it all caught up with him. Mid '80's albums didn't sell for squat and by 1990 he was putting together a super group with remnants of Styx and Night Ranger. The man who once said, "Anyone who wants to get mellow, just get the fuck outta here right now" needed to join a band and record a power ballad to get noticed. While Ted may still be revered as an icon today, a quick look at the chart positions of "Scream Dream" in 1980 vs those of his next studio effort "Nugent" in 1982 and you'll see how far he really fell in under 2 years.



9-Kiss Does Disco. Fuck me, but I like "I Was Made For Lovin' You". Still this started the trend of Kiss following trends. Like Ted, this took a little more time and they did eventually recover, but shit, within 5 years, Peter was gone, Ace was gone, the makeup was off and nobody really gave a shit about these guys anymore. Pretty steep drop from one of the biggest acts of the '70's.


8-Accepting David Reece. Accept was the big up-and-coming band in Metal from about 1983 through 1986, but they could never quite get over the hump. I think the band was correct that Udo Dirkschnieder's voice WAS holding them back from breakout status, but they were wrong in acquiring bland vocalist David Reece and writing and recording an album of pop tunes for the next Accept album. This pissed off old fans and didn't generate any new ones. Reece turned out to be an asshole and the band broke up mid-tour in 1989 and never again would live up to the promise they once had. It's kinda a shame, look up "Screaming For A Love Bite" by Accept with David Reece on youtube. There was potential there, but "Eat The Heat" wasn't it.

More to come!

[Jesse]

7-Triumph Over Rik Emmett. Not sure if Rik was fired or quit on his own, but Mike Levine and , especially, Gil Moore certainly made life difficult for Emmett in the years leading up to the split. "Somebody's Out There" became Triumph's highest charting single in early 1987, by early 1989 Emmett was gone. Triumph would make 1 more album (1992's "Edge Of Excess") and then disappear for nearly 20 years. One of the biggest acts to come out of Canada not named Rush, Triumph enjoyed quite a run of success in the mid 1980's and were on a verge of a breakthrough when they split with Emmett.

[Jesse]

6-Meat Loaf vs Jim Steinman. Like the Triumph situation, it's hard to tell who fucked over who, but the whole spat wasn't good for anybody involved. The Meat Loaf/Steinman collaboration "Bat Outta Hell" was one of the biggest albums of the late '70's. But Meat Loaf's voice failed him during the recordings of the follow up, so an impatient Steinman recorded the songs himself for the "Bad For Good" album under Steinman's name. Without the name "Meat Loaf" attached, the album didn't do so good. "Bad For Good"s leftovers were eventually recorded by Meat Loaf for "Dead Ringer" which also flopped due to second-rate songs and Steinman having nothing to do with the production or arrangements. Steinman and Meat Loaf then split, though Steinman would write several soft-rock chart-toppers, Meat Loaf wouldn't be heard from again until the mid 1990's when he got back together with Steinman for "Bat Outta Hell II". In the meantime, Meat Loaf filed for bankruptcy and had left the music business completely by the late 80's and early 1990's.


5-Raul Malo Flips Out. Who's Raul Malo? He is the lead singer of Country Band The Mavericks. The Mavericks slid under the radar through the early 1990's. They had several semi-hit singles on the Country charts, but were building up a solid fan base through constant touring. By 1994, they started to get some recognition winning awards for Top Vocal Group from ACM, CMA and the Grammys. 1996 they were on top of the world with a huge breakthrough hit "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down". At a concert in Philadelphia, lead singer Raul Malo, upset over (apparently) bad sound, completely flipped out on stage after about 2 songs. Hurling obscenities at the sound crew, roadies, fans and band mates, he then walked off stage never to return. Of course, the local Country radio station who was hosting the concert immediately stopped playing Mavericks music and most Country stations throughout the nation followed suit. The Mavericks would record 2 more albums before breaking up in 2003. While 1998's "Trampoline" charted well, it failed to go Gold and "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down" would be their last entry into the Country top 40.

[Frank]

I realize that this band is making way more money as Trans Siberan Orchestra but Savatage! I realize that TSO has become a monster all of their own. And I don't think it's not to stay with that. But why not take break? Do an album & tour as Savatage! Come on it would worth it. Your robbing us fans.

