History DeaderThanDisco / Music

* Music/{{Sugarland}} went from being one of the hottest acts in country music to falling completely off the radar. Jennifer Nettles, Kristian Bush, Kristen Hall saw their debut album ''Twice the Speed of Life'' produced three Top 10 hits and double-platinum sales, and Nettles sang duet vocals on Music/BonJovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home", a surprise hit on country radio in summer 2006. Not even losing Hall after the first album seemed to slow them down, as their second album sold even better, and accounted for their first #1 hits along with two Grammys. ''Love on the Inside'' fared almost as well, giving Sugarland three more #1 hits and becoming their first album to reach #1 on Top Country Albums. Then came their fourth album, ''The Incredible Machine'', in 2010. While lead single "Stuck Like Glue" was their highest-selling digital single, the album itself was met with mixed reception for its increasing acoustic-pop and arena-rock influences mixed with LighterAndSofter lyrics, combined with a jarring {{steampunk}} influence on the album. The final nail in the coffin, however, wasn't anything related to the band's music, but bad weather. Just before their performance at the Indiana State Fair in August 2011, a stage collapsed in high winds, killing seven people and injuring 58 more. Sugarland was held as TheScapegoat for the accident and found themselves at the head of several lawsuits, ultimately resulting in Sugarland paying a large chunk of settlements. After cutting a song for the ''Film/ActOfValor'' soundtrack, they went on hiatus. Both Jennifer and Kristian recorded solo albums during the hiatus but found little radio success. Their 2018 reunion album ''Bigger'', despite fairly positive critical reception, sold a dismal 50,000 copies and saw both of its singles flop on the charts. In addition, nearly every bit of media coverage about the reunion [[OvershadowedByControversy felt it necessary to place prominence on the Indiana State Fair incident]]. Sugarland's legacy anymore seems to be that of an act that started out strongly, only to grow too [[GenreRoulette experimental]] and too reliant on style over substance -- or worse, as the band who saw their careers "blown away" by an unfortunate accident that they had nothing to do with.

* Music/TobyKeith was a big name in CountryMusic for many years. His 1993 debut single "Should've Been a Cowboy" was a #1 smash on the country charts, his first three albums all went platinum, and thirteen of his first fifteen singles made the Top 10 on the country charts. He hit a bump in the road with some label disputes that caused him to leave Creator/MercuryRecords for Creator/DreamWorksRecords at the end of the decade, but his second [=DreamWorks=] single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" went on to become a five-week #1 smash in 2000, while also becoming the biggest country music hit of the year and his first top-40 pop hit. Keith created five albums for [=DreamWorks=] between 1999 and 2005, with all five producing multi-platinum sales. The increase in hits was not without controversy; some fans derided Keith for including macho posturing in his material, and his [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror post-9/11 release]] "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" was seen as too over-the-top in its PatrioticFervor. Despite the pushback, Keith remained a major draw and seamlessly moved to his own Show Dog label after [=DreamWorks=] Records closed in 2005. Keith's momentum began to slow in the Show Dog era due to a myriad of weak novelty songs, and a decision to always release one album per year -- meaning he often had to pull singles that were doing well on radio just to rush out the lead single to the next album. He seemed to bounce back in 2011 with "Red Solo Cup", which became a viral crossover. However, any momentum brought by that single was killed by his 2015 album ''35 MPH Town'' producing Keith's worst-performing streak of hit singles to date, and its follow-up never materializing due to its intended lead single coming nowhere close to the country top 40. While Keith released more albums and singles after ''35 MPH Town'', all of them similarly failed to gain any traction on the country charts. Keith is now seen as a punchline for the use of cartoonishly-overblown PatrioticFervor, over-reliance on TestosteronePoisoning, and [[TheAlcoholic excessive use of booze]] in country music.

* The sub-genre of bro-country has come to be this. In late 2012, duo Music/FloridaGeorgiaLine had a smash crossover with their debut single "Cruise", which would set the tone of bro-country music: hip-hop beats, hair-metal guitar work, and street slang were combined with lyrics about hot women, trucks, beer, and partying. While the songs were kept in heavy radio rotation, bro-country was quickly subject to derision for being StrictlyFormula, as lampshaded in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o a viral video mashup which played six bro-country songs on top of each other]] to show that they all sounded pretty much the same. One of the first real blows to bro-country from within country music itself came in late 2014 when female duo Music/MaddieAndTae came from nowhere with "Girl in a Country Song", a song lampooning bro-country's perspective on women, which shot to #1 on the country charts. A few months later in 2015, radio consultant Keith Hill came under fire for saying that radio stations should play fewer female artists than male artists. This led to a massive outcry about sexism and misogyny in country music. By the end of 2015, most of the artists who spearheaded bro-country weathered the backlash only by shifting to a more ballad-driven sound. Even the poppiest-sounding country songs since 2016 have displayed none of bro-country's themes. Also not helping matters was the changing politics of country music and its fans —- the genre was rapidly gaining popularity with pockets of America generally less enthusiastic about country music, who were more likely to push back against bro-country and the themes that had once made it so popular. By the end of TheNewTens, most male artists in country tended either toward a more romantic subgenre or to twangy sounds similar to the "neotraditional" boom of the early 1990s, while many female artists have rapidly risen in the ranks. In short, "bro-country" is very much dead, and an OldShame for the country music genre as a whole.

