10 artists that destroyed their careers with one song

While it’s hard for most fans to get down with a change in genre, some abrupt switches tend to come from artists who are at least coming from a genuine place. Then again, many of these artists ruined their careers because they deliberately wanted to sell out, forgetting most of their audience altogether and trying to follow the dollar signs instead of their muse.

Are there bands on this list that still have a healthy fanbase to this day? Yes. Do they still have the potential to redeem themselves in the future? Absolutely. Considering where they left their careers, though, they have a major uphill battle to face before they even think about reaching their old heights again.

10 artists that ruined their careers with one song

10. ‘Mr Roboto’ – Styx

Handling the egos of any band is not going to be an easy task. Ask any group that’s been around long enough, and they will tell you that getting equal contributions from everyone is one of the most heated discussions ever, from album sequencing to the setlist for every show. For Styx, though, Dennis DeYoung called the shots, and one of their biggest successes ended up being a noose around the band’s neck.

After becoming one of the greatest bands of their generation, ‘Mr Roboto’ was supposed to usher them into the MTV generation with ease. While it did give them some exposure on the charts, the over-the-top hamminess of the performance, coupled with DeYoung’s Broadway reject voice, was more than the band could handle.

Compared to other flameout songs, this is the track where the band had finally had enough, with Tommy Shaw departing to work on other projects as the band slowly limped into the next generation until the guitarist came back for a reunion. By that point, no one needed to care anymore. The band had bet it all on a tune about robots and walked away looking like progressive rock dorks.

9. ‘Door To Door’ – Creedence Clearwater Revival

It’s every musician’s dream to one day occupy the same space as the lead singer. They may not have the best looks or even write songs that well, but if one person can get the spotlight for the show, they can sure as hell spread it around a little bit. Creedence Clearwater Revival at least had fewer band members to work with when making the album Mardi Gras, but that first single gave us the B-side that was bad enough to leave the band in shambles.

Since the album promised to be a more collaborative effort between John Fogerty and the rest of the group, Stu Cook’s first attempt at singing on ‘Door to Door’ is laughably bad. While Fogerty can holler with the best of them, Cook sounds like he’s making a half-hearted attempt at copying him without any sense of technique or regard for what key he’s even singing in.

The rest of the album wasn’t much better, either, especially in the back half, where the band runs out of ideas and starts playing covers or tracks meant to mock the other members of the band. CCR was always known for bringing people from different musical backgrounds together, but their end as a band divided is borderline unlistenable when Cook gets behind the microphone.

8. ‘Rock Me Tonite’ – Billy Squier

The entire MTV generation tended to spell the end for many major rock bands. Whereas most artists had to spend their days delivering songs to crowds on tour, the idea of hitting every single living room in America with a video should have been a slam dunk for most people. David Bowie adapted to the medium perfectly. Aerosmith squeaked by okay, but Billy Squier can point to ‘Rock Me Tonite’ as the video that damaged him for good.

Squier certainly wasn’t the biggest name in rock music, but he still had decent clout in the industry. ‘Lonely is the Night’ and ‘The Stroke’ had enough kickass riffs to keep him in everyone’s good graces, but someone ended up telling him that the key to his success in the new age was for him to strut around his bedroom like a teenager.

From the first few frames of the video, it was clear that no one was ever going to take Squier seriously again, especially when he hams for the camera in a truly disturbing scene where he dramatically tears open his shirt before jamming with the rest of the band. Granted, you can’t put too much of the blame on Squier here. Chances are that even the most charismatic person was no match for a video like this.

7. ‘American Life’ – Madonna

Every artist tends to have that one album where they ask their audience to take them seriously. They may have had their fans’ attention before, but this is where the gloves come off and they say what’s really on their minds about the state of the world. Some people easily handle that position, but in Madonna‘s case, ‘American Life’ was when fans started to question whether ‘The Material Girl’ was all fluff.

Given the circumstances, though, it’s easy to see where she came from. America was off to war, and people were looking to music as a way to rally behind. If Madonna thought this would be her version of ‘We Shall Overcome’, she drastically mistimed the moment, going on one random tangent after another and using the term ‘American Dream’ as an excuse to brag about her own life.

If her good judgement wasn’t already in the toilet, the rap solidified it for almost everyone, substituting what could have been a decent breakdown to talking about driving around in her Mini Cooper and drinking soy lattes. Madonna was on top of the world as one of the queens of pop music, but how does one make an entire song about the state of America and turn it back around to being about themselves?

6. ‘Oh My God’ – Guns N’ Roses

Any fan of Guns N’ Roses would have to get used to waiting the minute that Slash left the band. The dynamic of the hard rock icons had finally become too much for everyone in the band not named Axl Rose by 1994, leaving the frontman to sit on his ideas for the next album, Chinese Democracy. Before that fever dream was gifted to us, Rose practically dug his own grave when making ‘Oh My God’.

Included on the soundtrack to the film End of Days, Rose’s new vision for the band seemed to be an absolute train wreck of different styles clashing against one another. If you thought that ‘My World’ from Use Your Illusion was weird, be grateful it only lasted for a minute. This track basically has the exact same vibe extended for an entire four-minute track.

