Hey guys!
Sometimes, an artist is most known for something that is a rather bad or even awful reflection of their music.
Do you have any favourite examples of this?
You know I love Frank Zappa, but his songs that came closest to the mainstream in the US are not among his best. A good example is his "duet" with his daughter Moon Unit Valley Girl, which became his most commercially successful single and only sing to reach the Top 40 hit, rising to NR. 32 on the billboard hot 100.
It's charming, but considering the rather more brilliant music he made, also a little sad.
From an Irish perspective, it irks me (it does; I get irked very easily. Ask anyone who irks me and they'll tell you) that Chris de Burgh has now become forever known for the thrice-damned-to-the-darkest hell "Lady in Red", when he was capable of writing songs that were so much better.
Like "Spanish Train"
"Crusader" (If totally historically inaccurate, it's still a great song)
And "The Traveller"
Patrice Rushen is probably best known for her classic hit "Forget Me Nots", but I'm not a great fan of her 80s stuff because she was mainly on vocals and it didn't really bring out the pianist in her.
Instead, her brilliant piano solos on the 70s albums (Prelusion and Before the Dawn) was much better imo. And this solo on Weather Report's "Elegant People" was very nice too (including a line up of legends):
Patrice Rushen piano solo ('88 Montreux Jazz Festival)EDIT: I forgot to mention that I like Alphonse Johnson's bassline a lot, in that he sticks to quite a repetiitive pulse of the D minor scale i.e. the downbeat is often a low D, then E flat then F natural, then he moves back down again from F natural to E flat then to D. That's frigging magic right there, supporting his sister in this musical fashion.
Patrice Rushen - Razzia Soloing from 2:15 to 5:15
Focus is mostly known for their crazy hit song Hocus Pocus.
But if you've listened to Focus, their music usually isn't like this. Thijs Van Leer plays flute. He doesn't always yodel and make faces. The rest of that album opened by Hocus Pocus is actually a relatively serene affair which seems more in line with the rest of their output.
Like this song:
Extreme - More Than Words. Listening to an acoustic ballad like this 1990 megahit, you might never know that the band that made it is a hair metal/funk metal band with an uber-technical guitarist (and that guy who later sang in Van Halen for like five minutes).
I was reminded of this song today and thought it fits the theme of this thread pretty well 😄
In this case, everyone of course knew them well anyways and I enjoy that they tried something different here.