* Music/PuddleOfMudd became one of the biggest rock bands in the world after releasing their debut studio album ''Come Clean'', which yielded two massive hits and sold five million copies. Unfortunately, their follow-up, ''Life on Display,'' killed their popularity as fast as ''Come Clean'' made it. The album got trashed by critics and failed to go platinum. They had a small comeback in 2007 when the TitleTrack to their third album ''Famous'' was embraced with open arms by rock radio stations, but it was the Alfred Hitchcock-inspired "Psycho" that looked to put them back on top. But that's not what would happen when they released ''Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate''. The album tanked massively and got the same tepid reviews as ''Life on Display''. Less than a year afterwards, all the original members of the group [[IAmTheBand except Wes Scantlin]] were gone, and it looked like their 2011 cover album would be their last release. In later years, Scantlin became a [[TheAlcoholic raging alcoholic]] and even more notorious for his obnoxious behavior on and off-stage, such as [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_frontman_loses_it_mid_set_calls_out_fan_for_stealing_his_hou accusing a fan of stealing his house]] and [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_singer_arrested_for_the_fourth_time_this_year repeated arrests]]. The final straw was a gig in England in March 2016, when Scantlin was so drunk that his bandmates just walked offstage. The band released its fifth album ''Welcome to Galvania'' in September 2019, which missed the Billboard 200. However, this would be relegated to a mere footnote in the band's history in April 2020 when a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiwxiiZ01L8&feature=emb_title video]] of them covering Music/{{Nirvana}}'s "About a Girl" was discovered, which quickly went viral and became the subject of several memes due to Scantlin's strained, off-key vocal performance. Today, Puddle of Mudd is one of the most hated bands of the new millennium, with any reference to them today only being done to criticize Wes Scantlin's "whiny voice", the aforementioned video, or as another example of "X-rated post-grunge garbage." Even in the "never say never" world that is the music industry, Puddle of Mudd has fallen so hard that it would be nothing short of a '''miracle''' for them to regain any respect.

It got to the point where, on July 12, 1979, the UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} [[UsefulNotes/MLBTeams White Sox]] (whose South Side base meant that their fans were black and white in about equal measure) hosted a "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Disco Demolition Night]]" promotion (see picture on main page, see Wiki/TheOtherWiki for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night more information]]), the brainchild of a White Sox executive and a spurned album-oriented rock (code for progressive) DJ. Fans could bring in their disco records in exchange for less than a dollar admission; since the game was a doubleheader[[note]]Incidentally, against the UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} Tigers, probably the closest thing the White Sox have to a rival within the American League. The Sox, of course, have a FandomRivalry with the Cubs, but until interleague play was instituted in 1997, they had only played each other in six official games--all part of the 1906 World Series.[[/note]] the plan was the records would get blown up in the middle of the field between the games, and the stands at Comiskey would be extra-full because everyone and their uncle would pay to see those stupid disco records get what they deserved. Instead, the White Sox were forced to forfeit the second game (the last time a game was forfeited in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} American League]]) after the explosion led to a riot--fueled by another ill-considered moneymaking venture that afternoon: Comiskey Park had a discount on beer that day ([[AlcoholInducedStupidity whoops]]). It got so bad that even rock artists who were ''influenced'' by disco, like Music/RodStewart and African-American Creator/{{Motown}} musicians like Music/MarvinGaye, were attacked and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyvxD1v-NXg parodied.]]\\

Finally, the anti-disco backlash is seen by many as having had a very ugly undercurrent. Music historians who have investigated why disco became so fiercely hated agree that overexposure and elitism weren't the sole factors behind the death of disco, but that [[ValuesDissonance homophobia, sexism, and racism]] also played into it (disco having succeeded, if only for a brief time, in uniting Americans across color and sexual lines). Robert Christgau [[http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pj78.php called out]] the latent homophobia and racism in the "Disco Sucks" movement as early as 1979, and witnesses to Disco Demolition Night noted a startling amount of destroyed records that belonged to black artists who never actually touched disco. What's more, [[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/twisted-sisters-dee-snider-on-destroying-disco-why-lemmy-was-an-angel-181187/ the racism was more than open]] in some parts of the country, as Music/TwistedSister found out.[[note]]They had Music/BarryWhite hung in effigy during their concerts, and at a show in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState upstate New York]], the mostly white male patrons started cheering and yelling "Hang the n[=----=]r!" in approval. As a multiracial band that simply thought disco was overexposed and saw Barry White as a symbol of it, they were shocked by this reaction, and quickly removed the effigy from future stage shows.[[/note]] As WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows [[https://youtu.be/pvzgn9XSjgI?t=4m47s pointed out]], hatred of disco often spilled into a more general backlash by white listeners against ''all'' African-American music, effectively raising a wall between the "white" and "black" music worlds that wouldn't be crossed until the mid-'80s, when black artists like Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}} and white artists like Music/TalkingHeads and Music/PeterGabriel became superstars with artistically strong music that was easily accessible to both white and black audiences; top tens in the early '80s were topped by strictly white-oriented talent such as Eddie Rabbitt and Sheena Easton. While overexposure (which WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows [[https://youtu.be/OxvaIo-6bhk?t=279 also mentioned]]) and concerns of elitism are generally seen as having been more valid reasons for the backlash, the bigotry that intertwined with much of it cause many retrospective analysts to call the nature and extent of the "Disco Sucks" movement into considerable question, with most nowadays feeling that the bigoted aspects ultimately co-opted and overshadowed the whole affair, turning it into a display of far-right strongarming that coincided with the Conservative Revolution of the late '70s, culminating in the election of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan in 1980. The culturally conservative climate combined with the AIDS crisis made the practice of cruising clubs for casual sex seem dangerous. \\