Rose would do virtually no promotion for the song, either, instead re-emerging a few years later with another band lineup that was unrecognisable from the street-wise misfits that everyone was familiar with. Guns N’ Roses was the band’s name, but after ‘Oh My God’, they became a glorified Rose solo outfit with naming rights. 

5. ‘Victim of Love’ – Eagles

The Eagles have always had a certain way of getting their songs done. Get the guitars sounding crisp, put a halfway decent melody behind everything, and then give it to the golden voice of Don Henley to hit that final home run. Henley didn’t necessarily need to sing every tune, though, but Don Felder was given a wound that he would never fully heal from when making ‘Victim of Love’.

Although ‘Victime of Love’ is a decent enough slice of hard rock from the time, Felder’s insistence on singing the song led the band to take drastic measures to ensure he never got behind the mic. After convincing their boss to take Felder out to dinner while they finish the track, Felder’s animosity towards the rest of the band drove a wedge between him and the rest of the guys.

That resentment would end up going all the way up until 1980, when Felder had had enough and decided to air his grievances live onstage, even threatening to kick Glenn Frey’s ass once they finished up with the show. ‘Victim of Love’ is far from a bad song, but the entire production of it is a good example of how not to treat your bandmates.

4. ‘Can’t Stop Partying’ – Weezer

Everyone remotely familiar with Weezer probably has a good idea of what their music would sound like. After the sounds of grunge dissipated, the nerdy lyrics of Rivers Cuomo felt like the optimistic answer to the tracks primarily written about pain. For some reason, Cuomo thought he needed to fix what wasn’t broken, and the 2000s climaxed with one of the most questionable songs of his career.

Since Raditude was meant to put the band in the good graces of the pop market, ‘Can’t Stop Partying’ feels like a club jam that David Guetta threw out, including a synthesiser that sounds like it’s being played on a loop, and Cuomo singing in the most monotone delivery he can. Whereas nerds found a home in tunes like ‘Buddy Holly’, they felt betrayed now that their rock frontman was singing about hitting up the clubs and loving his addiction to partying nonstop.

The more unfortunate part is how the song sounded a lot better in its original demo form, sounding like the tired lament of a man who never truly knows when to grow up and let the party finally end. There’s a lot of heart in that version, but apparently, the secret of the track’s success lay in a boring backbeat and a token guest spot from Lil Wayne.

3. ‘Humans Being’ – Van Halen

Van Halen are one of the few bands that seemed impervious to band breakups. Even though they already had one of the greatest frontmen at their disposal with David Lee Roth, bringing in Sammy Hagar gave them the shot in the arm they needed for the rest of their career. Once the movie Twister rolled around, though, ‘Humans Being’ messed up the formula for good.

Since the band had decided to take a break for a while, Hagar was unhappy to return to work, especially when Eddie started clashing with him about how the lyrics should go. Once the conversation rolled around for a greatest hits record, Hagar thought that he was better off with his solo career, leaving after the same amount of time Roth was around.

The Van Halen of the 1980s could have survived that, but the Van Halen of the 1990s was no match for that kind of blow, limping by with Gary Cherone as their new singer on Van Halen III before being resurrected for reunion tours with Roth off and on. The band may have left things on their own terms at the end, but any original content that impacted the rock community was gone forever.

2. ‘The View’ – Metallica

The monster that is Metallica feels like it’s far too large to actually be killed. Even though the band have made many regrettable decisions throughout their career, they have always come back stronger either in the studio or on the stage, depending on what they’re up to next. Whereas St Anger saw them recover with Death Magnetic, their collaboration with Lou Reed on ‘The View’ was a wound they are still nursing.

Although the idea of Metallica collaborating with different classic rockers would have been interesting, Reed seems like the last person suited to their style. Their styles may kind of fit in the way that The Velvet Underground worked, but hearing Reed ramble almost incoherently over their brand of metal riffage is the match made in Hell that will make people marvel at the sheer sound of it.

It’s nice to see that both artists were at least willing to take chances when it came to the album, but ‘The View’ is everything bad about it in a nutshell: overly long, more than a little bit confusing, and not nearly as in-depth as they wanted it to be. Given that none of the band’s later records hit as well as their prime, ‘The View’ is the kind of cultural touchstone that should be remembered, if only for the sheer size of the plunge.

1. ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ – Aerosmith

It feels weird putting a song that ruined a career to a band’s biggest hit. Since Aerosmith had finally garnered the chart success they were looking for throughout most of their career, ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ became the kind of hit that everyone dreams of, where you can finally spread your wings and find some new textures now that you’re on top of the world. The career tanking has nothing to do with the song itself—it’s what came afterwards.

Following the lead of their massive hit, Steven Tyler did everything in his power to transition the band from their rock and roll roots to a pop-flavoured sound. Although Nine Lives was already flirting with pop tunes, their megahit led to the album Just Push Play, which gave sugary pop ballads to the same crowd that just wanted to hear ‘Back in the Saddle’ and ‘Walk This Way’.

It’s respectable that the band didn’t want to continue on as a legacy act, but ‘I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing’ is a strange case of being their creative death knell and one of their briefest brushes with the hit parade. They took the gamble and won it with this track, but given how little they had to show for it afterwards, was all of that effort really worth it?

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