text: For a discussion on how {{disco}} itself relates to this trope, see [[DeaderThanDisco/{{Disco}} here]].'''Note:''' A musician/group is not Deader Than Disco if they've had one or two underperforming songs/albums or are seen as SnarkBait by the general public. Otherwise, just about ''every'' mainstream musician or musical group in existence would be this trope! For a musician or group to be DeaderThanDisco, they need to have irreparably fallen into mainstream obscurity, either through career-damaging behavior or simple shifts in cultural taste. '''Second Note:''' This is not a forum for ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike. Just because you're personally disgusted by a specific band or genre doesn't mean they can't be enjoyable in principle or have significant lasting appeal with the general population.'''Third Note:''' If something fell out of popular favor at one point in time but made a comeback later on, it belongs under PopularityPolynomial. Do not confuse that with DeaderThanDisco (which implies that the work has ''not'' made a comeback and has a very slim chance of ever making one).----[[foldercontrol]][[folder:General]]* RockAndRoll in general was actually thought to be this in the early 1960s. By this time, Music/ElvisPresley had been drafted, Music/BuddyHolly, Music/TheBigBopper and Music/RitchieValens had died, etc. Meanwhile, thanks to the success of such groups as Music/TheShirelles, female-fronted pop and dance music were quickly overtaking rock and roll in terms of popularity. By about 1962, rock had been largely written off as a passing teen fad... and then Music/TheBeatles played on ''Series/TheEdSullivanShow''. And the rest, as they say, is history... until, ironically, the birth of Disco. The then-emerging genre took a significant bite out of rock's mainstream dominance. And even after it had become a public mockery (hence its status as the TropeNamer), it paved the way for competing genres, like bubblegum pop. And then rap/hip-hop along with a resurgence in the popularity of R&B took an even larger chunk out of rock's mainstream dominance. Not to mention the rise in non-musical forms of entertainment among teenagers, such as video games and teen-oriented television programming. While it's unlikely that rock will ever become DeaderThanDisco (how ironic that would be!), most will agree that the genre no longer has the cultural impact or significance that it had during the 1960s and 1970s. Rather, it's now seen merely as one of many genres of popular music.\\\\However, as of TheNewTens, rock in general has died out. While it's not completely dead, and unlikely to die anytime soon, it is almost strictly an underground affair. This started in TheNoughties, as other genres started to become even more dominant such as R&B and hip-hop and took even more numbers away from rock's audience. But what could've really been the GenreKiller for rock music was the rise of the [[ElectronicMusic EDM]]/dance-pop movement, which became a sensation and quickly became as dominant as rock music was in its prime. Acts like Music/LadyGaga, Music/DavidGuetta, and the Music/TheBlackEyedPeas began to saturate pop radio, with Shinedown's "Second Chance" ultimately being the swan song for crossover mainstream rock music. From 2009 to 2011, pop hits originating from rock radio became increasingly sporadic, with only one hit apiece from Music/KingsOfLeon, Music/NeonTrees, and Music/FosterThePeople. The mainstream and modern rock radio charts began to diverge at that time, and while hits from the latter chart began to cross over in 2012, including a second hit for Neon Trees, the former chart has provided pop with next to nothing. Even established acts like Music/{{Nickelback}}, Music/{{Daughtry}}, and Music/LinkinPark struggled to remain relevant in the new environment.\\\\By the middle of the decade, rock's place in the mainstream was dead, especially with women, non-white men, and even white males younger than 25. Only a handful of newer rock bands sell these days, namely Music/{{Coldplay}}, Music/OneRepublic, Music/{{Maroon 5}}, Music/FallOutBoy, Music/{{Paramore}}, Mumford & Sons, and Music/ImagineDragons, and that's largely because they welcomed {{pop}}, folk, and/or [[ElectronicMusic electronica]] into their sound to the point that the 'rock' aspect is often called into question. And young acts like Music/OneDirection and 5 Seconds of Summer, while playing rock-influenced music, are succeeding only on the basis of being [[BoyBand attractive young men that appeal to adolescent girls]]. Granted, harder post-grunge bands like Music/ThreeDaysGrace and Music/PapaRoach[[note]]The latter a former Nu-Metal band[[/note]] are quite popular with older[[note]]roughly 25-44 years old[[/note]] music fans. However, the only bands that play unbiased rock music while still holding popularity amongst the younger generation are Music/TheBlackKeys, the Music/ArcticMonkeys and (to a lesser extent) Music/QueensOfTheStoneAge, but even then their popularity isn't on par with their pop/rap/R&B/EDM/boy band contemporaries, or even older rock bands.* A little Genre existed in the 1960s called "Raga Rock". For those who don't know, Raga Rock was Indian-inspired rock music that mainly focuses on using Indian instruments and music structure (like "Eight Miles High" from ''Fifth Dimension'' by Music/TheByrds, "Love You To" from ''Music/{{Revolver}}'' by Music/TheBeatles, "The Sunset" by Music/TheMoodyBlues, "Paint It Black" by Music/TheRollingStones and "White Summer", from ''Music/LittleGames'' by Music/TheYardbirds). Besides a few hits, it never really caught on, and it didn't stick around as by the 1970s everyone had abandoned the Counter-Culture and Hippie movements.* HairMetal, the genre with the honour of being to TheNineties what the TropeNamer was to TheEighties -- i.e., the subject of mockery for an entire generation. After big success in the '80s, hair metal went into rapid decline at the start of the '90s, when Music/{{Nirvana}}'s 1991 album ''Music/{{Nevermind}}'' set the world on fire and turned grunge into the next big thing by providing a heavier alternative. For years afterward, hair metal was stereotyped as the music of {{low|erClassLout}}lifes, [[DiscoDan stuck-in-the-'80s housewives]], and [[AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents your uncool parents]]. While '80s nostalgia has caused its popularity to increase, at least in the mainstream, it has never climbed back to its former heights, and it is still treated as a subject of mockery by metalheads (as seen in ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend''). Still, considering that it at least ''sounds'' like hard rock, it is far more respected amongst metal purists and classic hard rock fans [[NuMetal than other forms]] [[{{Metalcore}} of rock/metal]]. ** 1970s and '80s HeavyMetal in general actually fell victim to this trope in the 1990s. Though Music/{{Metallica}}, Music/{{Megadeth}}, and (to a lesser extent) Music/OzzyOsbourne remained popular, acts like Music/RonnieJamesDio, Music/JudasPriest, Music/IronMaiden, and even Music/BlackSabbath were all seen as no longer relevant compared to the likes of acts like Danzig, Pantera, Music/TypeONegative, and Music/MarilynManson. Ironically, the "no longer relevant" acts gained a resurgance in popularity in the 2000s while the "newer" bands either broke up or are much less popular.* Grunge music itself significantly declined in popularity in the mid '90s, with the rise in popularity of AlternativeMetal bands like Music/{{Korn}} and Music/{{Deftones}} resulting in many grunge bands changing their style to adapt. The suicide of Music/{{Nirvana}}'s Music/KurtCobain, meanwhile, caused many rock fans to grow leery of grunge's cynical attitudes, leading to the LighterAndSofter genres of PostGrunge, adult alternative, and (in the UK) {{Britpop}} rising in its place in the latter half of the decade. The popularity of stoner, doom, and sludge metal (all of which were heavily intertwined with grunge and often overlapped) has done a fair bit to bring back interest in the genre, but post-grunge has basically ensured that it will never be a moneymaker again, as post-grunge started out as a distillation of the most immediately marketable elements of grunge with the more oblique portions excised.* Emo pop-rock. Brought into the mainstream in the mid-2000s by bands such as Fall-Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, it experienced considerable backlash in the last couple of years of the decade, to the point where artists previously considered to be at the heart of the scene were publicly mocking it. By TheNewTens, groups that had formerly embraced the style had either disbanded or modified their sound, and the labels "emo" and "scenester" had become epithets and insults among young people. * Many, many, ''many'' novelty songs and {{one hit wonder}}s. Even though people expect them to be fads and fade out, there's still an amazing jump between "cute, fun fluff" and "anyone who sings this gets a punch in the nose." Good examples include "Achy Breaky Heart" and the Macarena.** And line-dancing itself...* Arguably the alternative hip-hop and jazz-rap crossover craze from the early '90s. From 1992-'94, Music/DeLaSoul, Music/ThePharcyde, Music/ArrestedDevelopment, Us3, and Digable Planets won critical acclaim, had hit singles, and collected awards. They were hailed as the new face of hip-hop. But their popularity has waned and their style has few critical supporters today. In fact at the time some was criticized for not doing anything special besides sample jazz records. Some created records that are still highly praised though, like the aforementioned artists. Other hip-hop artists from that same era � namely gangsta rap, political rap, and hardcore hip hop artists, such as Nas, Dr. Dre, the Wu Tang Clan, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Bone Thugs N Harmony, and Snoop Dogg � stood the test of time far better. On the other hand those genres created some great records, but it's also the reason many people hate rap.** New jack swing also suffered a similar backlash around this time, with some critics calling the scene watered down cookie cutter R&B/Hip Hop and slowly driving them out.*** Although you could make the argument that over saturation might have been the real culprit. All the new jack swing songs started to sound the same.** There is a second wave of alternative rap which includes rappers like P.O.S., Aesop Rock and El-P, but it's mostly targeted at fans of alternative and indie rock, who are mostly enthusiastic supporters of them. Rap radio stations, on the other hand, still avoid the genre entirely.** Interestingly enough there was a time when Alt/Rap was played along side Hardcore Hip Hop, Political Rap, and Gangsta Rap. Which is one of the reasons why TheGoldenAgeOfHipHop is so fondly remembered.** Opinions vary, but, at least in the mainstream's eyes, any hip-hop that isn't Lil Wayne, Drake or Eminem is now considered "alt-rap" by ''default''.** Some are saying that Hip-Hop ''groups'' are dead. [[http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/editorials/id.1985/title.disappearing-acts-the-decline-of-hip-hop-groups Discussed on this hip-hop blog called Disappearing Acts: The Decline of Hip Hop Groups]].* Speaking of rap, GangstaRap is no longer the mainstream force that it was in TheNineties. The deaths of Music/TheNotoriousBIG and Music/TupacShakur, at the height of gangsta rap's mainstream success, brought it screeching to a halt. Gangsta rap's popularity came from its anti-establishment themes and its [[DarkerAndEdgier violent lyrical content]] (especially in comparison to clean-cut artists like Music/RunDMC and Creator/WillSmith), but the second that the people rapping about these things ''figuratively'' took it seriously and started killing each other, artists started [[RatedGForGangsta distancing themselves from that image]]. In the 2000s, that particular style of rap was no longer present, having been largely driven underground and supplanted by BoastfulRap and GlamRap. Only a small handful of "gangsta" artists, like Music/FiftyCent and Creator/TheGame, had much mainstream success since, and even they have had to adjust to the sensibilities of modern rap.** In turn, Glam Rap witnessed something of a commercial decline in the 2010s, with alternative and electronic hip-hop almost superceding it.* And like gangsta rap, PoliticalRap is also back underground. At one point a large movement right besides both alt/rap and gangsta/hardcore hip-hop in the early to mid-1990s. Now it's basically none existent on terrestrial radio, and music channels. Some believe the genre and artists have been "blacklisted". In fact, some conspiracy theories maintain that Political Rap was ''intentionally'' subverted to make its largely African American fanbase buy into various self-defeating and negative social stereotypes.* NuMetal. The concept of referring to certain superficially similar, but otherwise very different forms of music (AlternativeMetal, HardRock, rap metal, HeavyMetal), as "nu metal" is itself DeaderThanDisco, but so are many of the bands that got lumped together under that label. Some bands only managed to stay relevant by abandoning their old rap-metal style in favor of one that wasn't being endlessly mocked (Music/LinkinPark's Music/{{U2}}-esque arena rock style, Papa Roach's mainstream hard rock sound), and most of the rest have been forgotten outside of their diehard fanbases. While it still has some influence (namely in deathcore, which incidentally is something of a spiritual successor), its stigma of "downtuned jumpdafuckup riffs and [[{{Wangst}} ineffectual adolescent angst]] for white trash and angry tweens" is still unlikely to go away any time soon. ** Although there have been talks of a "nu metal revival", since major acts like Music/{{KoRn}}, Music/LimpBizkit, and Music/{{Evanescence}} retained their nu metal sound long after it died, while the aforementioned Music/LinkinPark and Music/PapaRoach reintegrated nu metal elements in their latest albums, and there are revival bands such as Issues, Butcher Babies, King 810, In This Moment, and surprisingly enough, Music/TechN9ne, who have all had met a degree of commercial success. Still, like the below, it's unlikely that it will ever match the popularity it had in 90s and 00s, especially due to how big the vitriol it still gets from the metal community.