And this isn't even taking into account disco's influence on underground music, especially PostPunk bands like Music/PublicImageLtd and ex-No Wavers like Material, Contortions, and Liquid Liquid. All operated under the basic premise of [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly "take a disco beat and pile weird stuff on top of it"]], often to great and innovative effect. [=PiL=] even had a hit with [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a song called "Death Disco"]]... although [[Music/TheSexPistols who was]] [[Music/JohnLydon singing]] probably had some effect. In the U.S., Music/TalkingHeads were heavily influenced by disco while racking up hits and critical acclaim. There was also the {{Industrial}} fascination with Eurodisco, [[YouDontWantToKnow but that's another matter entirely]]. This marriage of punk and disco later evolved into the AlternativeDance and Madchester genres of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which saw the success of groups like Music/NewOrder, Music/TheStoneRoses and Music/HappyMondays. Then, the overtly disco-influenced dance-punk genre of the early 2000s led to the rise of acclaimed indie band Music/LCDSoundsystem. The disco revival scene hit a peak in 2013, when Music/DaftPunk's single, "Get Lucky" (sung by Music/PharrellWilliams, who himself released the hit dance song "Happy"), became one of the biggest hits of 2013, proving that the influence of disco was ''not'' dead.

* The sub-genre of bro-country has come to be this. In late 2012, duo Music/FloridaGeorgiaLine had a smash crossover with their debut single "Cruise", which would set the tone of bro-country music: hip-hop beats, hair-metal guitar work, and street slang were combined with lyrics about hot women, trucks, beer, and partying. While the songs were kept in heavy radio rotation, bro-country was quickly subject to derision for being StrictlyFormula, as lampshaded in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o a viral video mashup which played six bro-country songs on top of each other]] to show that they all sounded pretty much the same. One of the first real blows to bro-country from within country music itself came in late 2014, when female duo Music/MaddieAndTae came from nowhere with "Girl in a Country Song", a song lampooning bro-country's perspective on women, which shot to #1 on the country charts. A few months later in 2015, radio consultant Keith Hill came under fire for saying that radio stations should play fewer female artists than male artists. This led to a massive outcry about sexism and misogyny in country music. By the end of 2015, most of the artists who spearheaded bro-country weathered the backlash only by shifting to a more ballad-driven sound. Even the poppiest-sounding country songs since 2016 have displayed none of bro-country's themes. Also not helping matters was the changing politics of country music and its fans —- the genre was rapidly gaining popularity with pockets of America generally less enthusiastic about country music, who were more likely to push back against bro-country and the themes that had once made it so popular. By the end of TheNewTens, most male artists in country tended either toward a more romantic subgenre or to twangy sounds similar to the "neotraditional" boom of the early 1990s, while many female artists have rapidly risen in the ranks. In short, "bro-country" is very much dead, and an OldShame for the country music genre as a whole.

* Music/TobyKeith was a big name in CountryMusic for many years. His 1993 debut single "Should've Been a Cowboy" was a #1 smash on the country charts, his first three albums all went platinum, and thirteen of his first fifteen singles made the Top 10 on the country charts. He hit a bump in the road with some label disputes that caused him to leave Creator/MercuryRecords for Creator/DreamWorksRecords at the end of the decade, but his second [=DreamWorks=] single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" went on to become a five-week #1 smash in 2000, while also becoming the biggest country music hit of the year and his first top-40 pop hit. Keith created five albums for [=DreamWorks=] between 1999 and 2005, with all five producing multi-platinum sales. The increase in hits was not without controversy; some fans derided Keith for including macho posturing in his material, and his [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror post-9/11 release]] "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" was seen as too over-the-top in its PatrioticFervor. Despite the pushback, Keith remained a major draw, and seamlessly moved to his own Show Dog label after [=DreamWorks=] Records closed in 2005. Keith's momentum began to slow in the Show Dog era due to a myriad of weak novelty songs, and a decision to always release one album per year -- meaning he often had to pull singles that were doing well on radio just to rush out the lead single to the next album. He seemed to bounce back in 2011 with "Red Solo Cup", which became a viral crossover. However, any momentum brought by that single was killed by his 2015 album ''35 MPH Town'' producing Keith's worst-performing streak of hit singles to date, and its followup never materializing due to its intended lead single coming nowhere close to the country top 40. While Keith released more albums and singles after ''35 MPH Town'', all of them similarly failed to gain any traction on the country charts. Keith is now seen as a punchline for the use of cartoonishly-overblown PatrioticFervor, over-reliance on TestosteronePoisoning, and [[TheAlcoholic excessive use of booze]] in country music.

