Music

Bad Career Moves That Still Resulted in Great Singles

From consultant Sean Ross’ newsletter today:

“Consider the pressure for an act preparing a first single from the new project that follows-up a smash album. Sometimes they walk in with an even more phenomenal song than their previous hits, and they move from stardom to superstardom (think Prince’s “When Doves Cry” or Pink’s “Get The Party Started”). But there are also a lot of ways to quickly derail your momentum at radio…

“…Four years ago, when Kelly Clarkson derailed her own momentum for a while with “Never Again,” I came up with a chronology of “moment of truth” singles, where acts had to deliver the goods the second time out, and only sometimes did. Here are more than a dozen such songs that weren’t good career moves, but were actually good singles. Clarkson has now been back in the good graces of her label and radio for two projects now, and not all of these were actually “career suicide” either, but many at least slowed down an act’s radio momentum for a few years.”

Read Sean’s top 13 great singles that came out of bad career moves.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 38040 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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