* RapRock fell ''hard'' alongside NuMetal. Initally pioneered by Music/RunDMC and the Music/BeastieBoys; during the 90s, it grew in popularity due to acts like Music/FaithNoMore (who weren't even representative of the genre and got pigeonholed as part of it solely because of [[BlackSheepHit "Epic"]]), Music/{{Candiria}}, and Music/RageAgainstTheMachine, and it became the most dominant form of rock music outside of PostGrunge. NuMetal acts like Music/LimpBizkit and Music/LinkinPark pushed its popularity even further. However, it also became SnarkBait due to how many examples of PissTakeRap it produced and being associated hand-in-hand with NuMetal. As a result when NuMetal died, it took RapRock with it out of fear of being associated with the genre. Major rap-rock acts like Music/KidRock (who moved to southern/heartland rock) abandoned the genre completely, while Linkin Park attempted to downplay its presence initially (though there was significant backlash to it, which led to them rapping more but not as much as they used to). Although rap rock sees occasional use nowadays by major artists (most notably Music/{{Eminem}} and Music/TechN9ne), it's unlikely to be anywhere near the popularity it had in the 90s and early 00s. Most bands nowadays avoid the genre, out of fear of being thought of as a bunch of "[[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy fly]]" frat boys [[PissTakeRap rapping]] over a bunch of loud guitars. The bands that helped influence it are, for the most part, still widely respected, but everything that followed has largely been pushed into the "best not remembered" category.* A lot of the {{Britpop}} bands of 1993-97 have gone from hugely popular and making the cover of NME to widely derided. The movement itself has come in for a lot of revisionism but bands like Shed Seven are nowadays little more than the butt of jokes.* The Main/TurnOfTheMillennium saw much commercial success for 'Main/PostPunk revival' bands in Britain, such as Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and The Libertines. The flood of derivative groups that followed in subsequent years led to the term 'landfill indie' being disparagingly used by the media and public to describe the genre in general, and by the end of the decade it had all but faded from the mainstream.* Intelligent drum'n'bass, an offshot of sample-based dance music that was extremely trendy in the UK during the mid-1990s. Following the success of Goldie's ''Timeless'' and LTK Bukem's ''Logical Progression'' in 1995 and 1996, intelligent drum'n'bass was latched onto by the British music press as the hot new sound of inner-city black Britain. At a time when the ''NME'' and ''Melody Maker'' almost exclusively covered skinny white teenage guitar bands, it was the acceptable face of urban music; it was "intelligent". The musical formula - slow build-up, double bass, skittery drums - quickly became a ubiquitous feature of television commercials, and it seemed that every CD single released in 1996 time had a drum'n'bass mix near the end of the tracklisting. It peaked in 1997, when Roni Size's Reprazent won the Mercury Music Award for ''New Forms'' and even Music/DavidBowie built much of ''Earthling'' around drum'n'bass, at which point the novelty wore off. Goldie's second album was slammed for self-indulgence - the first track was over ''60 minutes long'' - and the genre as a whole was quickly displaced in the affections of music critics by trip-hop, which deserves a separate entry of its own.* Most digital synthesisers and drum machines of the 1980s and early 1990s were extremely hard to program, and so producers simply used the preset sounds over and over again. As a consequence, several machines from the era wore out their welcome and have completely fallen from fashion. Examples include the warm electric piano and slap bass sounds of the Yamaha DX7; the Phil Collins-esque sound of the Simmonds SDS and Linn drum machines; the chimes and breathy pads of the Roland D-50; and the house piano and bassy organ of the Korg M1. Several of the aforementioned produced a sound that crossed the UncannyValley, a broken imitation of reality that was good enough for the time but has dated badly. Ironically, the more obviously electronic sound of previous analogue synthesisers and drum machines (themselves DeaderThanDisco after digital synths became widespread) - such as the Roland Juno, and the TR-808 - came back into fashion during the 1990s and has never really gone away.** As of 2012, the D-50 (via a card made for Roland's V-Synth), Korg M1 and Wavestation (Korg Legacy software), DX-7 (FM7, FM8) and the Fairlight CMI (Fairlight Pro app on iTunes) have been revitalized in software and hardware formats, and Korg's MOD-7 software for its Korg Kronos workstation can emulate FM and vector synthesis, too. So even early digital synths are coming up for reappraisal.* The BoyBand's DistaffCounterpart, the GirlGroup, never experienced ''quite'' the backlash of boy bands, probably due to them having a solid PeripheryDemographic [[TestosteroneBrigade driven by the fanservice on display]]. But once again, it's telling that Music/{{Beyonce}}'s time with Music/DestinysChild is almost never brought up when people talk about her career, and that the only major girl groups to have much popularity in the last several years are the Music/ThePussycatDolls (in America) and Music/GirlsAloud (in Britain). And most girl groups have to sell on their sex appeal alone, which prevents things like Music/AKB48 from ever happening anywhere outside of Asia given how tame they are in comparison to Western pop.** Music/GirlsAloud [[CyclicTrope experience cyclic popularity]], much as Music/FleetwoodMac have done over the years.** Related to the above, British listeners had pop groups like the Music/SpiceGirls (more on them below), SClub7, AllSaints and Steps, which were usually manufactured by record labels or the first {{talent show}}s (''Pop Idol'', ''Popstars'', etc.) to appeal almost exclusively to a younger demographic. They ruled the UK and U.S. Top Forty airwaves in the [[TheNineties mid-late '90s]], but now they're mostly forgotten with the exception of the Spice Girls, who have had succesful reunion tours and somewhat succesful solo careers.* The Easy Listening genre. Also known as Elevator Music and sometimes (incorrectly) Muzak, Easy Listening featured bland, unthreatening covers of forty-year-old pop songs performed by string orchestras and choruses, the members of which must have needed a direct pipeline to the No-Doz Corporation to get through their days' work. The genre was popular not just in offices and shops but also with senior citizens who apparently enjoyed the extremely sanitized versions of the songs they enjoyed as teens. The genre died out as its primary audience did - and as businesses either ditched music entirely or hired companies such as {{Muzak}} to provide a more marketing-directed music feed (which, today, is used mostly by telephone holding systems). Nowadays the average senior citizen only remembers such predecessors of Easy Listening as Perry Como and Mitch Miller as remnants of ''their'' parents' youth, and are more likely to listen to oldies from the early days of rock, when they themselves were young. Similarly, businesses and offices have mostly switched to classic (pre-MTV) rock and adult contemporary. * Related to the above, Beautiful Music and its noteworthy successors, Exotica and Space Age Pop, are far beyond dead. BM itself mostly morphed into Easy Listening, Space Age Pop went on to influence electronic music, and Exotica still clings on, as it's popular with the Tiki subculture (you know, tiki bars, Hawaiian shirts), and a handful of revivalists do still play the music. But it's hard to believe that there was a time when Les Baxter and Martin Denny were anything close to big names. Some of this has to do with Exotica being rather [[ValuesDissonance insensitive]] by modern standards.** However, Baxter has gather a small cult following in recent years due to limited releases of his work as a film composer (he was one of American International Pictures' favorite composers in the 1960s).* Also related to Easy Listening's death, the rise in Adult Alternative during the late 80's and early 90's killed the squeaky clean adult-oriented pop of the 70's and early/mid 80's. At that time, singers like Michael Bolton and Debbie Boone (both of whom specialized in safe and melodic pop ballads) were huge, with Boone's 1977 ballad "You Light Up My Life" being to this day one of the biggest hits ''of all time'' according to Billboard Magazine. Like the Easy Listening genre, this style of music died when its audience did, replaced with the notably edgier genre of adult alternative. Today, the squeaky clean adult pop groups of the 70's and 80's are remembered, if at all, as little more than punchlines for their sappiness and general blandness.* SurfRock. Even when it ''was'' popular, it eventually mutated into "Hot Rod Rock" after the people singing it changed subject matter. A few revivalist bands like Music/ManOrAstroMan became popular in the 1990s, but even they distance themselves from the label now. Psychobilly is the closest you'll generally come to it nowadays; while never a popular genre, it has always had a highly devoted cult following.* "Shock rock", rock music whose main allure was how shocking and offensive it was to MoralGuardians (such as Music/AliceCooper, Music/BlackSabbath, and Music/{{GWAR}}), has largely died out. The big reason is cultural desensitization to such musical flamboyance -- mainstream pop singers like Music/LadyGaga, Music/NickiMinaj, Music/AdamLambert, Music/MileyCyrus ([[ContractualPurity post-]]''Series/HannahMontana''), and others have made shock value such a major part of their routines that it's become, well, routine to expect musicians to push the envelope, while the internet has made far more extreme bands and genres ({{gangsta rap}}, {{death metal}}, {{horrorcore}}) accessible to young people wishing to rebel against their parents. Furthermore, the MoralGuardians that once railed against shock rock, and [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity gave it much of its allure]] in the process, are nowadays seen as ineffectual jokes. The last true shock rock band to make it big was Music/MarilynManson in the '90s, and since then, this once-controversial style of rock music has turned into joke fodder.* Straightforward R&B, slow jams, ballads, and pure Soul music is almost non-existent on urban radio. There was the revival of {{Retraux}} soul called Neo-Soul but it burned out possibly due to mislabeling and HypeBacklash.* Various styles of CountryMusic, such as:** The "Nashville sound" of the 1950s-60s, a slick and often orchestral sound that owed more to pop than country. In the 1970s, it was renamed "countrypolitan" and sometimes snuck in a little bit of a disco flavor. By the early 80s, pop-leaning country began shifting towards "soft rock with a steel guitar", and it's stayed there ever since.** And its antithesis, the Bakersfield sound, driven by tight rhythms and up-front Telecaster picking, often with a very ThreeChordsAndTheTruth feel. It was popularized in the 1960s and 1970s by Music/MerleHaggard and Music/BuckOwens. Music/DwightYoakam kept the torch through the 1980s, but took on a more eclectic influence in TheNineties.** "Outlaw country" of the 1970s. A more unkempt and raw style with rock influences, gruff vocals, and lyrics about drugs, alcohol, etc. Examples were Music/WillieNelson, Music/WaylonJennings, and Music/HankWilliamsJr � and in many cases, they really were as rough and tumble as they professed until it caught up with them. Many modern artists throw around the word "outlaw" when describing themselves, but they really can't hold a candle, as they didn't live nearly as rough a life as Willie, Waylon, and company. Music/HankWilliamsIII is the closest you'll generally find to a modern-day torchbearer, but that's largely due to crossover appeal with metal and hardcore, which he has strong connections to.** Truck-driving country was popular in the 60s and 70s, with smash hits such as "Convoy", "East Bound and Down", "Six Days on the Road", and so on, either by glorifying truckers as modern-day cowboys who've seen large chunks of the world, offering sentimental stories of life on the road, or expressing the joy of getting back home after the long haul. This coincided with trucking becoming popular with the general public, to the point that even non-truckers would either purchase CB radios or use trucker slang such as "10-4, good buddy" in everyday conversation. But throughout TheEighties, the trucking industry began to decline and the national craze faded; while some works still romanticize truckers to this day, trucking country faded out at the start of TheEighties. (In fact, some of the last country songs about trucking, including Music/EddieRabbitt's "Drivin' My Life Away" and Music/RonnieMilsap's "Prisoner of the Highway", seem more like descontructions of the genre.)** Pop-country and traditional country have been cycling through this trope for decades. In TheEighties, the Outlaw and Bakersfield style of country became outpaced by pop crossover-friendly acts such as Music/KennyRogers, Music/RonnieMilsap, and Music/{{Alabama}}, who dominated the decade with slick songs that were as conducive to AC and Top 40 playlists as country. Then by about the mid-80s, a more traditional-leaning batch of artists began to emerge, including Music/RebaMcEntire, Music/GeorgeStrait, Music/RandyTravis and Ricky Skaggs. By 1989, the so-called "Class of '89" emerged, a group of artists who all debuted that year (including Music/ClintBlack, Music/AlanJackson, and Music/GarthBrooks) who managed to make a new brand of country that was clearly traditionally influenced with plenty of honky-tonk fiddle and steel, but still marketable to the masses; i.e., "neo-traditionalist". Fueling the fire was Music/BrooksAndDunn, a honky-tonk influenced duo whose smash "Boot Scootin' Boogie", combined with Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart" (although an anomaly with its blatant 80s rock overtones), helped spark a renewed interest in line dancing.\\''Then'' in 1995, Music/ShaniaTwain emerged from nowhere and led a shift back toward country-pop crossovers, typically dominated by female artists such as her, Music/FaithHill, and Martina [=McBride=] � although it was also in this time period that Music/DixieChicks managed considerable success despite a clear bluegrass influence. Even some acts who had debuted in the "neo-traditionalist" peak years attempted to change their style with varying degrees of success, most notably in Mark Chesnutt scoring a massive crossover hit with a not-remotely-traditional cover of Music/{{Aerosmith}}'s "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and Music/{{Lonestar}}'s 1999 hit "Amazed" becoming the first song since 1983 to top both the country and pop charts. All of ''those'' artists then fell off in the first few years of the 2000s, particularly the Chicks (whose fall from grace is further explained below), and Faith, who alienated herself from country radio in 2002 with her 100% pop-based album ''Cry''. Ever since, country has occupied a middle ground that is neither overtly indebted to its roots nor overtly primed for pop crossover appeal, so with few exceptions, not a lot of country artists have achieved the mainstream exposure and crossover smashes of the acts mentioned above.