* Music/{{Sugarland}} went from being one of the hottest acts in country music to falling completely off the radar. Jennifer Nettles, Kristian Bush, Kristen Hall saw their debut album ''Twice the Speed of Life'' produced three Top 10 hits and double-platinum sales, and Nettles sang duet vocals on Music/BonJovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home", a surprise hit on country radio in summer 2006. Not even losing Hall after the first album seemed to slow them down, as their second album sold even better, and accounted for their first #1 hits along with two Grammys. ''Love on the Inside'' fared almost as well, giving Sugarland three more #1 hits and becoming their first album to reach #1 on Top Country Albums. Then came their fourth album, ''The Incredible Machine'', in 2010. While lead single "Stuck Like Glue" was their highest-selling digital single, the album itself was met with mixed reception for its increasing acoustic-pop and arena-rock influences mixed with LighterAndSofter lyrics, combined with a jarring {{steampunk}} influence on the album. The final nail in the coffin, however, wasn't anything related to the band's music, but bad weather. Just before their performance at the Indiana State Fair in August 2011, a stage collapsed in high winds, killing seven people and injuring 58 more. Sugarland was held as TheScapegoat for the accident and found themselves at the head of several lawsuits, ultimately resulting in Sugarland paying a large chunk of settlements. After cutting a song for the ''Film/ActOfValor'' soundtrack, they went on hiatus. Both Jennifer and Kristian recorded solo albums during the hiatus, but found little radio success. Their 2018 reunion album ''Bigger'', despite fairly positive critical reception, sold a dismal 50,000 copies and saw both of its singles flop on the charts. In addition, nearly every bit of media coverage about the reunion [[OvershadowedByControversy felt it necessary to place prominence on the Indiana State Fair incident]]. Sugarland's legacy anymore seems to be that of an act that started out strongly, only to grow too [[GenreRoulette experimental]] and too reliant on style over substance -- or worse, as the band who saw their careers "blown away" by an unfortunate accident that they had nothing to do with.

* AutoTune — specifically, the vocal distortion that was popularized by Music/TPain in the late '00s — has fallen victim to this. When Music/TPain used autotune to make his singing voice sound more "robotic", it launched [[FollowTheLeader a trend of countless rappers and singers doing the same thing]], such as Music/KanyeWest, Music/LilWayne, Akon, Music/FloRida, Music/{{Kesha}}, and 3OH!3. Songs featuring the technique were inescapable from 2007-10 and filled up parties everywhere. However, it was also subject to frequent mockery, and eventually, the backlash became too much to bear. Most artists who used it began to move away from the technique, and those who continued using it found diminished sales and show attendances. T-Pain, the one who popularized it, would hit this status himself. It's now viewed as a punchline for late '00s hip-hop and one of the most regrettable trends as of late. In contrast to other trends that had fallen out of the public, autotune is still in use primarly from trap artists like Future, Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, and Bad Bunny, who all use the program in the majority of their songs and all of them having long term success throughtout the 2010s because of it.

* SwagRap, a offshoot of alternative hip-hop that originated from both Cloud Rap and the hyphy movement in the Bay Area, is also dead in the water. The exact sound of Swag Rap varies, so it's really more of a scene than a sound. Noticeable characteristics include a DIY ethic and unconventional promotional tactics (often online, but not always), many Swag groups also use (fittingly) the term "swag", short for swagger and a synonym for "cool". The genre originated from acts like Soulja Boy due to his penchant of saying swag in his songs, but it was Music/{{OFWGKTA}}, Music/LilB, and A$AP Mob who popularized it, which resulted in the genre blowing up over night on the internet.\\

Its downfall came around the 2010s for many reasons. One, the genre is frequently mistaken for Cloud Rap, which resulted in many rappers like Music/DannyBrown distancing themselves from the swag rap movement. Two, the term "swag" has been frequently ridiculed by mainstream listeners and the general public alike by 2012 due to its overusage online, which resulted in the term falling off the wayside by 2014. And three, its detractors have frequently accused the genre of having simplistic and highly stereotypical lyrics that heavily relied on materialism, glorification of drugs (such as weed, codeine lean, and prescription pills like xanax), misogynistic overtones, and especially its heavy usage of the term "swag" and other internet lingo, despite certain acts like Odd Future and Lil B playing these cliches for laughs and as a critique of modern day radio-friendly hip-hop. Any chances of the genre coming back is all but dead due to all of these acts either disbanding, changing their sound completely, and growing out of these topics over more nuance subject matter, combined with many offshoots of Cloud Rap such as [=SoundCloud=] Rap, Emo Rap, and most infamously, Mumble Rap catching the attention of many newer acts, losing what very little chance the genre have on a revival.

