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.
“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” - Eminem
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?
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.
You’re right. I shouldn’t have suggested that the piano would be more popular than guitar, only that you might have heard a lot more piano if Jerry Lee had been the face of white rock instead of Elvis.
People are going to play whatever they can get their hands on. I remember reading in a Muddy Waters biography about someone who started off writing songs using an old piano wire attached to a shack because that’s all he had available.
Jerry Lee Lewis became fairly successful in Country after his Rock career faltered. Most country musicians still play the guitar rather than the piano though.
True, but many of country’s conventions were well established when he got into it. When he got into rock it was new, especially white rock. I think he would have a more significant influence there.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaving_Neverland
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.
It’s available to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I watched this honestly with a mind that wasn’t just open, but sceptical with a view that some “hangers on” were just after a quick payday and I ended up feeling pretty sick.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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