*** The "hat act" craze, a subset of the early-mid 90s "neo-traditionalist" boom. Many of the aforementioned "Class of '89" were fairly young men in cowboy hats, and such men came to flood the country market. While some actually proved to be talented, many others were criticized as bland copycats, and "hat act" came to be a derogatory term. The craze died off in the late 1990s as country shifted back to a more pop influence. One of the few "hat acts" who survived into the 21st century is Music/KennyChesney, who managed to move beyond the "young hunk in a cowboy hat" image to his own unique sounds. Meanwhile, Rhett Akins moved from a fourth-string "hat act" to become a popular songwriter in the mid-late 2000s, in addition to supporting the budding singer-songwriter career of his son, who goes by Music/ThomasRhett.* In the 1980s and early 1990s, tape trading (the practice making copies of audio cassettes and sending them via mail to other fans of the music) was practiced by fans of extreme music such as heavy metal and hardcore punk, allowing fans all over the world to hear bands that they'd normally never hear on the radio or [=MTV=]. Tape trading allowed many bands to garner fanbases far from their homes despite being ignored by mainstream media outlets, and is credited with contributing to the early success of bands such as Music/{{Metallica}} and Music/{{Slayer}}. In the mid '90s, the rise of digital media and Internet file sharing made tape trading obsolete, as fans could download high-quality mp3s of songs in less than an hour rather than waiting days or weeks for tapes to arrive in the mail. These days tape trading is only practiced by a small number of heavy metal fans as a nostalgia hobby rather than a practical way of getting new music.* [[BluesRock Blues-based rock]]. Thanks mainly to the surge of AlternativeRock, anything that sounds like BluesRock is automatically considered 'old-timey' rock and roll (even though blues rock only found major mainstream success for a short period of time) for better or for worse. Many modern rock stations won't even play anything that sounds like it doesn't come from PostGrunge-NuMetal-AlternativeRock-AlternativeMetal unless it's a major band (i.e. Metallica; Guns N Roses; Led Zeppelin).** Doubly for PsychedelicRock, although AlternativeRock and Stoner Rock have been keeping it as an important part of their sounds.** Interestingly, a growing trend in rock music as a whole has been the shifting eversoslightly towards psychedelia and the blues (Music/TheBlackKeys, etc.). While it's unlikely that they will take over the world, it's possible that a full-fledged revival may be imminent.* Try to find a single major metal band that sounds anything like Music/BlackSabbath. [[DoomMetal There is a genre that glorifies them,]] but this genre's mainstream high point ''was'' Black Sabbath. That style of metal, while definitely not dead and in fact is rising in popularity, essentially died the second metal discovered PunkRock and HardRock and ran with it.* ProgressiveRock fell ''hard'' in the late '70s, thanks to both PunkRock and disco. Both Music/{{Yes}} and Music/{{Genesis}} managed to avert this in the '80s by retooling their sounds to fit the new decade. Prog Rock bands tended to write music that tackled deep topics (not just political but often metaphysics, mysticism, and freqeuntly ScienceFiction and {{Fantasy}} themes.) as opposed to being simply catchy tunes. This alienated them from the less cerebral mainstream. While the genre has survived and had an influence on later bands (such as Music/{{Muse}}), it's unlikely to return to its earlier prominence anytime soon.* Jam bands such as the GratefulDead and Phish. Nowadays jam bands are mostly remembered for having a grand example of FanDumb, fans who follow the bands around everywhere and essentially nothing else related to them. * Kayokyoku, somewhat of a modern precursor to J-pop. The 1980s and 1990s saw heavier western influences seep into Japanese music, and for the most part heavily Japanese associated popular tunes are left to enka. Virtually overnight, western influences killed "kayo" as a musical form and formed modern J-pop, with much of the remaining active kayokyoku artists such as KenjiSawada and MomoeYamaguchi have taken up the label of J-pop or J-rock and essentially leaving more traditional musical output behind.** Related to this, "ero-kayo" or erotic kayokyoku. Basically entire albums of sexually charged psychedelic pop usually sung by supple-bodied young women with sexual groans and moans by the women thrown in. Yeah, the novelty wore off VERY fast.* Related to hair metal, gratuitous shred guitar solos with session musicians in many non-rock genres became popular around the same time, even in places where no one today would want them, like an adult contemporary ballad or a bubbly pop song. Even by the late '80s, this had descended into self-parody and was seen as overindulgent, and by the rise of grunge, this trend was already dead. Today, the only non-rock artists that seem to use guitar soloing are country artists like Music/BradPaisley.* Both Greatest Hits albums and compilation albums (such as the surprisingly popular �Now! That's What I Call Music� albums) are flatlining for exactly the same reason. Both operated on the same premise: an album filled with popular songs without unwanted filler (either a cross-section of popular songs from a certain year, genre, etc., or collection of hits from a single artist, with the occasional new song thrown in in the case of the latter.) Admittedly something of a cash-grab by record labels, admittedly one that was actually popular, as many people enjoyed having the ease of one album playing several hits instead of constantly changing CD's around (both ''ABBA Gold'' and ''Music/TheImmaculateCollection'' by Music/{{Madonna}} were incredibly popular.)\\\\However, the rise of mp3s and digital music have caused both to collapse. Now that mp3 players offer listeners the ability to place songs in whatever order they so choose in the form of playlists, alongside the move to a more singles-based market instead of the previous album-based, listeners can get whichever songs they want, in whatever order they want, without the songs they don't. There's the occasional outlier, but Greatest Hits albums and compilation albums have become the [[DeaderThanDisco/LiveActionTV Variety shows]] of the music industry.* JapanesePopMusic did not have it easy in the age of the digital revolution. The Japanese record labels were, in many ways, even more out-of-touch than their American counterparts, with their digital side being Orwellian and difficult to access, JohnnyEntertainment being the greatest example with their anti digital stance and refusing to upload on youtube. Furthermore, the music was seen as "childish" and bland by non-Japanese listeners, and the way the system was designed to gouge money by encouraging bulk-buy sale incentives (popularized by Music/{{AKB48}}) led to a rise of uninspired J-Idol groups trying to get a slice of the pie. Finally, the fandom itself does not promote inclusion in any way, which gave it a poor reputation overseas. All of this combined allowed KoreanPopMusic to supplant it in popularity.** Most J-Pop or J-Rock artists who still have a significant fandom outside of Japan have either gone indie and/or separated themselves from the politics of the record industry(KenjiSawada, XJapan) or else have such a significant role and personality outside of music that music itself doesn't seem to be the main factor (Gackt, Miyavi).* The rise of digital music formats has killed off albums in general, as the music industry has become much more single-oriented. Many people just skip the filler tracks altogether and listen to the hits. The music industry has responded by selling {{Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition}}s to dedicated fans, especially classic rock acts like Music/LedZeppelin and Music/PinkFloyd. * The '90s vogue for Gregorian chants and/or New Agey music mixed in with modern instruments. Canto Gregoriano, Adiemus, Enigma and the like sold ridiculous amounts of discs back then but soon receded back into semi-obscurity.* In the mid-2000's, Mashup Albums were a popular trend in rap and hip hop. Popularized by Music/DangerMouse in 2004 with his controversial [[PunnyName The Grey Album]] (which combined "The Black Album" by Music/JayZ with Music/TheWhiteAlbum" by Music/TheBeatles), the idea was to layer A Cappella renditions of popular rap albums over instrumental versions of popular rock albums. Unfortunately, once more people started cashing in on the phenomenon, SturgeonsLaw kicked in. For every one clever and well constructed mashup album, [[SturgeonsLaw you had about nine or ten that were poorly sequenced and paired rap and rock albums that really didn't go together]]. Due to this horrible saturation of junk, the Mashup Album trend died a pretty quick death (although individual song mashups have remained popular on Youtube to this day).* As with video game magazines, the Internet has largely killed off music magazines. Who needs some critic driving a BiasSteamroller to tell you which music is worthwhile when you can just stream songs on Spotify or Website/YouTube and hear for yourself? It's not surprising that many of the major publications folded around the same time digital music distribution took off. Most people seem to prefer to find out about new music from social media and Pandora. Rolling Stone still maintains a large Internet presence, but it seems to be coasting on its own legacy.* [[{{Metalcore}} Melodic metalcore]] is basically dead at this point. Instrumental in killing off nu-metal and absolutely gargantuan in popularity from 2003-2008, the Gothenburg-meets-Western-Massachusetts variety of the genre as played by Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Shadows Fall, and like-minded peers (Unearth, Trivium, As I Lay Dying, Atreyu, Bleeding Through, God Forbid, etc.) was basically THE face of heavy music as far as the public was concerned thanks to its ability to mix various forms of metal and rock in a way that wasn't mindlessly aggressive or childishly angsty. Its death came from two main sources: deathcore pulled away the fans of the heavier bands, while a LighterAndSofter variety that mixed the genre with elements of pop-punk, melodic post-hardcore and (often, but not always) electronica drew in the fans who were there for the catchy choruses. This left most of the older bands in a conundrum: they couldn't really change their sound to fit with the changing landscape of the genre without alienating a sufficient portion of their fans, but they couldn't stay afloat without changing either. By TheNewTens, dwindling sales and show attendances led to multiple breakups and indefinite hiatuses, and the big bands that survived either moved towards modern rock (All That Remains, Trivium) or melodic death metal (Killswitch Engage, Unearth). Most people consider the 2013 arrest of [[Music/AsILayDying Tim Lambesis]] for attempting to arrange for his ex-wife's murder to be the final nail in the genre's coffin; while most of the bigger bands that survived are still doing well, Miss May I is basically the ONLY example of a new Gothenburg-styled melodic metalcore band being met with any major degree of success in this day and age.* PostGrunge is dead in the water today. Initially created in the mid-90s as a LighterAndSofter alternative to {{Grunge}}, [[MorePopularSpinOff it quickly killed off grunge's place in the mainstream]]. It was through post-grunge that rock bands got heavy airplay on pop radio, and the frontrunners of the genre such as the Music/FooFighters, Music/MatchboxTwenty, and Music/{{Creed}} became some of the biggest rock bands in the world. Then the TurnOfTheMillennium came around, where it actually became even more popular, with bands like Music/ThreeDoorsDown, Music/{{Nickelback}}, and Music/{{Daughtry}} taking over the airwaves. It was during this time that post-grunge was omnipresent on the radio, since it qualified as rock music yet was also mainstream friendly, it was played in equal measure on both rock and pop radio. Indeed, since it bridged the gap between rock and pop, many flocked to it to get away from the more "dangerous" genres that were popular during its reign, such as HardRock, NuMetal, and PopPunk.\\\\However, its reign was over towards the end of the noughties, where by that point it was the last form of rock music to hold a place in the mainstream. The rise of the [[ElectronicMusic EDM]] and dance-pop craze led to post-grunge being wiped out overnight. Since post-grunge built up massive hatedom over the years, it quickly became a punchline when talking about how bad rock music got in the '90s and 2000s, with bands like Creed and Nickelback being seen as having "[[RuinedForever killed rock music]]", even by the rock radio stations that used to put them in heavy rotation. Today, the only airplay post-grunge gets is on adult contemporary stations that avoid anything that could be perceived as offensive (often they play 90s R&B, clean pop songs that might have cut rap verses, and boy band pop music), while airplay on mainstream Top 40 and rock radio is virtually non-existent. Nowadays, post-grunge is viewed as a cautionary tale of what happens when you take a genre such a rock, and an even more unique one such as grunge, and then turn it into a [[MoneyDearBoy mass-produced commercial product]].[[/folder]][[folder:Specific artists (hip-hop)]]Hip-hop/rap music is especially known for being a very cutthroat industry, even by pop music standards, and is full of stories of artists who released a hit radio single, became wildly popular for a brief period, and then [[OneHitWonder promptly faded back into obscurity]] (as the examples below demonstrate). In fact, the success stories of long-running rappers such as Music/{{Eminem}}, Music/SnoopDogg, Music/KanyeWest, and Music/JayZ are major exceptions to the rule. The vicious nature of the rap industry has been the subject of many a rap single; one of the most famous examples is Music/CypressHill's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7D27mL2JkI "(Rap) Superstar"]].* Music/MCHammer is a notable example of a single musician succumbing to this trope. In the early '90s, he was one of the biggest rap stars in the world, with the album ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'' going diamond (ten million sold -- the first rap album to accomplish that feat) and "U Can't Touch This" becoming a sensation. He made flaunting flashy clothes and lifestyle fashionable (rather than the strictly "hood" styles of most rappers of the time), and was on the leading edge of rappers acting as commercial pitchmen. Then, however, came three factors that derailed his success and caused him to fall harder and faster than even Music/MichaelJackson, turning him into an almost overnight punchline:** Switching his sound to GangstaRap in order to stay relevant. Whilst his 1994 album ''The Funky Headhunter'' was a platinum-selling success upon its release, and spawned the MemeticMutation "it's all good", not only did it get him labeled a sellout by other rappers (the fact that he recorded several diss tracks probably didn't help), it [[ContractualPurity ruined the clean-and-wholesome image]] that he had cultivated (he was, and still is, a Pentecostal minister, and included a Christian song on every one of his albums), which had allowed him to sell rap to mainstream America [[LighterAndSofter without the controversy raised by the more hardcore artists]].