* In the early '90s, Music/MCHammer was one of the biggest rap stars in the world, with his 1990 album ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'' selling ten million records -- the first rap album to ever accomplish that feat -- and his song "U Can't Touch This" becoming a sensation. A big part of Hammer's success was that he was considered a [[TheMoralSubstitute family-friendly alternative]] to the GangstaRap of the day, since he made it a point to keep his music fairly clean. However, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6_BkVXGXdU discussed]] by WebVideo/TheRapCritic, there soon came three factors that derailed Hammer's success. First, the gangsta rap boom caused MC Hammer to switch his sound in order to stay relevant, taking on a more hardcore DarkerAndEdgier persona more in line with the gangsta rappers of the day. This not only [[ContractualPurity ruined the clean-and-wholesome image]] that Hammer had cultivated, but hip-hop fans [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy didn't buy this street-wise hustler act for an instant]]. Second, [[WolverinePublicity Hammer was massively overexposed]]. Rivals like Music/LLCoolJ were dissing Hammer for what they saw as over-the-top commercialization, which included his SaturdayMorningCartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Hammerman}}''. Finally, he single-handedly redefined the phrase "ConspicuousConsumption" for [[TheNineties Generation X]]. He bought massive mansions, multiple cars, thoroughbred racehorses, gold chains for his dogs, and kept an entourage that ballooned to nearly two hundred people. He had to file for bankruptcy in 1996 as a result of this overspending, and he remains a symbol of living beyond one's means. By 1997, MC Hammer had all but vanished from mainstream attention, known only as a washed-up punchline with "U Can't Touch This" as a OneHitWonder.

* Music/VanillaIce burst onto the hip-hop scene in 1990 with his debut single "Ice Ice Baby", which topped the Hot 100, and his debut album ''To the Extreme'' spent seventeen weeks on top of the ''Billboard 200'', going on to sell over seven million copies in the United States. Unfortunately, Ice was being accused of plagiarism, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial which he awkwardly denied]]. The bassline for "Ice Ice Baby" was stolen from Music/{{Queen}} and Music/DavidBowie's "Under Pressure", while another single named "Funky Music" did not properly credit Wild Cherry's lead singer Rob Parissi as a songwriter. His motion picture debut, ''Film/CoolAsIce'', [[BoxOfficeBomb didn't make the Top 10 on its debut weekend]], got terrible reviews, and earned Ice a [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie]] for Worst New Star. His second album, 1994's ''Mind Blowin''' was a gigantic commercial flop. When he released his third album, the RapRock effort ''Hard to Swallow'' in 1998, [[http://www.mtv.com/news/1435113/vanilla-ice-explains-his-skate-rock-comeback/ the executives at Republic Records]] ''seriously'' compared it Creator/JohnTravolta's CareerResurrection in ''Film/PulpFiction''. It was also a huge dud. He soon fell into drug addiction and at one point was nearly DrivenToSuicide, forcing him to (understandably) put his recording career on hold. While he's made a full recovery and has made a small fortune [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20317_the-7-most-wtf-post-fame-careers-famous-musicians.html flipping houses]] on The [=DIY=] Network, most people in America see Vanilla Ice as ''the'' [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy punchline]] about white rappers.

