Strike a Pose: Most Chameleon-Like Pop Stars Ever

I do think the question is a bit difficult as it’s very general, but how about the Isley Brothers? Over 50 years, they moved with the development of US black music and had chart success with a lot of different styles from the 1950s to the 2000s.

isley brothers is a good one

how about kelis?

don't know much about bowie but the didn't distance between his personas become part of his persona - at least eventually, at least in the minds of critics? also like madonna and others mentioned the voice provides continuity even when nothing else does

idk does this just mean versatile and eclectic and ever-changing or does it mean disappearing into different things that are almost unrecognisable as being the from same artist? it's much harder to think of people in the latter category

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"does this just mean versatile and eclectic"--I probably didn't communicate it that well, but I did mean more than that. Appearance has to be part of it; the main part, really. Also--and I didn't say this at all, although I probably implied it by my initial suggestions--a certain level of fame should be part of it, such that the reinvention draws a lot of attention. I like the Isley Brothers fine, but they wouldn't rise to that level of fame.

If the thread concept is still confusing, maybe it means Bowie stands alone.

I like the Isley Brothers fine, but they wouldn't rise to that level of fame among white people.

It seems a little ironic that a question that is too general and open only returns David Bowie as the answer. Sounds like a bug in the matrix ILM cartesian mind.

Madonna's chameleonic qualities are overstated. She works with different producers and tweaks her sound from year to year to keep current, but there are no wholesale shifts or shocking left turns in her catalog. You could play any Madonna song next to any other and nobody would say, "Wait — that's Madonna?"

Delve into pre-fame Madonna and you get a more complicated picture. Breakfast Club, Emmy, Emmy and the Emmys were things that happened. I know an old bandmate of hers from those days it it sounds like she was equal parts a. Protean and b. Ambitious.

who are those hippies/nerds?

musically, the first 4 mbv lps sound nothing alike (goth, indiepop, grunge, loveless), nor do the first 3 primal scream lps.

visually, eno in roxy vs eno now.

What the Isley Brothers accomplished over the last SIXTY FIVE YEARS in transformations and updates (they just had a No. 1 R&B hit with Beyoncé) is nothing short of remarkable and is completely without parallel

I had no idea about the new Beyoncé track - that is incredible. As you say, completely without parallel.
It’s like if George Formby was alive and charting with a Madonna collab in 1990.

I like the Isley Brothers fine, but they wouldn't rise to that level of fame among white people.

Is that really necessary? There's David Bowie/Madonna/Dylan/Beyonce/Neil Young/Taylor Swift/Lou Reed/Prince level of fame--all the people I've mentioned so far as maybe fitting my vague concept--and there are the Isley Brothers. The difference in fame is not self-evident?

I heard shout before I ever heard anything by those nobodies

The difference in fame is not self-evident?

The Isley Brothers have had 12 top 20 albums on the main Billboard album chart; they've had two #1 albums, most recently in 2003. They've had 23 #1 albums on the R&B chart, including 11 #1s, six of which were between 1974 and 1980 (basically every album they released in that span, except for one album that only made it to #3) and the most recent of which came out this year. The Beatles' fourth #1 single in the US was an Isley Brothers cover. Yes, the Isley Brothers are that fucking famous, but not among white people or in the white music press.

green gartside

I'm looking at the pop audience: overall fame. The pop audience is made up of white and black listeners. The overall fame of the Isley Brothers is nowhere near the people I mentioned. I'm not knocking them. It just seems obvious to me.

In the '70s, I'm sure Antonio Fargas was a far more famous actor among African Americans than, I don't know, Roy Scheider. Would it therefore be correct to say he was more famous than Roy Scheider?

who are those hippies/nerds?

that would be Dexy's Midnight Runners

clemenza may have had a point until he got to Neil Young and Lou Reed

Also, unperson, calm down with the wypipo posting, the Isleys literally played the Pitchfork Fest Main Stage after STEREOLAB

Lou Reed, give me a break

“You know, famous people like Michael Jackson, Madonna and, uh, Robyn Hitchcock”

sorry for calling dexys hippies

I remember the pre-publicity for Don't Stand Me Down in the music press consisted of a series of full-page b&w portraits of KR & the band with no text. He was - to 15 y/o me, at least - genuinely unrecognisable.