** [[WolverinePublicity Overexposure.]] Even at his height, rivals like Music/LLCoolJ were dissing him for what they saw as over-the-top commercialization, which included shoes, T-shirts, Hammer pants and his SaturdayMorningCartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Hammerman}}''. This may have actually provoked his switch to gangsta rap, as it's possible that he felt he needed to prove to his detractors that he wasn't a one-trick pony.** Redefining the phrase "ConspicuousConsumption" for [[TheNineties Generation X]]. There was his infamous mansion, for starters. Then there were his expensive music videos, which set records at the time. Throw in the cars, the thoroughbred racehorses, an entourage that ballooned up to nearly 200 people at one point (allegedly, he would "hire" friends and relatives who needed a job to basically do nothing as a form of charity) and to top it all off, the ''gold chains for his Rottweilers''. He had to file for bankruptcy in 1996 as a result of this, and he remains a symbol of living beyond one's means. This is referenced in {{Nelly}}'s song "Country Grammar (Hot S**t)", where he talks about how he's going to "blow 30 mil like I'm Hammer."* MC Hammer's contemporary, Music/VanillaIce, had what was then the fastest-selling hip-hop album ever with ''To the Extreme'', and for a time "Ice Ice Baby" was as omnipresent as "U Can't Touch This". However, his film ''Film/CoolAsIce'' bombed, his ganja-themed follow-up album ''Mind Blowin'' was a dud, and he soon fell into drug addiction and at one point tried to kill himself. Furthermore, he made a public mockery of himself by awkwardly denying that "Ice Ice Baby" sampled the main riff from "[[Music/{{Queen}} Under]] [[Music/DavidBowie Pressure]]". Now, while he's back to recording new music (with Creator/PsychopathicRecords!), and has made a small fortune [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20317_the-7-most-wtf-post-fame-careers-famous-musicians.html flipping houses]], of all things, to most people in America he is ''the'' [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy punchline]] about white rappers.** ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'' glaring in disgust when the video for "Ice Ice Baby" came on and then abruptly switching channels probably sealed the deal. (They would do the same thing with Music/MilliVanilli -- see their entry below for further details.)* Music/FiftyCent was one of the hottest rappers of the early 21st century. His 2003 debut ''Get Rich or Die Tryin[='=]'' was one of the most popular rap albums of all time (more than 8 million albums sold in the United States alone), and thanks to his business savvy, he appeared to be on top of the world. Unfortunately, however, his rap career steadily declined not long after, thanks to both a [[BaseBreaker polarizing fan reaction]] to his second album ''The Massacre'' and his rather pretentious, over-the-top public demeanor.\\\\The latter in particular seriously damaged his music career in 2007, when it was revealed that Kanye West would release his third album ''Graduation'' on the same day 50 released his third album ''Curtis''. This led him to boastfully declare that if Kanye's album sold more copies than his, he would officially retire from rapping. [[TemptingFate Sure enough]], ''Graduation'' outsold ''Curtis'' by a landslide, and while 50 [[OhCrap hastily retracted his declaration]], the damage had already been done. His most recent album, 2009's ''Before I Self Destruct'', garnered mediocre reviews and just barely managed to reach Gold certification, and his follow-up ''Animal Ambition'' was stuck in DevelopmentHell before being released in 2014 and subsequently flopping. While ''Get Rich or Die Tryin[='=]'' is still highly regarded by professional critics and hip hop fans, 50 Cent is not nearly as popular as he once was, and now he seems to be concentrating more on acting than his music career.* The same applies to 50 Cent's one-time rival, Ja Rule. After being mentored by Jay-Z on the hit song "Can I Get A..." (which was also popularized by the film ''Film/RushHour''), Ja Rule followed up with an extremely successful solo album and quickly rose to become one of hip-hop's biggest stars of the late '90s and early '00s. He would release a multi-platinum album every year from 1999 to 2002, and also started a short-lived acting career.\\\\However, his fall came swiftly and precipitously in the year 2003, primarily for two reasons. The first was the rise of the aforementioned Fifty, who was a long-time underground rival from Queens, NY and seemed to make antagonizing Ja Rule and his Murder Inc. record label the main goal of his early career. Furthermore, the fact that Ja Rule had started out with a tough GangstaRap attitude but then [[RatedGForGangsta softened his image]] over the years (by the peak of his career, he was primarily known for performing pop-oriented love ballads/duets with female R&B singers) only made his critics' attacks on him all the easier to stick. Ja Rule responded to the critics with several attack albums, but they were mostly critical and commercial disappointments and a far cry to his earlier success. By 2005, he had disappeared from the public eye, which was further compounded by the collapse of Murder Inc. due to various legal issues. He has since released a few independent albums, but the only time he has really been relevant in the news was for going to jail on a gun-possession charge.* Another of 50 Cent and Ja Rule's contemporaries to fall victim to this was Music/{{DMX}}, who in TheNineties was once one of the best-selling artists in hip-hop. He released numerous platinum-selling albums, peaking with his MagnumOpus ''...And Then There Was X'' in 1999, which included the SignatureSong "Party Up" ([[MemeticMutation Up in here! Up in here!]]). He also collaborated with many other rappers (including legends such as Music/IceCube, Music/JayZ, Music/{{Eminem}}, and Music/{{Nas}}) and became one of the best-known examples of WolverinePublicity in hip-hop singles. And like Fifty and Ja, he briefly dabbed into an acting career as well.\\\\Unfortunately, [=DMX=] would also become infamous for his ''other'' [[IncrediblyLamePun rap sheet]] and soon found himself unable to stay out of trouble with the law as his fame rose. Although he initially was able to still sell well in spite of his legal troubles, his arrest record and jail sentences eventually took their toll in preventing him from being able to record music and by the latter half of the 2000s, he was widely regarded as a has-been laughingstock. 2008 was a particularly bad year for X when he was arrested over a dozen times for various offenses and also embarrassed himself in a [[http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2008/03/dmx-here-i-am/ bizarre interview]] in which he professed ignorance over who then-presidential candidate UsefulNotes/BarackObama was ([[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and made fun of Obama's name]]). He attempted a bit of a comeback in 2012, releasing a new album for the first time in 6 years, but he has recently also filed for bankruptcy ([[ChronicVillainy after being arrested several more times]]), showing that he still has quite a bit to recover from.* Music/MissyElliot is a strange example where there was never any kind of negative backlash against her, she simply just vanished. From the late 90s up through the mid-2000s, she was massively popular as a rapper, as a producer, and for having some of the most elaborate, innovative, and downright bizarre music videos on TV at the time ("She's A Bitch" and "Get Ur Freak On" for starters.) Perhaps, most importantly, she gave women a voice in the notoriously misogynistic genre of hip hop - writing songs that openly embraced her sexuality while taking some pretty biting potshots at the rappers who openly criticized her for being a woman. Then, sometime around the mid-2000s, she seemed to simply disappear. She revealed in 2011 that her absence was due to suffering from Graves' Disease, likely coupled with the loss of her frequent collaborator and good friend Aaliyah in 2001. After getting the condition under control and making a surprise appearance at the 2015 Super Bowl, she's still producing, but there been very little in the way of her own music. That said, it ''is'' theoretically possible for her to make a comeback if/when she releases a new album. But given the rather short life expectancy of hip hop artists[[note]]Hence the genre having its very own folder on this page[[/note]], it's impossible to tell at this stage of the game.* While never without haters, there was a time when Music/SouljaBoy was actually fairly well-liked by the general public. In 2007, at just 17-years-old his debut single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" topped the ''Billboard'' charts and was inescapable that year. He built up a large fanbase mainly consisting of kids and young teens but also casual listeners, even if he was already disliked by the rap community. However, overtime his music got [[DreadfulMusician worse and worse]] combined with his extremely [[{{Jerkass}} obnoxious]] [[SmallNameBigEgo behavior]]. His once large fanbase dwindled as they grew up and/or moved onto other things while his hatedom has only gotten bigger and bigger. Once one of the most popular rappers on the market, he could seriously rival Music/JustinBieber as one of the most hated artists of all time, and "Crank That" is only brought up nowadays as SnarkBait. * Much like Missy Elliott Music/LaurynHill also faded away. As the most notable member of Music/TheFugees she became a star thanks to their album ''Music/TheScore''. When her solo debut ''Music/TheMiseducationOfLaurynHill' came out it was both a critical and a commercial success. Even when listened to today it hasn't aged that bad, mostly because Hill made it more a {{Soul}} album than a {{HipHop}} album. But Lauryn didn't like the way the music industry worked, had to try too much effort to maintain a personal vision without ExecutiveMeddling and in the end wanted to focus on her family more. She only released one album, a live unplugged one, that has pretty much faded away itself. Since then she does occasionally tour, but doesn't seem all that interested in bringing out new material, making a revival of her music pretty unlikely nowadays. [[/folder]][[folder:Specific (other genres)]]!!Male solo artists* Liberace, the flamboyant piano player, was one of the most popular and highest paid music performers of TheFifties. He was especially popular among teenage girls who [[{{Squee}} swooned]] over him the way their big sisters used to swoon over the young Music/FrankSinatra. His popularity extended well into TheSixties, as a pleasant alternative to [[RockAndRoll rock 'n' roll]]. Most popular non-rock music performers of the Fifties are forgotten today, but not Liberace, oh no. He's still remembered, all right... as a ridiculously {{camp}} figure, a joke on that era's cluelessness of his ''[[TransparentCloset obvious]]'' [[TransparentCloset closet homosexuality]]. If a character refers to Liberace (''[[Film/{{Superman}} Superman II]]'', ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries''), they're AmbiguouslyGay. His fall from grace appeared complete when his Las Vegas museum closed due to waning popularity in TheNewTens.** Not helping his legacy in [[ValuesDissonance modern times]] was the fact that Liberace was, during his life, [[ArmouredClosetGay very adamant]] about [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday denying that he was gay]], giving him a PeripheryHatedom in today's LGBT community. Even after his death, his estate and personal physician went through great efforts to cover up the fact that he died from AIDS-related complications.* The entire city of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branson,_Missouri Branson, Missouri]], owes its existence to this trope. When Music/GarthBrooks and other younger stars took over CountryMusic in the early '90s, they brought in new fans and, more importantly, new Nashville record execs who didn't care about most of the established stars of country (although a few, like Music/RebaMcEntire and Music/GeorgeStrait, managed to cross generational lines). Almost figuratively overnight, singers like Charley Pride and Barbara Mandrell went from having #1 hits to not even making the charts. Branson was the only place they could get anyone to pay to see their shows. So they all just moved there and opened up theaters. As ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' put it...-->'''Nelson''': What ''is'' this place?-->'''Bart''': Branson, Missouri. My dad says it's like Vegas, if it were run by Ned Flanders.* During TheFifties, Pat Boone was one of the biggest pop performers in America. He explicitly served as TheMoralSubstitute to the edgy RockAndRoll artists of the day by singing {{Bowdlerise}}d covers of their songs, with a number of them (such as his versions of Music/LittleRichard's "Tutti Frutti" and Music/FatsDomino's "Ain't That a Shame") actually [[CoveredUp making it higher on the charts]] than the originals. Nowadays, though, the original songs serve as the FirstAndForemost versions, while his covers have faded into obscurity. When he is remembered, it's usually as a symbol of the buttoned-up cultural conservatism of '50s pop culture; the fact that he's since found steady work as a right-wing Christian commentator hasn't done much to challenge that image.** He does have a cult following among metalheads for his album ''In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy'', which featured covers of classic metal songs in his big-band style. (Music/RonnieJamesDio even sang backing vocals on Boone's cover of "Holy Diver"!) Even then, though, it's chiefly an ironic fandom, akin to that of Creator/ChuckNorris.* Music/JustinBieber. He was one of the first "internet celebrities" to become a legitimate, mainstream pop star, having started out posting Website/YouTube videos of himself singing covers of R&B songs in the late '00s. He was a pop music sensation among teenage girls, known as [[FanCommunityNickname "Beliebers"]], and while he also had a massive Hatedom (mostly revolving around his high-pitched singing voice, his {{bish|onen}}ie appearance, and of course [[FanHater his fans themselves]]), it did little to slow his popularity. Things started to change in 2012, however. First, his fanbase turned out to be dependent on a FleetingDemographic, as shown when the British/Irish BoyBand Music/OneDirection underwent a meteoric rise in popularity in the US. (It didn't help that many of his other fans grew too old for him). Bieber's fanbase was gutted by the rise of One Direction; his sophomore album ''Believe'' sold an underwhelming 374,000 copies in its opening week and took nearly half a year to be certified platinum (In turn, One Direction's ''Take Me Home'' opened with 540,000 copies sold and went platinum in just five weeks), while One Direction started winning all of the awards that Bieber would've claimed just the prior year.