* Music/{{Liberace}}, the flamboyant piano player, was one of the most popular and highest paid music performers of TheFifties. He was especially popular among teenage girls, who [[{{Squee}} swooned]] over him the way their big sisters used to swoon over the young Music/FrankSinatra. His popularity extended well into TheSixties, as a pleasant alternative to [[RockAndRoll rock 'n' roll]]. Most popular non-rock and non-Creator/{{Motown}} music performers of the '50s and '60s are forgotten today, but Liberace is still remembered for being a ridiculously {{camp}} figure, as well as a joke on the era's cluelessness of his ''[[TransparentCloset obvious]]'' [[TransparentCloset closet homosexuality]] ("I wish my brother George was here" was referenced on WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes). If a character refers to Liberace (''Film/SupermanII'', ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries''), they're AmbiguouslyGay. What's more, his legacy in [[ValuesDissonance modern times]] suffers on account of the fact that he was, during his life, [[ArmouredClosetGay very adamant]] about [[HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday denying that he was gay]], giving him detractors in today's LGBT community. Being openly gay back then was tantamount to career suicide, but even after his death in 1987, his estate and personal physician went through great efforts to cover up the fact that he died from AIDS-related complications. His fall from grace appeared complete when his Las Vegas museum closed due to waning popularity in 2010 (with plans to reopen it in 2014 failing to materialize).
* Few artists of TheNewTens fell as hard and as fast as Music/RobinThicke. He broke through in 2013, riding a wave of NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity thanks to his kinda-sleazy song "Blurred Lines", and a performance with Music/MileyCyrus at the 2013 [=VMAs=]. This worked because of a carefully-constructed image of a RuleAbidingRebel - he played the part of a [[HandsomeLech lecherous womanizer]], but got a pass because he was HappilyMarried to his wife, actress Paula Patton. However, the controversy surrounding "Blurred Lines" caught up to it, with a popular Tumblr post featuring rape survivors holding up cards with their rapists' quotes on them that echoed the song's lyrics. Moreover, stories began to emerge that Thicke's sleazy creep persona wasn't all an act -- after a photo showed Thicke groping a female fan, Patton filed for divorce. Thicke's follow-up album ''Paula'' was a desperate and depressing attempt to win her back, only digging him further down, as ''Paula'' bombed with only 24,000 copies sold in the US in its first week. Things only got worse for Thicke after he lost a lawsuit filed by Music/MarvinGaye, which proved that Thicke and collaborator Pharrell Williams copied "Blurred Lines" from Gaye's "Got to Give It Up"; the two were forced to pay Gaye's descendants $7.5 million. What truly solidified Thicke's Deader Than Disco status was in 2015, where rap superstar Music/FloRida had Thicke sing in "I Don't Like It, I Love It". The song spent weeks floating at the bottom of the charts and fell short of the Top 40. Comparing that to Rida's other two singles from the ''My House'' EP, which had no problems reaching the Top 10, and it's easy to see why "I Don't Like It" failed to be a hit. Now, Thicke is seen as a quintessential OneHitWonder to most of the general public. Of course, [[CareerResurrection "never say never"]] is the mantra of the entertainment industry, but for him to recover from falling so far so fast with [[OvershadowedByControversy all the controversy surrounding him]] would take nothing short of a miracle.

* EmoMusic, specifically the 'emo-pop' that burst into the mainstream in the early-mid 2000s. Popularized by bands such as Music/FallOutBoy and Music/MyChemicalRomance, it experienced considerable backlash in the last couple of years of the decade, to the point where artists previously considered to be at the heart of the scene were publicly mocking it. By TheNewTens, groups that had formerly embraced the style had either disbanded or modified their sound, the labels 'emo' and 'scenester' had become epithets and insults among young people, and modern metalcore/scenecore, electronicore, and certain deathcore acts took their place as emo culture gradually transformed into scene. By 2017, there was evidence of a little nostalgia for the genre though - [[https://amp.dailydot.com/upstream/emo-night-new-york-los-angeles/ "Emo Nights" were being hosted in multiple populous US cities]], wherein [=DJs=] would play "emo" songs from the early to mid 2000s and the attendees (usually those who were teenagers in the genre's heyday) would often sing along to their old favorites. Those club nights ran parallel to the rising indie popularity of "emo revival" bands like Modern Baseball, although the style of music they play hews closer to the late '90s midwest emo sound than 2000s emo-pop.

* Hinder was one of the many bands that fell to this status due to the death of PostGrunge. After they signed a deal with Universal Records in 2005 and released their single "Lips of an Angel", the band's rise was meteoric from there. The other two singles off of the album ("How Long" and "Better than Me") soon followed suit, and managed to essentially take over the airwaves. This was all enough to propel the parent album to triple-platinum sales. ''Take It to the Limit'', their 2008 follow-up, debuted even higher at #4, and while its main singles "Use Me" and "Without You" weren't ''quite'' as huge as "Lips of an Angel", they still filled up rock radio. The first sign of serious trouble was when both singles from 2010's ''All American Nightmare'' barely charted. Not only did this not correct itself by 2012, but ''Welcome to the Freakshow'', their fourth major-label album, debuted at #65. Sales were so bad that their major label Republic Records unceremoniously dropped them. The final nail in the coffin was when frontman and founder Austin Winkler left the band in the middle of a tour due to his drug issues. Now signed to The End Records, they released ''When the Smoke Clears'' with a friend of the band on vocals to negative reviews; it managed to peak in the 70s on the Billboard 200 before vanishing the next week. Hinder's 2017 album, ''The Reign'', failed to chart, with "Remember Me" peaking at a lamentable #39 on rock radio. While still around, Hinder has gone from being a well-drawing act to playing in small clubs with other has-beens, and their music is viewed as emblematic of everything that was wrong with modern rock in the mid '00s and early '10s: trashy, misogynistic, childishly hedonistic, and generally moronic.
* Music/LimpBizkit started out in 1997 after they were discovered by Music/{{Korn}}'s Jonathan Davis. Their blend of metal and hip-hop combined with {{angst}}y lyrics and use of turntables was a winning combination for teens and young adults across the world, and brought NuMetal to the forefront of mainstream culture. The sales of their sophomore album ''Significant Other'', shot up to #1 and went 7x platinum in the US alone. Their fame skyrocketed even further when their following album ''Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water'' was released in 2000, which debuted at #1, and went double diamond (over 20 million records sold). However, the band's popularity rapidly collapsed in the early-mid '00s. First was when their guitarist Wes Borland left - [[EnsembleDarkhorse he was a fan-favorite and considered the most talented band member]], so his departure left a huge hole in the lineup. Their 2003 album ''Results May Vary'' was delayed multiple times, got terrible reviews when it finally came out, and barely made it past platinum. This album proved to be a GenreKiller for nu metal, which was already in decline at the time; the general feeling within nu metal circles was that they had created a monster, and had turned the genre into every single thing it was not supposed to be. After a hiatus, they reunited in 2011, when their album ''Gold Cobra'' debuted at a dismal #16 on the Billboard 200. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7r1IctCR_A "Endless Slaughter"]], their latest single off of the [[DevelopmentHell oft-delayed]] ''Stampede of the Disco Elephants'', was met with near-unanimous derision and was widely decried as an incoherent, nonsensical mess. Once one of the turn of the Millennium's most popular rock bands, Limp Bizkit is now considered a disgrace to the genre, and even though nu metal did [[PopularityPolynomial regain some esteem in the eyes of the music industry and the public]], they're still considered a complete joke even by casual listeners. Few bands are more hated nowadays than Limp Bizkit. Yet the funny thing is, [[http://www.aux.tv/2015/03/turns-out-fred-durst-hates-limp-bizkit-fans-as-much-as-everybody-else/ lead singer Fred Durst doesn't really disagree]].