You honestly put Robyn Hitchcock on the same level of fame as Neil Young and Lou Reed? Really?

I always try to see things in terms of baseball analogies. Michael Jackson and Madonna are Babe Ruth and Willie Mays on the fame scale. Neil Young is Dave Winfield. Lou Reed is Kirby Puckett. Robyn Hitchcock is Josh Hamilton, the only difference being that Josh Hamilton was actually sort of famous for a couple of years.

On a sidenote: The Isleys killed it at Pitchfork that year.

Just one more word on the Isley Brothers. If you want to argue that they should be as famous as some of the people I cited--the resume you put together is impressive--I have no problem with that; you make a good argument. I'm just saying that by almost any standard (unless you do what you do, which is to start slicing up the pop audience), they aren't.

I’d say most people - not necessarily music heads - know more Isleys songs than they know Lou Reed or Neil Young songs. If we’re talking about who’s been on the cover of Uncut most, sure.

I guess I'm on a different page. To me, if you surveyed the millions of people who've seen Animal House and asked them who originally did "Shout," the percentage of people who'd answer correctly would be small. Or if you asked a large pool of people who originally did "Twist and Shout," same. The songs are more famous than their originators.

Kind of sorry I mentioned fame now.

clemenza’s obsession with “the pop audience” is hilarious since the Isleys have had like 40 songs on the Hot 100 compared to Lou Reed who’s been there literally once

“If you asked the average person who sang ‘Who Am I? (Tripitena's Song)’ from The Raven…”

Again, your comparisons are great. Don't pick "Walk on the Wild Side," pick the song you picked.

Also, please insert a Robyn Hitchcock song into this equation. "I Wanna Destroy You" is one of my favourite songs of its era. If go into a mall and play it for a thousand people, just how many of them do you expect will go "Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock--love that song!"

Yes, “Walk on the Wild Side” is Lou Reed’s sole Top 40 hit, which means he has less than Tommy Tutone

I also think--I'll have to double-check this--Lou Reed was in a band before he became Lou Reed Solo Artist, and even though the band didn't sell many albums and didn't chart Top 40 hits, they've come to acquire a certain measure of fame over the years.

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Oh my god, this argument is so annoying. Clemenza, I know you started this thread but just accept that the Isley Brothers are famous!

Honestly, I don't think many of the people listed would fit my idea of "chameleonic", dabbling in a couple of different sounds over the course of a career isn't nearly enough for me. My suggestion would be Kylie Minogue.
Actress Kylie, teenybop Kylie, indie Kylie, disco Kylie, legacy pop icon Kylie - they seem like pretty distinct personas to me.

I’m pretty sure my white boomer parents would recognize the Isley Brothers before the Velvet Underground

"Sure, the Isley Brothers are fine if you like that sort of thing, but tell me this — how many Brian Eno aphorisms have they inspired? Thought so."

As someone pointed out upthread, Kevin Rowland has gone through a number of transformations.

The Isleys only sold 18 million records in America, but everyone who bought one bravely fought against the idea that they were in the "pop audience"

If this is "mostly in terms of appearance" then it's Bowie, but I don't find that Bowie's music changed much, really, over time

Musically I've always been really weirded out by how diverse and left-turn-y is Vangelis's catalogue

Dylan in this convo is funny cause a huge part of his deal is obv that he’s ~elusive~ ~mercurial~ and all this but the idea that he had major switch ups in sound & appearance is, I guess you had to be there. In 2022 it sounds like he went from folk to folk-rock and put on sunglasses

Don't forget the face paint and hat!

I could see an argument that Earnest Folky > Thin Wild Troubadour > Country Crooner > Married Man/Unmarried Man > Rolling Thunder Carnival Barker > Apocalyptic Preacher is chameleonic (at least in presentation), but at each stop along the way he was actually bending the material to Dylan not the other way around.

Let me try again.

I’m counting quickly, but Brenda Lee had 27 Top 40 hits, which is many more than the Ronettes. Is Brenda Lee more famous? I’m guessing that’s also more than Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin combined Same question.

Whoever directs the next Marvel film, that film will probably be seen by more people worldwide than all the films Jean-Luc Godard directed in his entire career. Will that make Next Marvel Director more famous than JLG?