[Jesse]

4- Dixie Chicks Diss President Bush. Lets leave aside our political affiliations for a moment and think about this one from a pure business stand point. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Dixie Chicks were the hot item in Country music in the early 2000's. On top of the world and on top of the Country charts with a #1 album and top 10 singles. Again, leaving aside anyone's personal political beliefs, most Country music fans are from the South, Conservative and generally vote Republican. President George W. Bush was, not only a Republican, but was from the Southern State of Texas where he was a popular 2-term Governor. So what does Dixie Chick singer Natalie Maines do? In 2003, she tells an audience in England that she's ashamed of our President. Probably wouldn't have been the shot to the temple that it was if the Dixie Chick were a Pop act, but it carried severe reprecussions among Country fans. Their remake of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" fell from #10 on the Country charts to #43 in a week, the following week it was off the charts completely. At the request of listeners, Country radio stopped playing Dixie Chicks music altogether. While their next album hit #1 on both the Pop and Country charts and sold over 2 million copies, The Dixie Chicks would never again so much as sniff the Country Singles Top 10 (Close as they got was #36). And while they could still draw a crowd in Europe, Canada and the more Liberal Northeast US, they had to either cancel shows or move them to small venues in much of the Mid-West and South. By 2008 the group was on "Hiatus" (i.e. they broke up). The 3 Dixie Chicks have pretty much stayed under the radar ever since, once in a while emerging to tour with a high profile rock act , play a festival or release new music as individual artists.

[Jesse]

Jul 12, 2013 14:54:52 GMT -5 Frank said:

I realize that this band is making way more money as Trans Siberan Orchestra but Savatage! I realize that TSO has become a monster all of their own. And I don't think it's not to stay with that. But why not take break? Do an album & tour as Savatage! Come on it would worth it. Your robbing us fans.

I'm not sure that qualifies as a "Career Suicide". To me, it's more like an abortion: It's too much work, too inconvenient, we don't have time for it, it'll never get the proper care it needs to thrive, let's just do away with it. For the life of me, I don't know how they can say that TSO takes up too much of their time to do Savatage when they ALL have time to do their own solo thing. And you can't tell me that Doctor Butcher or Taj Mahal, or Chris Caffery's solo project or Jeff Plate's gig with Metal Church are bigger money makers than Savatage.

[Jesse]

Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah:

#3-Kilroy Was Here. You KNEW this had to make the list somewhere. I got it at number 3. This is a different type of career suicide though as the album itself was quite popular and the lead single "Mr. Roboto" hit #3 on the Pop singles charts and the tour supporting it was also fairly successful. No, this killed Styx not by making them unpopular all of a sudden, but by breaking up the band all of a sudden. It's a shame because Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw both had some successes as solo artists through the mid-80's; imagine how well they would've faired had they kept going as Styx. And DeYoung, I still feel, was, somewhat, vindicated by the recent success of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, proving that a concept TOUR in which the performance of songs are supported by spoken word COULD work to mass appeal. But Styx was not the band to do it, nor was 1983 the year to try it. In the end, the five classic members of Styx would never play together again (Shaw sat out the 1990 regrouping and drummer John Panazzo was too ill to take part in the 1995 reunion) and "Kilroy Was Here" proved to be their poison pill.



#2-Hank Williams Jr. No, not this recent thing where he made an awkward analogy involving President Obama, Speaker John Boehner, Adolf Hitler and Benjamin Netanyahu (sp?). No, Hank Jr's career had already been toast for 20+ years. Hank had emulated his Daddy for much of his early career. In the mid-1970's he stepped out of his father's shadow and started playing Country Music the way HE saw fit. That stylistic shift began reaping rewards in the 1980's with hit single after hit single. By the end of the decade, Hank was king! His high-energy, bombastic stage show pre-dated Garth Brooks by at least a half-dozen years, his videos featured Rock artists like Van Halen, George Thorogood and Dickey Betts, his albums sales shot through the roof, he was winning awards left and right and, to top it all off, Monday Night Football had gotten him to re-work his hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Comin' Over Tonight" into their theme song. Hank was about to break it wide open in 1990...........Then he shows up drunk off his ass at a show, slurs through a few songs-not even finishing some- and leaves the stage. He claimed somebody spiked his drink before going on stage, but then he did it again a few shows later, and another time or two after that. The 3 time Country music Entertainer of the year wasn't very entertaining anymore. His songs dropped off the charts like a lead balloon, album sales plummetted and no more awards for Hank. His style of Country paved the way for the successful Country Artists of the 1990's. Hank made a few good records in the 1990's and could've rode that wave, instead, he sliced his own throat.

