If you could go back in time and stop any one person or group's musical career, who or what would it be?
If you could go back in time and stop any one person or group's musical career, who or what would it be?
This isn't a "go back in time and assassinate" someone question. It's just their musical career never takes off and thus any music they ever would have made is no longer in this timeline.
Ted Nugent. He is just a complete scumbag and without his shitty music career he never would have impacted so many people with his gross bullshit. The world would be better off if his music never existed.
That would likely have the benefit of saving us from Kid Rock too.
I was about to give the example of Ted Nugent in the body of the post because he's just such a douche. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the same.
Nugent is a truly despisable creature, but his playing in Amboy Dukes' "Journey to the Center of the Mind" album is very good.
Ted Nugent deserves to have more than just his career erased. Fucking admitted pedophile piece of shit.
Mariah Carey. I work retail. If you know, you know.
I worked retail for exactly one Christmas. The day I worked the toy department they had one album on repeat for eight hours. I hated Christmas music for years, and now it just annoys me.
I won't say his name but I stopped someone's musical career once. He was an up and coming young guitarist, getting performing gigs here and there, and teaching guitar students to help pay his bills while waiting for a break. I took some lessons from him and as part of general chatting it came out that I worked with computers. He thought that was interesting and asked good questions, so I brought him some programming books. He became a full time programmer a couple months later and a very good one too. I'm glad it worked out for him, but I always wonder what we lost.
My coach used to tell the story of a really promising track and field athlete who might have had a serious shot on the world scene, but quit to play in his band called The Barenaked Ladies. I never fact checked that, so I have no idea if it was true or not. But it stuck with me because it made me think of all the people who might have been incredible in one field or another who just never gave it a shot.
"Ike At The Mike" by Howard Waldrop. Award winning short story. An elderly Dwight Eisenhower is invited to the White House. Ike famously gave up his West Point cadetship to become a jazz musician. Among the attendees honoring him is the young Elvis A. Presley, Senator from Mississippi.
Did... Did you create Bill Gates and Windows??
Nah, Windows was supposedly inspired by NASCAR. Bill saw how people loved seeing constant crashes, and he got an idea...
Which books? Also, how long ago was this?
This was decades ago. I don't remember the specific books but they were about programming in C. By now that is considered a neckbeard language. The first thing the guy did, with like zero experience, was write a video compression program in C.
Simon Cowell
The cunt worked out how to make millions from gouging money from kids with cheaply produced pop, and caused a massive collapse in the quality of the British music scene, from which it's never really recovered
It was the only good thing left Simon 🤨
Michael Jackson. Having his career fail during the childhood "Jackson 5" phase. Better for him and a lotta other people.
Last i remember he would play with kids but didn't sexually abuse them. Was there any more infor came out?
I'm on the fence about him, as I haven't really dug into it, but i get the impression that it's mostly allegations without proof. His sister made some outlandish claims, but her credibility has been called intoquestion.
There were some settlements/payoffs, but I'm not going to speculate whether that was for covering something up, or if it was an attempt at appeasing people who just wanted a quick buck.
It can be said with certainty that he liked being around kids, possibly in a purely innocent manner. Anything beyond that is hard to say for certain. And the stories about kids sharing bedroom with him often fail to take into account that his bedroom was larger than most houses.
He asked them to show their butt holes and masturbated in front of them, so not as severe as rape but definitely sexual abuse (allegedly).
What swung it for me is when Louis Theroux said that anyone claiming he's not a pedophile is in denial. If you're willing to look the other way because "he made great music though", then shame on you.
Oh boy, yeah, a lot more came out about it. There's actually been a lot over the years, but a few years ago a pretty serious documentary came out about it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaving_Neverland
Yoko Ono
Eeeeeeee oooooooooo eeeeeeeeeeeee oooooooooo eeeeee - oko nono
Outside the box: Robert Elliot, a charter pilot who flew and killed Jim Croce by crashing into a tree on takeoff. Pilot error was found to be the cause as the overweight 57 year old pilot was unable to drive to the airport so ran for 3 miles, from his motel to the hangar, to be on time for the flight. The run exacerbated his coronary artery disease, causing him to tunnel vision and not see the tree.
Wasn't sure if I should believe you or not, so I looked it up
...I'm still not sure if I can believe this
Ooh. If we didn't have the big bopper we'd still have Richie Valenz
I thought about that and that's why I picked Croce - different flight than Big Bopper, Richie Valenz, and Buddy Holly.
Similar story, when I was 12 I was late for the school bus and ran about 2 blocks with a full backpack and a snare drum. Ended up puking in the bus aisle about halfway through the hour long ride. Basically the same thing.
Chris Brown because fuck that guy.
It would be super simple too, just obtain footage of him beating the shit out of Rihanna and make it public, his music career would surely be destroyed in seconds.
I think it would have been better for Brittany if she hadn't been famous.
