The full list of bad musicians will be in the thousands with many duplicate recordings for “first time heroin”.
Rolling Stone ‘s latest list of the 50 worst decisions, compiled by senior writer Andy Greene, narrowed it down by keeping it mostly light and focusing on absurd, career-damaging moves. To listen to the podcast version of the entire list, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or press play above.
As discussed in Rolling Stone Music Now, which breaks down all 50 entries, the list was compiled before Kanye West decided to glorify Nazis, otherwise he likely would have taken the top spot. Green also covers some of the more idiosyncratic selections on the list, including the highlight of ’80s rocker Billy Squier dancing in the famous “Rock Me Tonite” video. Just as the Spin Doctors chose the somewhat battered “Cleopatra’s Cat” as a single for their second album (#30), Squier’s video was a rare case of him destroying his entire career in one fell swoop.
Not all of the mistakes were made by the musicians themselves: the list also includes management blunders, including Scooter Braun’s purchase of Taylor Swift’s catalog against their will, which led to remixes of winning versions of Taylor’s older albums and downgrading of the original footage. and Brown’s widespread embarrassment. And then David Geffen sued Neil Young… because he didn’t look enough like Neil Young.
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