[[/folder]]

* After the death of Music/TupacShakur in 1996, Ja Rule tried to capitalize on his image and persona. Starting in 1999 with his single "Holla Holla", Ja Rule released several chart-topping songs through the 2000s, which got him four Grammy Nominations along with six top ten albums. However, a number of factors would lead to his career's demise before the decade ended. Firstly, for someone who claimed to be a hardcore gangsta rapper, he sang far too often in his songs. Another was his overabundance of, as WebVideo/TheRapCritic describes, "thugs need love too" songs. But what really sealed Ja Rule's fate was the same reason many rappers in the 2000s fell off: [[BullyingADragon he started a feud with]] Music/{{Eminem}}. In 2002, Ja released a song titled "Loose Change", in which Ja Rule had a line specifically aimed at Eminem's then 7-year-old daughter Hailie. Eminem, well-known in rap circles for being [[PapaWolf fiercely protective of his daughter]], was pissed off at the line. In fact, Eminem was so pissed off that he teamed up with D12 and Obie Trice to write a response track called "Hailie's Revenge", where they accused Ja Rule of ripping off Tupac, not being a real gangster, and saying that no one would remember him when he dies. Ja Rule just couldn't keep it going anymore after all of the insults thrown his way, and he ended up joining the dustbin of 2000s rappers that flashed in the pan for a moment before fading into obscurity. The most noteworthy news to spring from Ja Rule since then came in 2017, when he was indicted for fraud due to his involvement in the debacle known as the [[Horrible/MusicFestivals Fyre Festival]]. Ja Rule is now viewed as one of the prime examples of rappers who tried to leech off Tupac's fame and influence; with all of the controversy and bad blood around Ja Rule, it's highly unlikely that he will ever reach the same level of success again.

* Music/VanillaIce burst onto the hip-hop scene in 1990 with his debut single "Ice Ice Baby", which topped the Hot 100, and his debut album ''To the Extreme'' spent seventeen weeks on top of the ''Billboard 200'', going on to sell over seven million copies in the United States. Unfortunately, Ice was being accused of plagiarism, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial which he awkwardly denied]]. The bassline for "Ice Ice Baby" was stolen from Music/{{Queen}} and Music/DavidBowie's "Under Pressure", while another single named "Funky Music" did not properly credit Wild Cherry's lead singer Rob Parissi as a songwriter. His motion picture debut, ''Film/CoolAsIce'', [[BoxOfficeBomb didn't make the Top 10 on its debut weekend]], got terrible reviews, and earned Ice a [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie]] for Worst New Star. His second album, 1994's ''Mind Blowin''' was a gigantic commercial flop. When he released his third album, the RapRock effort ''Hard to Swallow'' in 1998, [[http://www.mtv.com/news/1435113/vanilla-ice-explains-his-skate-rock-comeback/ the executives at Republic Records]] ''seriously'' compared it Creator/JohnTravolta's CareerResurrection in ''Film/PulpFiction''. It was also a huge dud, and once again, no one bought his new image as a nu metal singer. He soon fell into drug addiction and at one point was nearly DrivenToSuicide, forcing him to (understandably) put his recording career on hold. While he's made a full recovery and has made a small fortune [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20317_the-7-most-wtf-post-fame-careers-famous-musicians.html flipping houses]] on The [=DIY=] Network, most people in America see Vanilla Ice as ''the'' [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy punchline]] about white rappers.