I'd do the inverse of this and see what might have happened if Charles Manson had had a successful music career. I heard an album of his songs and they were actually pretty good, kind of a mix of The Beach Boys and The Doors. Maybe if he'd sold some more songs then he wouldn't have gone into the whole murder cult thing.
But then again maybe it would have positioned him to be way worse and we're actually living in the universe where somebody stopped Manson from achieving true wealth and power and like leading a nationwide death cult or something.
Black Eyed Peas, I feel like that band was forced on me for like a decade.
Amy Winehouse. If she stayed a blues singer in London she might not have had so many drug issues made worse by fame.
Elvis. Just to see what happens.
Nothing.
Elvis didn't invent anything musically, he was just the first white guy to do what Black guys had been doing.
If it wasn't Elvis, it would have been someone else a couple months later.
Actually, that was one thing I considered. If he hadn't become a superstar by never writing a single song, would it have changed the industry's thoughts on using pretty faces to sell other people's songs?
“Though I'm not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
To do Black music so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy (Hey!)
There's a concept that works
Twenty million other white rappers emerge
But no matter how many fish in the sea
It'd be so empty without me” - EminemWell maybe he was the one with the charisma to do what black guys were doing.
A lot more piano probably.
Jerry Lee Lewis was poised to be one of the first white rock and roll superstars until his career was rocked with scandal. Had that happened it is very possible that the piano would become the predominant instrument in white rock.
The genre already has its roots in jump blues and boogie woogie, both piano driven styles. Little Richard and Fats Domino were at the top of the charts.
Had a piano player been the king of white rock then you would have likely seen a lot more artists picking up that instrument rather than the guitar.
Drake.
Wanker.
Linkin park. Cuz in the end, they didn't even matter.
I hate how people on Reddit have a fucking bizarre fascination with this band. Yeah, I was 13 once, too, and also thought it was deep then. Then I grew up.
I enjoy some of their latest stuff. Rip Chester. That last album especially I thought was great.
I own Meteora and when I try to listen to it in ViMusic the program serves me so many iterations of it I don't know which is the original.
The singer of 30 Seconds to Mars
Probably a very unpopular opinion but…
Taylor Swift. I am so sick of seeing her name mentioned all the time.
Courtney Love already did this
Milli Vanilli
I can't help but think that Rob may still be alive if it hadn't been for their musical career. What a sad story.
On 3 April 1998, on the eve of a promotional tour for a new Milli Vanilli album, Back and in Attack, featuring Pilatus and Morvan on lead vocals, Pilatus was found dead from an alcohol and prescription drug overdose in a hotel room at Friedrichsdorf, near Frankfurt. His death was ruled accidental. The album has never been released.
Rick Astley - I can give him up
Never
He might let you down though
Phil Spector. His wall of sound bullshit caused decades of potentially amazing albums to sound like shit, and he's a terrible person who has brought nothing on the world that's worth keeping.
What about his Christmas album
Bono. He's the biggest piece of shit.
I can not motivate myself to dislike more U2.
ICP
The "C" is for cringe.
Tool.
The band itself is fine. Their fans however...
This one hurt me as a Tool fan
Went to a Tool concert ahout six months ago. It was pretty clear that they were not fans of their fans.
Corey Feldman
Would it be cheating if I chose Nero Caesar since he technically was a musician and would perform in the colosseums under threat of death?
Richard Wagner.
Maybe help Hitler get his music career off the ground in hopes of providing a positive outlet?
Mariah Carey, for that obvious one song that returns every fucking Christmas.
i think theres plenty of reasons to erase mariah carey's career.
the christmas song is the least of them.
Ted Bundy.Charlie Manson (Oops, swaped serial killer names when i typed it out)Maybe without music and the Beach Boys connection he never gets his cult off the ground.
woah the Beach boys had connections with Charles Manson too. what's going on with the Beach boys?
Yeah i swaped my serial killers, oops.
I knew what i meant but typed the other one.
Bon Jovi. Nobody needed that.
Damn this had me thinking to stop the musician that proposed the winter dance party tour, but it seems buddy Holly originated it so no facing him.
It would have been cool to see where he went musically.
All excellent suggestions here. I’m adding Lost Prophets to the list. Maybe don’t look them up if you don’t already know.
The Beatles.
Dave Mustaine is a particularly irritating fascist, would be nice id he didn't get royalties
Nirvana
Why would anyone in their right mind want to?
Ian Watkins.
Who?
Justin
Timberlake, Bieber, or the Canadian PM who kept the country from bankruptcy despite the blinkered conservatives and their expendable constituents trying to kill the country and all its inhabitants on the daily?
Obviously Justin Vernon, also known as Bon Iver. Let's see them hipsters without their leader.
On what fucking planet.....That PM has been the ruination of this country.
Journey
Can I pick a midpoint in his career? If so I would pick Coldplay after Viva la Vida. Otherwise, The B-52s
Yours.
Dave Matthews
Phil Collins. Genesis could do without him and the world without his solo career
in the air tonight Oh lord
Hey, A Trick of the Tail slaps, Phil had a whole phase before he became generic Phil Collins