Prone as I am to muse on this sort of thing, I find myself thinking about bands with a niche or cult following who've taken a risk on the support they have to try for a hit or a wider audience across the board. Who failed, who succeeded and how did that success affect the rest of their careers?
Several examples come to mind. Gene Simmons said in 1992 that 'radio never really gave a shit' about KISS. That was true, until they decided to soften their approach and had a go at a sound that, like tying an onion to your belt, was the style at the time. The result, despite still being one of their most popular songs today, alienated a lot of fans. Never mind that the rest of its parent album sounds as much like KISS as ever to my ears, and eight ninths of it has better drumming than anything that came before.
Thirty plus years after its release, Owner Of A Lonely Heart remains one of my favourite Yes songs. I was six at the time and I now know a bit more about how the band are 'supposed' to sound. I'll be damned if I don't still love that riff though.
Metallica's Black Album was huge, and deservedly so. Unfortunately its success gave them musical schizophrenia and everything since sounds like a second guess. They tried and failed to move with the times (though Load and Reload have a handful of good songs between them), the less said about St Anger the better and, while Death Magnetic was a good stab at getting back to their roots, it felt more like an attempt to appease the fans than genuine inspiration.
Queensryche's Empire arguably got it right. Less a simplification than a streamlining of the band's sound, it's a distillation of everything they did well that somehow landed them on the radio and earned them a much bigger audience. It brought them the success they always wanted, yet very nearly destroyed them. The tour schedule was punishing, and one listen to Promised Land will give you a fair insight into their headspace afterwards.
Aerosmith forsook their late sixties blues rock roots when they cleaned up their collective act and launched a comeback with Permanent Vacation in 1987. The polished, MTV friendly sound of that album and the two that followed was intended to ape the Def Leppard/Bon Jovi model and no doubt left fans of the older material scratching their heads. In commercial terms it made little difference, and today the band are better known for that dreadful ballad on the Armageddon soundtrack than any of the records they built their early sound and reputation on.
At the other end of the scale (ha!) there are old warhorses like AC/DC and Iron Maiden, who know what works best for them, understand what their fans expect and deliver it, year on year and tour on tour, no questions asked. Despite an ever changing lineup, Maiden's American cousins Iced Earth also fit this description. Main composer and rhythm guitarist Jon Schaffer builds his songs around variations of the same descending riff, often to the point where it sounds like he plays it in a different key each time and hopes no-one will notice. I do, and it doesn't stop me buying or enjoying their music.
I suppose it depends how you define success, and how far you're able to 'sell out' and respect yourself in the morning. I'll know I've crossed the point of no return if I ever include romantic elements in my fiction for their own sake. To me that sort of thing is no more than a sign of lazy writing, and shows the author hasn't bothered to think of a more interesting or worthwhile source of conflict for his or her characters to face and resolve. In my days as a fan of The X-Files, I had no patience for or understanding of those who clamoured for Mulder and Scully to have 'a relationship'. They already had one, you dolts, and to me their bond was far more significant and enduring than if they'd been a couple. Pairing those two off to believe and disbelieve happily ever after makes about as much sense as Black Sabbath releasing a country and western album, but perhaps somewhere there's an alternate reality where that's already happened. The mind boggles.
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