\\\\It was in 2013 when the second, and arguably bigger, cause of his DeaderThanDisco status kicked in. Bieber's public demeanor took an increasing turn for the {{jerkass}}, which battered his already-negative public image and turned many of his remaining fans against him (which benefited One Direction even more). He attempted to remain in the music world with a second concert film, ''Justin Bieber's Believe'', and with the new album ''Journals'', both released in late 2013, but ''Believe'' was a BoxOfficeBomb (especially compared to his first concert film just two years prior), and ''Journals'' flopped so badly that iTunes withheld sales figures. By the end of 2013, he had become better known for his tabloid antics, his on-and-off relationship with Music/SelenaGomez, and as the victim of arguably the most infamous musical equivalent of the [=MySpace=] vs. Facebook battle. than for his music, and many former "Beliebers" now hold him in very poor regard.* Not for lack of trying on his part, but people are already beginning to [[http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/why-robin-thicke-new-vanilla-ice/ call time of death]] on Robin Thicke's musical career. Kicking around the business for years, he finally broke through in 2013, riding a wave of NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity thanks to his kinda-sleazy song �Blurred Lines�, which became the unofficial Song of the Summer, and an equally controversial performance with Music/MileyCyrus at the 2013 [=VMAs=]. This seemed to work primarily because of a carefully constructed image of a RuleAbidingRebel: he played the part of a [[HandsomeLech lecherous womanizer]], but got something of a pass because he was clearly devoted to his wife and high school sweetheart, actress Paula Patton.\\\\However, throughout 2013 and 2014, stories began to emerge that his sleazy creep persona ''wasn't'' all an act, and after getting proof in the form of a photo taken in an elevator with mirrored walls showed him groping a female fan, Patton finally left him. His follow-up album ''Paula'', as the name implies, was a transparent, desperate, and somewhat depressing attempt to win her back, only digging him further down, while a Website/{{Twitter}} Q&A went haywire fast when [[InternetCounterattack Thicke was inundated with angry messages]]. The trust between Thicke and his female fans was broken, potentially irreparably, and ''Paula'' bombed with only 24,000 copies sold in the US in its first week (compared to 177,000 for his debut) and international numbers even worse (only 550 copies in Canada, 530 in the UK, and ''158 in Australia''[[note]]Actually, no more than 158 - ''Paula'' did not made it into the 500 best selling albums list, and the No.500 - [[HumiliationConga a greatest hits compilation]] by [[Blondie]] - sold 159 units[[/note]]). By the summer of 2014, Thicke's name is more synonymous with "that rape-y song" than anything else, with few people defending the UnfortunateImplications of "Blurred Lines" anymore. Of course, music is a business with [[CareerResurrection "never say never"]] as a mantra, but for him to recover from falling that far that fast will take nothing short of a miracle... and with the allegations that he copied his signature song from Creator/MarvinGaye, that miracle appears to be a vanishing possibility. Today, most of the R&B and urban stations that he had been a staple of for over a decade have dropped him from the airwaves, or at least significantly downplayed his presence. Even airplay of his mega-hit nowadays is sporadic as the UnfortunateImplications of the song have become its most famous aspect. It's likely he'll be seen as an OldShame for many of his former fans, and for those who actually liked "Blurred Lines" at the height of its popularity.* Music/ChrisBrown exploded onto the scene in 2005 at just a mere 15 years old, and quickly became one of the more successful pop acts of the naughties, charming teens with his hip hop/R&B music style and his dance moves. Some even declared him to be the next King of Pop.\\\\That all changed, however, when media reports sprang up in 2009 revealing that his rocky relationship with his girlfriend Music/{{Rihanna}} ended with him beating her up to a pulp, and he was forced to 5 years of probation and 6 months of community service. The media turned turned a complete 180 and quickly shunned him out for his misogynist actions. His next album released that year, ''Graffiti'', tanked miserably, and he spent 2010 mostly attempting to rebuild his image. It seemed to have paid off, as 2011's ''F.A.M.E.'' became a smash hit, was nominated for garnered several successful singles, such as "Yeah 3x", "Deuces" and "Look at Me Now", and gained a Grammy.\\\\Then, after even '''more''' incidents that brought his public image down even further (including public fights with Music/{{Drake}} and Frank Ocean, messy love triangles with Rihanna and Karrueche Tran and even more arrests) and practically turned him into a convicted felon, what remaining redemption the media had to Brown quickly descended, and it shows, as ''Fortune'' quickly bombed in 2012, and his second attempted comeback ''X'' debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 before quickly vanishing from the top 20. He's still around, but he seems to be on the fast track to vanishing for good, which is helped in no small part by the current (and likely permanent) public perception that he's a violent, misogynistic psychopath.* Music/TheBigBopper: He scored one hit in 1958, "Chantilly Lace", then died in the plane crash that also took the lives of Music/BuddyHolly and Music/RitchieValens. While both Holly and Valens still remain popular and even have movie adaptations based around them The Big Bopper has never had any revival. Though granted, with only one notable hit song he is pretty much an unfortunate OneHitWonder due to his early death. * Shabba Ranks emerged in the early 1990s as the most popular musician to come out of Jamaica since Bob Marley. His songs were international hits. But Shabba was also a homophobe who sang numbers where he advocated crucifying and murdering gays. Interviews also showed he was very serious about the matter. This effectively torpedoed his career beyond repair and made him literally forgotten, exact perhaps in his home country. It also had the side effect of seriously damaging the image of dancehall as a whole (as these themes were not limited to him ''at all''; he just had a high enough profile to call attention to himself about them) and also helped feed into a growing backlash against the violence and "slackness"-obsessed nature of then-modern dancehall, which led to a lot of existing and new artists turning towards more conscious and religious themes.!!Female solo artists* While never overly popular, Anita Bryant had a notable career in music during the 1960s. Come the '70s, she became better-known as a vocal, pretentious HeteronormativeCrusader. This killed any chance of future interest in Bryant's music. Fans of her music today are extremely rare, even among elderly people, to the point where many people now are unaware that she was once a singer. Maybe she should have stuck to music...* Music/LizPhair was one of the most highly respected indie artists of TheNineties. Her debut album ''Exile In Guyville'' went on to become one of the most acclaimed albums of that decade, and while the two albums that followed it (''Whip-Smart'' and ''Whitechocolatespaceegg'') didn't have quite as big an impact, they were still highly regarded in their own right.\\\\Then in 2003, her [[SelfTitledAlbum self-titled]] and [[ItsPopularNowItSucks unapologetically commercial]] fourth album turned her into a pi�ata for critics, who felt that she had [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks sold out her indie roots]] by going in a radio-friendly pop-rock direction that turned her into little more than a clone of Music/AvrilLavigne. Pitchfork Media went as far as to give the album a ''0.0 out of 10'', one of the few times that it has "awarded" such a score. The album did admittedly get a decent reception from fans and, more importantly, give Liz her first Top 40 single with "Why Can't I?", but in the long run, [[OneHitWonder it would also be her last hit single]]. Her subsequent albums, 2005's ''Somebody's Miracle'' and 2010's ''Funstyle'', saw her retreating from her fourth album's pop sound, but they both received mixed reviews and failed to generate any hits. Today, while her first three albums are still acclaimed, she's otherwise seen as a cautionary tale of the dangers of selling out and alienating one's fans.* When Music/LadyGaga burst onto the scene in the late 2000s, she was inescapable. She was credited for bringing dance-pop back into the mainstream with her songs "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" being two of the biggest hits of 2008, while "Bad Romance" made her easily the biggest artist of 2009. Her debut album ''The Fame'' and its UpdatedRerelease ''The Fame Monster'' sold a combined total of over 20 million albums worldwide, a rarity in the post-digital age, while her [[CrazyAwesome eccentric behavior and insane fashion sense]] always kept her in the news and on people's minds. She continued her dominance well into TheNewTens, with songs like "Telephone" (with Music/{{Beyonce}}), "Born This Way", and "The Edge of Glory" off her 2011 sophomore album ''Born This Way'' (which was the biggest hit album in six years) all being massive hits. Critics and fans alike declared her the new Queen of Pop, and it seemed like nothing could stop her.\\\\However, by 2013 it seemed like people had grown bored with her. Lady Gaga's famous behavior and fashion sense [[TheTysonZone lost its shock value]], which was one of her selling points; by that point the rest of the pop world had long since caught up with her in terms of edginess. This left her music, which people didn't see much in that hadn't been done before. This came to show with her third album ''ARTPOP''. While it debuted at #1 on the ''Billboard'' 200, its sales afterward were dismal; it fell off almost immediately and ultimately failed to go platinum after over a year. This wasn't helped by her album [[NewSoundAlbum switching]] from her [[SignatureStyle signature dance-pop style]] to a [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks more generic EDM sound]]. The failure of ''ARTPOP'' not only took the wind out of Gaga's sails, but had an effect on other performers; Music/NickiMinaj, for instance, ditched her similar gimmick of insane costumes for a more natural look after noticing Lady Gaga's underwhelming sales. Since then, Lady Gaga has been focusing on much smaller-scale projects, such as her jazz cover album ''Cheek to Cheek'' with Tony Bennett, instead of trying to be the world's biggest pop star. While songs such as "Just Dance", "Poker Face", "Bad Romance", and "Born This Way" will likely remain a mainstay on pop radio for some time to come, the idea of her as "the new Queen of Pop" is long in the past as other female performers have risen to fill the void.* During the mid-late '90s, Music/{{Jewel}} was one of the premier adult alternative performers, with her debut album ''Pieces Of You'' being one of the very few debuts to [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome reach]] ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Diamond]]'' [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome certification]] in the [=US.=] While the following two albums (''Spirit'' and ''This Way'') weren't quite as successful, they sold very well and spawned several songs (i.e, "Standing Still") that played in regular rotation on Creator/{{MTV}}. Unfortunately, her [[GenreShift switch to a more dance pop oriented style]] on her fourth album ''0304'', particularly the licensing of its song "Intuition" for use in Schick razor commercials, [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks caused a major fan backlash]] and put a massive dent in her career that she was never really able to recover from. While she's found some recent success performing children's music and soft country, the commercial performance of her post-''0304'' work has not come close to matching that of her work in the '90s and early-2000s.* Almost immediately after she took off in late 2001, Michelle Branch became one of the hottest young female singers in America. A singer/songwriter/guitarist who mixed pop music with a hard rock style, she was viewed as a SpiritualSuccessor to Alanis Morissette, even being signed to the same label as her (Maverick Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records). Her debut album ''The Spirit Room'' was a huge success, with singles "Everywhere" and "All You Wanted" being played by almost every pop radio station in the country. Immediately afterwards, the media was hyping Branch up as the face of a movement of female singer/songwriter/instrumentalists who revolted against manufactured teen pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. A slew of such artists popped up behind her, like Vanessa Carlton, Avril Lavigne, and Stacie Orrico, while veteran acts in that style like Sheryl Crow, No Doubt, and Liz Phair (see above) had a resurgence in popularity. Even Pink, who was part of the "manufactured" group, quickly adapted to the new trend.\\\\By the end of 2002, the future was not looking as bright for Branch. By then, Lavigne had supplanted her as the face of the new movement, and her song "Goodbye to You" wasn't nearly as successful as her first two hits. Fortunately, she compensated for that through another successful hit in a collaboration with Santana, "The Game of Love." While another success for Branch, it was viewed as somewhat of a disappointment for Santana, as it was a far cry from the success seen by 1999's "Smooth", as was the case for their new album ''Shaman'' compared to its predecessor ''Supernatural.'' 2003 brought her sophomore album ''Hotel Paper,'' which, while also a hit and giving her another successful single in "Are You Happy Now?", did not reach the heights of ''The Spirit Room,'' and by 2004 was virtually an afterthought. She reunited with Santana in 2005 for the single "I'm Feeling You," which completely bombed. She shifted to country music in 2006, forming the duo The Wreckers. They had a big country hit with "Leave The Pieces," but fizzled out immediately afterwards. Branch continued recording music, but never had another hit on any chart. Today, when the pop music scene of the 2000s is recounted, names like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, and Avril Lavigne are commonly cited; that of Michelle Branch is almost never brought up. And when she is remembered, it's pretty much only for being one of the biggest flash-in-the-pans of the decade.