There are different ways to measure fame.

Slim Whitman sold more records in Europe than Elvis and The Beatles combined. Or so went the infomercial that ran on UHF stations over and over when I was a kid.

This is like that thread where we tried to parse exactly how famous KISS is, and got into existential territory (what do album sales really mean?, etc.)

The Isleys have a cross-generational, cross-racial appeal and anyone could recognize them for ANY ONE of MULTIPLE feats: "Shout" and "Twist and Shout" in the early days of rock and roll, being part of the Motown empire, the funk hits, the disco hits, the Soul Train appearances, the quiet storm hits, the MTV presence with R. Kelly.

Lou Reed did one thing of interest to nerds and had one solo song and the rest of his career depends on whether the words "Lester Bangs" or "John Cale" mean anything to you

This is like that thread where we tried to parse exactly how famous KISS is

Now there's a band that started out with nothing much beyond the desire to be "famous" who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

They’re like chameleons – with makeup and without makeup!

We said that already, get in line, sport!

I'm very interested in artists - not necessarily good ones - who seemingly exist to totally camouflage into the times each instance they do something. By which I mean OK Go - snotty power pop in 2002-03, NME-ish garage indie in 2006, MGMT/Anco-ish electropop in 2009/2010 and whatever the 2014 album was I never heard it

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 20 October 2022 08:26 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like this post, this feels like (at last!) a productive line of inquiry here. The Chap are a kind of preferable analogue - moving from post-rockish artpop in the early 00s to a more confident indie-pop in the late 00s to math-rocky miserablism in the early 10s (The Show Must Go - their best, what an underrated album!) to electropop in the late 10s to whatever they're planning next

i would also be interested in its inverse: artists who change to be completely UNLIKE their times. perhaps a rarer phenomenon, and yet, kevin barnes has been going out of their way to sabotage of Montreal's success since 2007, in ways that lie completely at odds with the fashion of the age, but which have both entertained and maddened; their last 10 years have been a way more compelling arc than the already-varied journey of their supposed heyday

am also sliiiiightly surprised damon albarn hasn't gotten a mention, although ugh, and no he doesn't deserve a mention, and i wish he'd go away

We said that already, get in line, sport!

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 20, 2022 6:47 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nobody said anything about former isley bros guitarist jimi hendrix!

(or 2 chainz)

Herbie Hancock

the mess of this thread has convinced me that there is no real proof of concept here. david bowie was a restless artist who, because of the type of art he was interested in, happened to change his physical appearance alongside his musical evolutions. lots of other people are restless creative musical evolvers, especially jazz giants like miles and trane and herbie. also the isley brothers have had a long, fascinating and successful career.

beyond that no real conclusions do i draw

I think sun ra might even beat miles for radical musical transformations but he's even less of a pop star (yet has more actual pop songs in his catalogue! or attempts at them) and the relative consistently of his persona and the fact that he didn't abandon older styles makes him seem less chameleonic than he actually was

coltrane has a neater more traditionally progressive trajectory that you can more or less track if you ignore a few messy detours

lots of other people are restless creative musical evolvers, especially jazz giants like miles and trane and herbie.

in spite of a certain amount of accuracy regarding his stylistic transformations, herbie was a joke entry to this list.

Bowie claimed (at one time) to only be interested in music as a means to his extramusical artistic ends: to be a chameleonic artist.

Something to the effect of, music just happened to be the most viable path to expressing the sort of artistic / personal vision he wished to express. The implication is that if he had he landed in a universe in which macrame or carpentry or pasta-making (or whatever) was an expedient path to the kind of expression he wanted to make, he would have done that instead.

coltrane has a neater more traditionally progressive trajectory that you can more or less track if you ignore a few messy detours

Really only active for about 12 years. Joined the Miles Davis Quintet in late 1955; first recording session as a leader, May 1957; died April 1967.

My wife was at the airport yesterday and there was a little girl there named Isley. Haven't heard of a child named Neil in a while...

Or Jasper, for that matter.

The Hendrix connection is a good one that I totally forgot about; I also overlooked the kids-at-airports metric. I had a couple of other things to add--and I may poll the kindergarten class I'm working in today--but I'll settle instead for things more or less being back on track to befuddlement over the thread's initial premise.