Strike a Pose: Most Chameleon-Like Pop Stars Ever

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.

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/chris-gaines.jpg

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!

They actually should get an honorable mention for deciding to ditch their most distinctive feature and be literally unrecognizable, such that a crossfade was needed on MTV from old look to new look.

I think the guy on the far right in the DMR photo is Seb Shelton who had been in Secret Affair as a Glory Boy/Mod Revivalist so that's quite a change. Not sure what the style thing was like with the Bureau who a lot of DMR split off to become.
& DMR did seem to have a new look every few months including the leather jacketed docker look and the early sports/jogger thing which I think the general public took several more years to pick up

just accept that the Isley Brothers are famous!

I'm pretty sure I've never said they aren't; I've been trying to argue that I don't think they're as famous as Neil Young or Lou Reed. Fame is relative. Compared to me, Doctor & the Medics are famous, and Samantha Fox is really, really famous.

To the other tenacious Isleys advocate, I think you started out sort of agreeing with me on the Isleys, and used their billing behind Stereolab at a music festival as evidence. Or maybe that was a joke, I don't know--you used some internet acronym that means nothing to me. Anyway, if you weren't kidding, and the Isleys are more famous than Lou Reed but less famous than Stereolab, does that make Stereolab more famous than Lou Reed?

What I'm arguing, not very successfully apparently, is that there is a deeper and more lasting kind of fame, and that yes, influence is part of it. "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"--that's a terrific description of the Velvet Underground's place in history. A few years ago, I started collecting cover versions of the Beatles, Neil Young, and the Velvet Underground. I think I've got about 15 tribute albums for the VU and about 25 for Neil Young. I've got another, I don't know, two or three hundred cover versions of each (including the Isleys covering Neil Young--"Ohio," I think). I'm sure there's a tribute album or two to the Isley Brothers, and also sure there's not anywhere near as many as 15 or 25. That, to me, is part of a more lasting fame.

Can we please go back to making fun of how vague this thread is?

that state of affairs speaks to the politics of who gets canonized more than anything else but the bigger issue is that this thread is impossibly vague

I was saying the Isleys headlined over Stereolab at a Pitchfork festival so I doubt their fame is limited to black people

xpost

To the other tenacious Isleys advocate, I think you started out sort of agreeing with me on the Isleys, and used their billing behind Stereolab at a music festival as evidence. Or maybe that was a joke, I don't know--you used some internet acronym that means nothing to me.

Whiney's argument was that the Isley Brothers are in fact more famous among white rock dorks than I think they are — as evidence, he mentioned that they headlined over Stereolab at the Pitchfork festival. I was not aware that they'd performed there, and it sounds like it was probably awesome.

I think you're using a very Jann Wenner-esque framework to decide who's "famous" and who's not. Let's try a little test: Regardless of his chameleonic qualities (which I think are negligible) famous do you think Bad Bunny is? How famous do you think Romeo Santos is, with or without his former band Aventura?

A few years ago, I started collecting cover versions of the Beatles, Neil Young, and the Velvet Underground. I think I've got about 15 tribute albums for the VU and about 25 for Neil Young. I've got another, I don't know, two or three hundred cover versions of each (including the Isleys covering Neil Young--"Ohio," I think). I'm sure there's a tribute album or two to the Isley Brothers, and also sure there's not anywhere near as many as 15 or 25. That, to me, is part of a more lasting fame.

Hey, Lou Reed was sampled by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, who, coincidentally, have have more hit singles than Lou Reed

I don't understand why "extreme fame" was brought up as a criterion in the first place. I understand that no-one cares if a nobody with no audience changes their image, but in a way it would be more risky for a mid-level performer, perhaps with a cozy genre niche, to take a left turn in terms of music and image (Dirty Mind is the first thing I think of).

I was thinking about this thread the other day and came up with a few ideas and then realized none of them were pop stars (Miles Davis, Brian Eno, PJ Harvey)

are you aware of confirmation bias?

Fair point, as is the point about sampling. But there's also the point I was trying to make, which was that--I believe, anyway--Neil Young and Lou Reed (especially as part of the Velvet Underground) are more influential than the Isley Brothers, and I was using tribute albums as an example. (Trying to stay clear of the fact that tribute albums are generally a bad idea.)

You've brought up other artists you want me to comment on, but the analogies I've thrown out--Brenda Lee vs. the Ronettes/Janis Joplin/Jimi Hendrix, Jean-Luc Godard vs. Next Marvel Director--those just glide by, and no one responds to them.

As I said above, I'm now sorry for ever having brought up fame in the first place. It was, in my mind, part of what made the drastic changes by Bowie and others I mentioned so interesting--that a lot of people were paying attention, that they made news--but I wish I hadn't mentioned it.

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

― Wiggum Dorma (wins), Wednesday, October 19, 2022 1:44 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Don't forget the face paint and hat!

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, October 19, 2022

And this!

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/6b/6f/55/6b6f555c8fda42af7c17f556431fafc7--bob-dylan-twist.jpg