* Branch's contemporary and successor Music/AvrilLavigne suffered a similar fate. In 2002, she burst onto the scene at only 17-years-old with her #2 hit "Complicated", which was followed by Top 10 hits "Sk8er Boi" and "I'm With You", and propelled their parent album ''Let Go'' to 6x platinum status, giving her more success through her first album alone than Branch had in her entire career and making her viewed as Morissette's true successor. She had built a reputation as a [[{{Tsundere}} girl with an attitude, but also with a sweet spot on the inside]]. With her combination of rock and [[PopPunk punk]] with mainstreams sensibilities gave her a large magnitude of fans with teenage girls and boys. Not only that, she also built up a [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff large following in Asia, especially Japan]]. In 2004, she released ''Under My Skin'', which was also a massive success and spawned the hit "My Happy Ending". She even tried her hand at acting in 2006, starring in ''Film/OverTheHedge'' as Heather, opposite of Creator/WilliamShatner's character Ozzie. Her popularity as an artist peaked in 2007, where she was quite possibly the biggest artist ''in the world'' when she released "Girlfriend", which became her first song to hit #1 on ''Hot 100'', and its music video was for a time the most viewed video on Youtube. Its parent album ''The Best Damn Thing'' was the best selling album of 2007. It seemed like there was nothing that could bring her down.\\\\Unfortunately for her, she simply couldn't keep up the momentum after "Girlfriend" was released, and she faded into near-obscurity afterwards. Her 2011 follow-up only debuted at #4 on ''Billboard 200'' (compare that to her first album which debut #2, and her follow-ups that topped the chart), and failed to even reach Gold status in the US. It did spawn the #11 hit single "What the Hell", but it didn't have anywhere near the staying power that her previous singles did, while her follow-up singles barely scraped the Top 70 on the chart. The lack of sales could be attributed to the fact that PopPunk was beginning to decline in popularity, as the [[PopularityPolynomial reemergence of teen heartthrobs and boy bands]] like Music/JustinBieber and Music/OneDirection were beginning to take away from her female audience while her male audience grew older and flocked to rock and hip-hop artists. She was also derided for being a "sell-out" due to her taking a much more [[ItsPopularNowItSucks commercial direction]]. Despite this, she still remained popular in Asia. It was then in 2013 where she made a bit of comeback with her Top 20 single "Here's to Never Growing Up", which managed to attain platinum status in the US. [[YankTheDogsChain Unfortunately]], she might have blew it completely the next year. In an attempt to capitalize on both the dubstep craze and her popularity in Japan, she released "Hello Kitty". It certainly got the attention, but [[UnfortunateImplications not the kind she was looking for]]. The video, which was filmed in Japan and had emotionless, robotic backup dancers filled with exaggerated Japanese imagery, was widely derided for being racist. It wasn't even a case of NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity either, as the song barely even charted on the American ''and'' Japanese charts. Her self-titled album was the biggest flop in her career, selling even worse than her previous release (although much of its failure can be attributed to it being released against the red-hot ''Marshall Mathers LP 2'' from Music/{{Eminem}}). Nowadays, she's seen as a relic of the early-to-mid 2000s, having made annoying pop songs like "Complicated" and "Girlfriend" [[EarWorm that got stuck in your head for the wrong reasons]]. The fact that she's married to Music/{{Nickelback}} frontman Chad Kroeger doesn't help matters either.!!Bands/Groups* Music/TheBlackEyedPeas were one of the biggest music acts in the world during the 2000s. It all started in 2002, when they inducted Fergie and largely abandoned their AlternativeHipHop roots, moving to a pop- and dance-oriented sound with Fergie front and center. They released numerous songs that all turned into massive hits, such as "Where Is The Love?", "Lets Get It Started", and "My Humps" from 2003 to 2005 and turned them into a mainstream act. Their [[WolverinePublicity numerous endorsements]] in advertisements kept them in the public spotlight as they released hit after hit. Their popularity peaked in 2009, when they released "I Gotta Feeling", which topped numerous charts and sold 15 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling digital single of all time. Also impressive was the album that "I Gotta Feeling" came off of, ''The E.N.D.'', which sold 11 million units in a time when it seemed as though albums themselves had become DeaderThanDisco. It seemed like they were on top of the world, and nothing could stop them.\\\\But a backlash had been building for years, with many people accusing them of simplistic lyrics and an over-reliance on AutoTune, citing songs like "My Humps" and "Boom Boom Pow" as proof. In the '10s, that backlash grew to massive proportions. Their 2010 album ''The Beginning'' only debuted at #6 on the ''Billboard'' 200 just a year after ''The E.N.D.'' was released, but worse was their UsefulNotes/SuperBowl halftime show performance in 2011. Live on a national stage without Auto-Tune, the Black Eyed Peas delivered what is often held to be one of the worst live performances in recent history, and their massive popularity was shattered overnight. Liking the Black Eyed Peas went from being socially acceptable to something that [[OldShame made everyone in the room seriously question your taste in music]]. Their single "[[HarsherInHindsight Don't Stop The Party]]", released shortly after the performance, was a complete bomb, only peaking at #86 and failing to reach any certification. The video game that was meant to capitalize on their once-massive popularity, ''[[VideoGame/JustDance The Black Eyed Peas Experience]]'', was also a complete flop. By the end of the year, the Black Eyed Peas went on an indefinite hiatus with little talk of reuniting and releasing a new album. Although the two [[FaceOfTheBand faces of the band]], will.i.am and Fergie, are now focusing on solo careers with some success, airplay of their music nowadays is irregular, and they are viewed in much the same light as Music/{{Nickelback}} -- as a symbol of everything wrong with pop music in the '00s.* Music/ComedianHarmonists: Back between 1928 and 1933 they were one of the most popular groups in the world, attracting both audiences in the USA as well as in Europe with their amazing harmony singing. But unfortunately in 1933 UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler took over Germany and the band, which had two Jewish members, was forced to disband. All members survived UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo, but they never reunited, causing them to fade away in obscurity until the 1970s. They enjoyed a small revival in the German speaking world, garnered some celebrity fans such as Creator/MattGroening and Creator/ArtSpiegelman as well as a 1997 {{Biopic}} based on their amazing career, but they still remain a band that is pretty much obscure to this day. Seeing that harmony singing has never had much of a revival and [[AllGermansAreNazis German lyrics bring up unfortunate assocations]] to most listeners it doesn't seem that they will regain their popularity soon. * Country Joe and the Fish was considered one of the seminal rock groups of the 1960s, with their contributions to the psychedelic rock genre and their lyrics relating to the issues of the time (the band was even a major highlight of Woodstock). After they broke up in 1971, their music managed to date horribly and today is nothing more than a footnote of the history of rock music.* Music/{{Creed}} was arguably ''the'' biggest band in the world around the turn of the 21st century, reaching their peak with their sophomore album ''Human Clay'' in 1999, which went Diamond. However, between frontman Scott Stapp's {{jerkass}} antics, "With Arms Wide Open" and "Higher" being played on an infinite loop on the radio, and the continuing argument as to [[ChristianRock whether]] or [[NotChristianRock not]] they were a Christian band (a question that the band itself [[FlipFlopOfGod frequently dodged]] so as to avoid alienating one group of fans or the other), a backlash formed, and when it hit circa 2002, it hit ''hard''. While the effect wasn't immediately noticeable, as Creed's last album had been in 2001 before breaking up three years later, to this day Creed remains one of the biggest pariahs of the music world, being voted as [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-ten-worst-bands-of-the-nineties-20130509/1-creed-0736783 the worst band of the '90s]] by the readers of ''Rolling Stone'' in 2013 by such an overwhelming margin that the editors said the competition "wasn't even close" between Creed and second-place Music/{{Nickelback}} (itself a band with no shortage of anti-fans).\\\\Today, it is a social taboo to admit to being a Creed fan or even admitting to owning one of their albums during their GloryDays, the general consensus on them being that they were a [[ThePoorMansSubstitute poor man's ripoff]] of Music/PearlJam with an obnoxious frontman (both [[{{Yarling}} on]] and [[{{Jerkass}} off]] the stage). Airplay of their music is sporadic at best, and while the non-Scott Stapp members of the band went on to form Music/AlterBridge with Myles Kennedy to much acclaim, their success has not rubbed off on their work with Creed. When Creed got back together in 2009 and released ''Full Circle'', it was slammed by critics and barely managed to go Gold, and the subsequent concert tour fared little better. The kicker came in 2014, when it was revealed that Stapp was not only [[https://www.yahoo.com/music/s/creed-frontman-says-broke-living-holiday-inn-200402659.html flat broke]], living out of a Holiday Inn after being bilked out of money and royalty payments, but also quite possibly insane, believing that he was an assassin destined to kill the Obamas. Along with various other things, this was enough to cause him to lose custody of his kids.* Music/TheDarkness: They were huge in 2004, won loads of awards, album sold over a million copies in the United Kingdom alone. Then the follow-up album arrived in 2005, sold less well and the band subsequently split. Now, despite probably still having a copy of ''Permission To Land'' kicking-around, most people pretend they never liked them in the first place.** Others did enjoy the second album, the follow-up bands Hot Leg and Stone Gods (of singer Justin Hawkins and of the rest of the band + new singer, respectively) and are looking forward to the upcoming [[http://www.iwantrock.com/the-darkness-reunion reunion]].* The Music/DixieChicks were among the biggest acts in CountryMusic in the late '90s and early '00s. They had an eclectic style that mixed mainstream country and bluegrass with just enough pop edge and "girl power" attitude to be cool outside the typical country demographic. Then in late 2002 and early '03, lead singer Natalie Maines got in a feud with Music/TobyKeith over his post-9/11 PatrioticFervor anthem "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue", and later (in the weeks before the [[TheWarOnTerror invasion of Iraq]]) said in a concert that she was ashamed that then-President UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush was from her home state of Texas.\\\\This went over ''very'' badly in the country music fandom, much of which was pro-Bush and pro-war. Overnight, country radio dropped the Chicks like a hot potato � their then-current single "Travelin' Soldier" plummeted from #1, their next single went nowhere, Maines received death threats over her comment, and one station organized an event where people could bring their Dixie Chicks albums and merchandise to be [[BookBurning destroyed by a bulldozer]]. Their only subsequent album, ''Taking the Long Way'' in 2005, was largely made in response to the backlash, and while it did receive critical acclaim and go double-platinum, that was in spite of a total rejection from the country fandom and radio stations. Not only did the controversy destroy their career, but a solid case could be made that the backlash against the Dixie Chicks (along with Music/ShaniaTwain taking a break from recording around the same time) marked the beginning of the end of "girl power" country music; in the ensuing years, LighterAndSofter artists like Music/TaylorSwift and Music/CarrieUnderwood became the most popular female country singers.* Music/{{Evanescence}} in 2003 were not only the biggest female-fronted rock band in the world, they were one of the biggest music acts ''period''. It started with their song "Bring Me to Life" being the theme song to the much-anticipated film ''Film/{{Daredevil}}''. While the movie itself turned out to be [[HypeBacklash a dud]], the song itself [[BreakawayPopHit blew up to epic proportions]]. With its combination of NuMetal, GothicMetal, AlternativeMetal, and RapRock with [[{{Pop}} mainstream sensibilities]], the song was omnipresent on alternative, rock, ''and'' pop radio. Practically overnight, it launched Evanescence as one of the biggest acts in the industry. Sales for the album "Bring Me to Life" came from, ''Fallen'', exploded afterwards, and it went on the sell over ''17 million'' units worldwide and was the fourth best-selling album of that year. They even won two Grammy awards for "Best Hard Rock Performance" and "Best New Artist". It seemed like they were destined to join Music/LinkinPark as the faces of 21st century NuMetal.\\\\Unfortunately, not long after they became a household name, NuMetal became a DeadHorseGenre due to the ever-growing backlash and Music/LimpBizkit's ''Results May Vary'' [[GenreKiller having practically killed it overnight]]. While other NuMetal bands [[NewSoundAlbum evolved and changed their sound]] to stay relevant, Evanescence largely stuck with the NuMetal sound on both their subsequent albums, only venturing out into {{electronic|Music}} influence on the third. Their 2006 sophomore album ''The Open Door'' went platinum and spawned a hit single with "Call Me When You're Sober", but didn't have anywhere near the success ''Fallen'' had. Their third album in 2011, ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Evanescence]]'', failed to even reach Gold status, and the following year the band went on an indefinite hiatus that still hasn't ended. Despite finding consistent critical success throughout their career even long after NuMetal had died, quoting their music nowadays ("WAKE ME UP INSIDE!") is often used to make fun of whiny {{emo teen}}s and depressed 13-year-old girls. Asking what you think of them now will likely get the response "[[AnyoneRememberPogs What is this? 2003?]]". Suffice to say, they were hit ''hard'' by NuMetal becoming a DeadHorseGenre. The fact that their song "My Immortal", possibly the only song that most people know outside of "Bring Me to Life", shares its name with [[FanFic/MyImmortal a notorious fanfiction]] really doesn't help matters.