[Frank]

Jul 15, 2013 20:32:29 GMT -5 Jesse said:

Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah:

#3-Kilroy Was Here. You KNEW this had to make the list somewhere. I got it at number 3. This is a different type of career suicide though as the album itself was quite popular and the lead single "Mr. Roboto" hit #3 on the Pop singles charts and the tour supporting it was also fairly successful. No, this killed Styx not by making them unpopular all of a sudden, but by breaking up the band all of a sudden. It's a shame because Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw both had some successes as solo artists through the mid-80's; imagine how well they would've faired had they kept going as Styx. And DeYoung, I still feel, was, somewhat, vindicated by the recent success of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, proving that a concept TOUR in which the performance of songs are supported by spoken word COULD work to mass appeal. But Styx was not the band to do it, nor was 1983 the year to try it. In the end, the five classic members of Styx would never play together again (Shaw sat out the 1990 regrouping and drummer John Panazzo was too ill to take part in the 1995 reunion) and "Kilroy Was Here" proved to be their poison pill.

What a horriable album. Up until this album I thought Styx could do no wrong. Though truth be told I was already sick of Dennis DeYoung & his sthick already. Might of been the last of the classic lineup. But I for one am glad things have ended up the way they have.

[Jesse]

Jul 15, 2013 21:34:00 GMT -5 Frank said:

Jul 15, 2013 20:32:29 GMT -5 Jesse said:

Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah:

#3-Kilroy Was Here. You KNEW this had to make the list somewhere. I got it at number 3. This is a different type of career suicide though as the album itself was quite popular and the lead single "Mr. Roboto" hit #3 on the Pop singles charts and the tour supporting it was also fairly successful. No, this killed Styx not by making them unpopular all of a sudden, but by breaking up the band all of a sudden. It's a shame because Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw both had some successes as solo artists through the mid-80's; imagine how well they would've faired had they kept going as Styx. And DeYoung, I still feel, was, somewhat, vindicated by the recent success of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, proving that a concept TOUR in which the performance of songs are supported by spoken word COULD work to mass appeal. But Styx was not the band to do it, nor was 1983 the year to try it. In the end, the five classic members of Styx would never play together again (Shaw sat out the 1990 regrouping and drummer John Panazzo was too ill to take part in the 1995 reunion) and "Kilroy Was Here" proved to be their poison pill.

What a horriable album. Up until this album I thought Styx could do no wrong. Though truth be told I was already sick of Dennis DeYoung & his sthick already. Might of been the last of the classic lineup. But I for one am glad things have ended up the way they have.

I hear what you are saying. While the album WAS a hit in general, it was a flop among much of their fan base. Foreigner hit a similar crossroads when they released "I Want To Know What Love Is". Foreigner continued down the road of alienating their fan base while selling millions of records to dippy pre-teen girls who probably never heard "Hot Blooded". Styx, on the other hand, imploded.

[Jesse]

And #1 has GOT to be:



If for no other reason, because everyone pretty much agrees that this video killed off a fairly promising career. Billy Squier was getting huge by this time. He had 2 multiplatinum albums each peaking at #5 on billboard's top 200 and spawning hit single after hit single. "Rock Me Tonight" and the album "Signs Of Life" started out continuing Squier's upward trend, but this video brought him back down to Earth FAST. While "Rock Me Tonight" DID hit #15 on the Pop charts and #1 among album tracks, it would be Squier's last hit single. The album "Signs Of Life" stalled at #11 and, while going platinum, it was a disappointment after the consecutive triple platinum albums that preceded it. Squier's career never recovered. He is but a footnote in the history of Classic Rock today and he's probably best known for dancing like a moron in this video rather than the legitimate rock'n roller that he was and still is. Not sure how he could watch that video and think "Yeah, that's awesome! Release it to MTV just like that. Don't change a thing!'

[spacel0rd]

I always felt the outcome this video had on Billy Squier’s career was overrated. It seemed just as goofy and “gay” as any other video that came out during that time.
I have a feeling his time would have come to an end if this video was made, or not.

[Trexx]

Holy crap, all this time I truly thought that Garth Brooks/Chris Gains was a spoof from The Onion or something. That was a real deal? LOL!