* Hinder, after spending some time in the underground, signed a deal with Universal Records in 2005. While "Get Stoned", their first single off of ''Extreme Behavior'', their major-label debut, was a hit, it wasn't explosive, but it was enough to make the album debut at #6 on the Billboard 200. That changed when "Lips of an Angel" was released. One word described their rise after that song: meteoric. To put it simply, ''you could not escape that song''. Topping multiple charts and staying there for a while, it was ''ubiquitous''. The other two singles off of the album ("How Long" and "Better than Me") soon followed suit and managed to essentially take over the airwaves for this band, and this was all enough to propel the parent album to triple-platinum sales. Basically, Hinder was one of the biggest modern rock acts on the planet at this time. ''Take It to the Limit'', their 2008 followup, debuted even higher at #4, and while its main singles "Use Me" and "Without You" weren't ''quite'' as huge as "Lips of an Angel", they still filled up rock radio. That being said, it was obvious that the band had slid some, as it took forever to even reach Gold and has still not reached Platinum; some of this may have been their move towards a sound more reminiscent of HairMetal as opposed to the hard rock-tinged post-grunge of ''Extreme Behavior''.\\\\2010's ''All American Nightmare'' was the first sign of serious trouble, as both of its singles barely charted and the album itself only debuted at #37; while plenty of bands would still see this as a big success, it was a ''massive'' slide from where they were. Not only did this not correct itself by 2012, but ''Welcome to the Freakshow'', their fourth major-label album, didn't even make the Top 200, and "Save Me", the lead single, charted even smaller. While still around, the band has gone from playing massive arenas and being all over the airwaves to playing small clubs with other has-beens and barely making the charts, and their music is viewed as emblematic of everything that was wrong with modern rock in the mid-2000s and early 2010s: trashy, misogynistic, childishly hedonistic, and generally moronic, and when people refer to an act as "buttrock", they're talking about bands like Hinder.* Music/HootieAndTheBlowfish came out of nowhere in 1994 with their debut album ''Cracked Rear View'', which went on to become one of the biggest albums of the '90s, selling 16 million copies by the end of the decade. Their brand of twang-infused roots rock was seen as an antidote to the DarkerAndEdgier attitudes of {{grunge}} that many Americans, especially those in [[FlyoverCountry the heartland]], had grown disaffected with by that point. That same style, of course, seriously grated on rock fans, who viewed Hootie as a slap in the face to alternative rock, writing and playing a watered-down mockery of folk rock that all sounded the same and had zero creativity. Allegations that they ripped off the lyrics of Music/BobDylan's "Idiot Wind" for one of their biggest hits, "Only Wanna Be With You" (which they ultimately settled out of court), only made the criticisms that much louder. While they released two more platinum-selling albums that decade, [[FirstInstallmentWins neither one came close]] to the success of ''Cracked Rear View'', while their two albums in the '00s (as well as frontman Darius Rucker's attempt at a solo RAndB career) sank without a trace. By the end of the '90s, "Hootie Sucks" shirts had become a common sight. While Rucker has since enjoyed solo success in CountryMusic, recording songs not too dissimilar from his Hootie days and where that sort of earnestness was more at home, Hootie & the Blowfish has largely been forgotten by their former fans, and is still loathed by rock fans as a shining example of the worst sort of bland, milquetoast, easy-listening rock music.* Music/LimpBizkit. Around the TurnOfTheMillennium, they were one of the most popular bands in America, garnering tremendous commercial success and helping to bring NuMetal into the mainstream with their 1999 album ''Significant Other'' and 2000 follow-up ''Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water''. However, the band's popularity rapidly collapsed in the early-mid '00s, with their 2003 album ''Results May Vary'' regarded as being not only a CreatorKiller, but also a GenreKiller for nu metal in general. Though their 2011 comeback album ''Gold Cobra'' saw some success, debuting at number 16 on the Billboard 200 list and becoming the band's best acclaimed album by far, they haven't come close to returning to their peak. Nowadays, they're seen as emblematic of everything that was wrong with nu metal and a general punchline for jokes about the '90s. While they are still touring, they've gone from playing arenas to mid-sized theaters and large clubs with support acts that are more than likely the ones who are attracting most of the ticket sales (Machine Gun Kelly in particular), and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7r1IctCR_A "Endless Slaughter"]], their most recent single off of the [[DevelopmentHell oft-delayed]] ''Stampede of the Disco Elephants'', was met with near-unanimous derision and was widely decried as an incoherent, nonsensical mess.* Music/LinkinPark was huge in the early '00s. Their debut album, ''Music/HybridTheory'' in 2000, was a Diamond-selling smash and a defining NuMetal album, and their mix of rap, rock, and electronica made them very different from other bands of the same type. They followed up that success in 2003 with ''Music/{{Meteora}}'' and in 2004 with ''Collision Course'', their mashup collaboration with Music/JayZ, and while both those albums were platinum-selling successes (six times platinum in the case of ''Music/{{Meteora}}''), NuMetal was a dying genre by that point. As a result, for their third album they [[NewSoundAlbum changed their sound]] to an alternative rock style reminiscent of Music/{{Coldplay}} or Music/{{U2}} (albeit with a slightly harder edge). This move worked, as ''Minutes to Midnight'' was another monster hit album that opened with the biggest week of 2007 at the time, with the lead single "What I've Done" becoming a BreakawayPopHit from the soundtrack to the first ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' movie. However, their experimentation with a more electronic sound on their next two albums, 2010's ''A Thousand Suns'' and 2012's ''Living Things'', didn't meet the same success; while both albums debuted at #1, they only sold about one-third of ''Minutes to Midnight''[='=]s opening week and ultimately failed to go platinum. As a result, they went back to NuMetal with their their sixth album ''The Hunting Party'' in 2014, which only debuted at #3 and has yet to even go Gold.\\\\All told, Linkin Park managed to briefly escape the backlash against NuMetal, even if songs like "In the End" and "Crawling" (or, as it's [[MemeticMutation usually rendered]], ''"CRAAAWLING IIIN MY SKIIIN"'') had become [[SnarkBait irrevocably associated]] with {{emo teen}}s by the end of the '00s, but they couldn't escape the decline of rock in general over the course of the decade. Rock music in the '00s was in a deep slump and was fading from the mainstream, especially among women and non-white listeners, who were increasingly turning towards rap, RAndB, and dance music. Linkin Park were lucky enough to be one of the few modern rock bands who were still able to sell despite their genre dying, and eventually, time ran out for them too. Nowadays, it's usually either their early NuMetal material that they're most associated with (which, as noted above, has become mostly SnarkBait), or the theme song to ''Film/{{Transformers}}''. Show attendances are still good, but they will most likely never dominate the charts again.* The Welsh rock band Music/{{Lostprophets}} hit it big in 2004 with their album ''Start Something'', which was a trans-Atlantic success that earned them acclaim and, for a long time, was viewed as a modern rock classic. While their American popularity faded, they were still huge in the UK, with their subsequent albums all doing well and the band winning and being nominated for several Kerrang! Awards. Then the band collapsed overnight in 2012 when frontman Ian Watkins was exposed as a predatory child molester, after being arrested for and subsequently confessing to several counts of heinous crimes [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment that we will not]] [[TooMuchInformation be detailing here]]. The band broke up immediately, the [[TheBandMinusTheFace other members]] forming Music/NoDevotion with Music/{{Thursday}} frontman Geoff Rickly, and nowadays liking Lostprophets will often get you funny looks from everyone else in the room.* In 1989 and 1990, German pop duo Music/MilliVanilli was one of the biggest pop acts on the planet. Best known for their hit single "Blame It On The Rain", the group managed to sell over six million copies of their North American debut album ''Girl You Know It's True'' over the course of a few months. In February of 1990 they were awarded the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. They were on top of the world.\\\\There was just one problem, though: the duo's members, Rob Pilatus and Fabrice "Fab" Morvan, didn't actually sing their own material on the album. Over the course of 1990, after a series of onstage lip-synching mistakes (highlighted by a RepetitiveAudioGlitch) and an MTV interview in which they displayed a spectacularly poor grasp of the English language (much worse than on their album), rumors began to circulate that Pilatus and Morvan weren't the real singers. When their manager confessed in November 1990 that the rumors were true, there was a ''huge'' public backlash against the band, with 27 lawsuits demanding refunds being filed, their Grammy Award being revoked, and Arista Records deleting their music from their archives, putting them out of print (probably the highest-selling act to do so). Milli Vanilli's popularity collapsed overnight, and for the next several years they were only brought up as the butt of jokes by stand-up comedians. They would not make headlines again until 1998, when Pilatus was found dead of an apparent drug overdose in a hotel room. Morvan continues to pursue pop stardom, on his own terms, to this day.* The [=MuzikMafia=], a singer-songwriter aggregation spearheaded by the duo Big & Rich. After a few years of underground work in Nashville, the [=MuzikMafia=] scene exploded in 2004 with Gretchen Wilson's #1 smash "Redneck Woman" and Big & Rich's "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" becoming hits within a few months of each other. Big & Rich were praised for their unabashed rock influences, their take-no-prisoners approach, an their tongue-in-cheek humor, while Gretchen was praised as the new voice of women in country music after a dry spell (no song by a solo female country act went to #1 in all of 2003). They were also known for their wildly varied live shows featuring both musical and non-musical acts, including little person comedian Two-Foot Fred, a poet named Spoken Word Jen, and a painter named Rachel Kice. John Rich, one half of the duo (and previously a member of Music/{{Lonestar}} on their [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness first two albums]]), also co-wrote and produced much of the [=MuzikMafia's=] material, as well as writing several Top 10 hits for Music/JasonAldean, Music/TimMcGraw, and Music/FaithHill among others. Big & Rich's and Wilson's debut albums, ''Horse of a Different Color'' and ''Here for the Party'' respectively, were multi-platinum smashes. Other acts, such as {{Country Rap}}per Cowboy Troy, scored underground success [[NoHitWonder without radio hits]], and the group's label, Raybaw Records, released a well-received but unsuccessful album from former 80's and early 90's hitmaker John Anderson (of "Swingin'" and "Seminole Wind" fame).\\\\But between 2005 and 2008, the wheels started coming off: Gretchen Wilson hit a SophomoreSlump from which she never recovered (the lead single to her second album, "All Jacked Up", zoomed to #8 in less than two months and quickly reversed course, none of its other singles went anywhere, and after her third album bombed even harder, she lost her contract with Creator/ColumbiaRecords in 2008). Big & Rich had no big hits off their second album (''Comin' to Your City'') despite decent sales, and their third album (''Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace''), despite landing them their only #1 hit with the BlackSheepHit "Lost in This Moment" in 2007, was a flop. In addition, many of the critics felt that the [=MuzikMafia=] acts were starting to sound tired and no longer had the same sense of fun as before. Rich kept himself active independently of the Mafia by collaborating with everyone from Music/BonJovi to Music/{{Jewel}} as a producer and/or songwriter, in addition to appearing on ''Series/TheApprentice'' and judging on the singing competition ''Series/NashvilleStar''. The [=MuzikMafia's=] label (Raybaw Records) closed, causing James Otto to be a OneHitWonder with "Just Got Started Lovin' You" only a couple months later. Ultimately Big & Rich went on hiatus so that Big Kenny, the other half of the duo, could recover from a neck injury. Wilson quietly released a few well-received independent country-rock albums, but "Work Hard, Play Harder" was the only semi-hit from any of them (and even so, this was mainly due to it also being the subject of a lawsuit by rock group The Black Crowes). Big Kenny and John Rich both released solo albums during their hiatus, and Rich scored a minor hit with the ProtestSong "Shuttin' Detroit Down", but its UnintentionalPeriodPiece nature meant that it had an extremely short shelf life. In addition, former [=MuzikMafia=] member Damien Horne started a new band called The Farm (not to be confused with the [[AlternativeDance Madchester]] group of the same name), who had a minor Top 20 hit in 2011 with "Home Sweet Home".\\\\Big & Rich finally reunited in 2011 for a couple cuts from the soundtrack to the remake of ''Film/{{Footloose}}'', and a poorly-received album (''Hillbilly Jedi'') that was again hit with criticism for sounding tired and forced. It seems they finally got the message, as upon their departure from Creator/WarnerBrosRecords in 2014, the duo released the [[CerebusSyndrome more serious]] album ''Gravity''. This album was praised by critics, and it netted them their first bona fide hit in years with "Look at You". Whether this is a sign of things to come for Big & Rich remains to be seen, but it's still obvious that the wild and crazy days of the [=MuzikMafia=] are behind them.* Canadian rock group Music/{{Nickelback}} exploded on the scene in 2001 with their album ''Silver Side Up'', with its lead single "How You Remind Me" topping the charts for four weeks and being named the biggest single of 2002. It was also the most played song on American radio stations through the entire decade! As reigning rock band Creed was starting to face massive hype backlash, Chad Kroeger and his band were looking to inherit the throne from them. ''Silver Side Up'' would go on to sell more than six million copies in the United States alone. As the band went to work on their next album, Kroeger remained in the spotlight by recording a song for the ''Film/SpiderMan'' soundtrack. "Hero," a collaboration with Saliva's Josey Scott, became another massive hit on both the rock and pop charts. 2003's ''The Long Road'' gave Nickelback yet another hit album and a crossover hit with "Someday." In 2005, the band would release ''All The Right Reasons.'' which became their first #1 album of their career and has sold almost ''8 million copies'' in the U.S. and producing a whopping ''five'' crossover hits: "Photograph," "Savin' Me," "Far Away," "If Everyone Cared," and "Rockstar," plus a number of other rock-specific radio hits like "Animals." It would seem like nothing could bring them down.\\\\In 2008, signs of fatigue were starting to show. Despite its success, ''All The Right Reasons'' got a lukewarm reception from critics (its Metacritic score was only 41 out of 100). 2008's ''Dark Horse'', while slightly outdoing its predecessor in terms of sales, got stuck behind Music/{{Beyonce}}'s new release on the charts. Its singles "Gotta Be Somebody" and "If Today Was Your Last Day", while hits, were not smashes the way their older hits were. The album fell down the charts rather quickly, and worst of all, the group was starting to become one of the biggest SnarkBait targets on the internet. Haters complained that their music was "too commercial" and was merely a mockery of true rock music. As the new tens came along, the massive success of and backlash against teenage pop sensation Music/JustinBieber would continue to put a stain on Canada's musical reputation and make Nickelback seem like even more a joke than before. Their 2011 release ''Here & Now'', despite just narrowly missing out the #1 spot to Michael Bubl�, would fail to produce any hits and barely make it past platinum. The bottom completely fell out in 2014 when their album ''No Fixed Address'' flat-out bombed. It sold only 60,000 copies in its opening week and looks unlikely to even go gold. Not helping matters for the once-biggest band in the world was the reigning biggest band in the world, Music/OneDirection, whose album ''Four'' was released the same day and completely cannibalized any potential sales of Nickelback's album. Nowadays, any mention of the name "Nickelback" will provoke nothing but laughter and memories of how the biggest band in the world turned into a complete joke. In fact, if you were to ask a rock fan why rock music had declined from the mainstream, there's a good chance they'll say "[[HitlerAteSugar Nickelback was the reason for it]]".* Music/TheOsmonds: In the early 1970s they were literally the biggest band on Earth: a truly commercial success that spawned both hit singles as well as a family TV show. They were even considered to be the main rival of Music/TheJacksonFive. Yet the band called it quits around 1973. Nowadays the Osmond members are literally forgotten by anyone who isn't old enough to remember the 1970s. Seeing their bubblegum pop music is not exactly the greatest music around they are nothing but NostalgiaFilter for people from that generation.* Out of all the Hinder clones, none of them are more Deader than Disco than Saving Abel. They went from the biggest new artist on Mainstream Rock radio in 2008, whose song "Addicted" became a surprise crossover hit, to a laughingstock in a matter of three years.* The Brazilian heavy metal band Music/{{Sepultura}} was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed metal bands in existence during the '90s. However, the departure of their charismatic lead vocalist (Max Cavalera), coupled with the band's perceived pandering to the NuMetal trend of that era (ironic when you consider that ''Roots'' came out a little before the Nu-Metal movement really took off), caused a rapid decline in their popularity. Today, the band is forgotten by all but a few loyal and dedicated fans, despite how popular and influential they were during the 90's.** Their first four albums are almost universally revered among metal fans, however, and ''Chaos A.D.'' (despite being a bit of a BaseBreaker) also has many fans - some of which even consider it to be their overall best album despite the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks stylistic shift]]. ''Roots'', on the other hand, is now remembered mostly for the nostalgia factor present among those who loved it when it came out.* Music/ShadowsFall, in their heyday, was one of the biggest names in heavy music. While ''The Art of Balance'' had put them on the map, 2004's ''The War Within'' made them blow up. Along with Music/KillswitchEngage, Music/AllThatRemains, Bleeding Through, and Music/AsILayDying, Shadows Fall were among the most prominent practitioners of melodic {{metalcore}}, and their mix of classic metallic hardcore, melodic death metal, thrash metal, and glam managed to attract tons of rock fans and disaffected older metal fans who had been alienated by nu metal's simplicity, mindless aggression, and adolescent emotional histrionics. It was practically an overnight success; they went from being huge regional players who were mostly unknown in the rest of the US (let alone the world) to worldwide stars. It also landed them a major-label contract; while ''Threads of Life'' failed to sell anywhere near as much as ''The War Within'', they still toured constantly and played to huge audiences.\\\\Their downfall came as {{deathcore}} became the new crossover sensation in heavy music, and their problem was twofold: their sound had started to become dated by 2009 or so, and their failure to adapt to the changing landscape (most of their peers were either beginning to flirt with deathcore or were moving towards a more rock-oriented sound) decided their fate, which was hinted at with the similarly lower sales of ''Retribution''. They tried testing the waters of a rock sound with the ballad "Another Hero Lost", but that angered many of their existing fans and failed to attract new ones because the rest of ''Threads of Life'' was definitely not something that the average radio rock fan would want to listen to. By 2012, they were largely relegated to a support act, and while ''Fire from the Sky'' did okay on the charts, it was pretty clear that they were old news.\\\\After Jon Donais joined Music/{{Anthrax}}, the band announced that they were going to do a final tour before going on indefinite hiatus, and the final tour proved to be one of the most effective indicators of how far they had fallen, with disappointing attendances at small venues being the norm. Between Donais' aforementioned spot with Anthrax, Bittner's session career and clinic work, and Fair's current preoccupation with Death Ray Vision and the occasional Overcast show (which, while restricted to New England, is easily capable of selling out venues there, which Shadows Fall was not able to do ''on their farewell tour in their home territory'', let alone elsewhere), it's safe to say that they can tell that Shadows Fall is a done deal.* The Music/SpiceGirls were one of the few British pop groups between TheEighties and TheNewTens to successfully cross ThePond and make it big in the United States. At their peak from 1996 to 1998, they were ''everywhere''. "Wannabe" and "Spice Up Your Life" were inescapable, "Girl Power" was the slogan of a whole generation of tween girls, and the movie ''Film/SpiceWorld'' was an inexplicable blockbuster hit (though it was a HUGE critical disaster). Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}'s article on them refers to that period of time, unironically, as [[Music/TheBeatles "Spicemania"]]. They remain the highest-selling GirlGroup of all time even after their backlash... and oh, what a backlash. By 2000 Geri Halliwell was long gone from the group, their album ''Forever'' was shaping up to be nothing short of a disappointment, and all of the remaining members were pursuing solo careers. Today, the band is chiefly remembered for its campiness and flamboyance, and its members are better known for their work and lives after the Spice Girls, though they almost always still have "Former Spice Girl" attached to their name at some point. The only one to remain in the public eye (outside the US at least) is Victoria Beckham, who married soccer player David Beckham. * Music/TheWanted were never massive to begin with, but were able to establish themselves as a popular group in the UK; in the U.S., not so much. They were billed as part of a "new wave" of Boy Bands alongside Music/OneDirection, and scored a massive American hit in 2012 with "Glad You Came". There was just one problem: at the time of their American breakthrough, four out of The Wanted's five members were in their early 20s, and the group was starting to get a little too old to market themselves as a boy band. Still, they kept firmly targeted at the teen market, and the "fangirl" demographic didn't show interest in the group whereas other audiences were alienated by the boy band premise. A controversy erupted shortly after "Glad You Came" peaked in where one of the group's members made an offensive comment about Music/ChristinaAguilera, which precipitated their downfall. The band's generic dance-pop sound led to poor album sales in the U.S., and because the genre was starting to get tons of backlash at that point, radio quickly gave up on them. However, the main factor that brought their demise was the existence of One Direction themselves, whose younger members, nicer personalities, and more unique sound helped win over teenage girls in ways that The Wanted couldn't.* Winds of Plague, while never massive, were hardly a small name at the same time; in the crowded playing field of deathcore, their mix of symphonic black metal and hardcore managed to make them stand out and won them a fair amount of crossover appeal with the Hot Topic crowd, and while ''Decimate the Weak'' started out as a blip on the charts, they managed to quickly work their way up, getting high placement on numerous touring and festival bills and just generally looking like hard work would pay off for them. 2009's ''The Great Stone War'' took a more serious, less party-oriented turn, and while it charted well, fan reaction was lukewarm and they quickly returned to the style and aesthetic of their first album, resulting in ''Against the World'', their highest-charting album. That being said, their decision to have Wrestling/UltimateWarrior guest on a spoken-word interlude was seen as more than a little ridiculous, and they began to quickly lose fans as it became clear that they had no clue what the hell they wanted to be. The black metal elements had been relegated to some faint, inconsequential keyboard textures, the hardcore influences were of the sort that most dedicated hardcore fans would despise, and the [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy wiggeriness]] that had always been present had reached hilarious, near-self-parody levels with this album.\\\\Desperate to keep their foothold, they decided to cater to the hardcore crowd (who were largely the only people who were still buying their albums and going to their shows; the deathcore kids had long since abandoned them), and the result, 2013's ''Resistance'', was the death of their career. Not only did it barely chart, but reviews were scathing ''at best'', show attendances grew worse and worse, and the touring (which was once relentless) simply dried up because no one wanted to see them. While they're still around, they're barely doing anything at this point, and a breakup seems likely. A cautionary tale in what happens when you stretch your sound too thin in an effort to avoid being pigeonholed, fail to attract a truly cohesive fanbase, and then frantically try and attract the part of the fanbase that looks like it's the most likely to stick around when things start to go south and descend into self-parody as a result, Winds of Plague is one of the best examples of why creating an identity that can comfortably adapt to changing circumstances when you're part of a trend is a must.!!Songs* Music/NeilYoung's 1979 song "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" from ''Music/RustNeverSleeps'' was the source of the line "It's better to burn out than to fade away", which [[MemeticMutation quickly became]] a popular BadassBoast and ShoutOut both in music and beyond (e.g. ''Film/{{Highlander}}''). But that ended after Music/KurtCobain famously used it in his suicide note in 1994. Since then, Neil places greater emphasis on the line "Once you're gone, you can't come back."* The [[OrchestraHitTechnoBattle orchestra hit]]. A recording of same was included with the Fairlight CMI digital sampling workstation of the early 1980s, and was quickly exploited by producer Trevor Horn for Yes' ''Owner of a Lonely Heart'' and anything else Horn produced over the next few years. It became a cliche of 80s synth pop, appearing on records by Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and New Order. The sound was resurrected in cartoon form by the rave and acid house crowd in the early 1990s -- notably by Altern-8 and The Immortals for their ''Film/MortalKombat'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwWPadFsOA theme]] -- but was killed stone dead forever by its association with 2 Unlimited. It hasn't come back since, not even ironically.* Before performing a cover of Madonna's "Material Girl" in one of her 2009 concerts, Sarah Slean remarked that it was a song emblematic of 1980s greed and that it sounded grotesque in the era of The Great Recession. (Apparently, no one ever told her that "Material Girl" actually amounts to a ''repudiation'' of that lifestyle if you listen closely to the lyrics and watch the video. In fact, it's the combination of that particular MisaimedFandom and the fact that "the Material Girl" became the media's default nickname for her that had led to Madonna being more than a little sick of the song.)* "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies was the best-selling song of 1969. Today, when it is remembered, it's used to show that there was bad pop music in ''every'' decade, [[NostalgiaFilter not just in today's music]]; such as on ''WebVideo/ADoseOfBuckley'', for example.* The classic Christmas song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was [[FairForItsDay actually seen as progressive in its day]], due to the woman choosing to stay with the man despite what the neighbors might say about her reputation. To younger generations, however, it's probably better known for its questionably DateRape-y lyrics than anything else, and as a result, it's seen as a song about a man pressuring a woman into sex (and possibly drugging her to do so). Many modern covers of the song either {{Bowdlerise}} it or play it with tongue firmly in cheek.[[/folder]][[folder:Fictional Examples]]* Music/{{Megadeth}}'s two "Hangar 18"-themed songs ("Hangar 18" and "Return To Hangar") have this happen to the fictional "Hangar 18" facility. In "Hangar 18," it's a thriving, high-powered cryogenics laboratory with state of the art technology and excellent security. In the song's "sequel," however, it's a forgotten wasteland, abandoned when a team of cryogenic test subjects broke free and wreaked havoc on the facility. The song's rather dark and dreary tone (compared with the original's more upbeat and energetic tone) helps to represent this unfortunate turn of events.[[/folder]]----