* Music/VanillaIce burst onto the hip-hop scene in 1990 with his debut single "Ice Ice Baby", which topped the Hot 100. His next single, "Play That Funky Music", wasn't ''quite'' as big as "Baby", but it was enough to peak at #4. All of this was enough for Ice's debut album ''To the Extreme'' to spend 17 weeks on top of the ''Billboard 200'', going on to sell over 7 million copies in the United States. At this point, Vanilla Ice had a bright future ahead of him.\\
Unfortunately, his record label, SBK Records, had created a fake backstory about Vanilla Ice, and worst of all, Ice was being accused of plagiarism, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial which he awkwardly denied]]. As it turned out, the bassline for "Ice Ice Baby" was stolen from Music/{{Queen}} and Music/DavidBowie's "Under Pressure", while "Funky Music" did not properly credit Wild Cherry's lead singer Rob Parissi as a songwriter. The original artists were then properly credited after the lawsuits were settled, at the cost of "Funky Music" being blacklisted from most radio stations. His motion picture debut, ''Film/CoolAsIce'', [[BoxOfficeBomb didn't make the Top 10 on its debut weekend]], got terrible reviews, and earned Ice a [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie]] for Worst New Star (and its soundtrack debuted at #89). All his albums since then have ''completely failed to chart anywhere''. His second album, 1994's ''Mind Blowin''' was a gigantic commercial flop, not even making the Billboard album chart that ''To the Extreme'' had topped just four years earlier. He changed his image on that album to a dreadlocked stoner, inspired by Music/CypressHill, but no one took that reinvention seriously. When he released his third album, the RapRock effort ''Hard to Swallow'' in 1998, [[http://www.mtv.com/news/1435113/vanilla-ice-explains-his-skate-rock-comeback/ the executives at Republic Records]] ''seriously'' compared it Creator/JohnTravolta's CareerResurrection in ''Film/PulpFiction''. It was also a huge dud, and once again, no one bought his new image as a nu metal singer. He soon fell into drug addiction and at one point was nearly DrivenToSuicide, forcing him to (understandably) put his recording career on hold to focus on his mental health recovery.\\
While he's made a full recovery, is back to recording new music (with Creator/PsychopathicRecords no less), and has made a small fortune [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20317_the-7-most-wtf-post-fame-careers-famous-musicians.html flipping houses]] on [=DIY=] Network, of all things, to most people in America he is ''the'' [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy punchline]] about white rappers. WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead sharing that look of "Are you kidding me?" when the video for "Ice Ice Baby" came on and then abruptly switching channels probably sealed the deal. (They would do the same thing with Music/MilliVanilli.)

* Music/SouljaBoy exploded out of nowhere in 2007 with "Crank That (Soulja Boy)", a viral dance tune that became the first ever rap song to become a hit through the power of the internet. The dance spread across pop culture like wildfire, and the accompanying music video got a whopping ''27 million views'' on Website/YouTube at the height of its popularity, an insane number when [=YouTube=] was still in its infancy. The song topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks in late 2007, when he was just [[ImprobableAge 17 years old]]. A year later, he released "Kiss Me Thru the Phone", which would become an inescapable rap crossover hit that was played non-stop on both pop and rhythmic stations, and sold over five million in the U.S. alone. It seemed like Soulja Boy would continue onward into more viral success.\\
\\
However, his popularity would collapse rapidly by the '10s for a few reasons. His primary audience was kids and teens, who eventually matured and grew out of him. He infamously dissed the well-regarded Music/LupeFiasco in a 2010 interview, prompting Lupe to release a successful diss track in response. Soulja also tried to play the part of being JustForFun/OneOfUs, but gaffed with lyrics that referred to [[Anime/DeathNote Light Yagami]] as "[[IAmNotShazam Death Note]]", turning off the anime fans he was attempting to court. Nowadays, despite his five Top 40 hits, he's remembered as a OneHitWonder for "Crank That", which is only brought up as a symbol of how bad rap music got in the '00s. His newer albums have completely flopped, and an attempt at releasing a "[=SouljaGame=]" line of video game consoles in 2018 backfired badly when they turned out to be [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct rebranded emulator devices]] loaded with pirated games and sold at a markup, leading to a legal threat from Creator/{{Nintendo}} that forced him to quickly pull the machines from sale.

* After the death of Music/TupacShakur in 1996, Ja Rule tried to capitalize on his image and persona. Starting in 1999 with his single "Holla Holla", Ja Rule released several chart-topping songs through the 2000s, which got him four Grammy Nominations along with six top ten albums. However, a number of factors would lead to his career's demise before the decade ended. Firstly, for someone who claimed to be a hardcore gangsta rapper, he sang far too often in his songs. Another was his overabundance of, as WebVideo/TheRapCritic describes, "thugs need love too" songs. But what really sealed Ja Rule's fate was the same reason many rappers in the 2000s fell off: [[BullyingADragon he started a feud with]] Music/{{Eminem}}. In 2002, Ja released a song titled "Loose Change", in which Ja Rule had a line specifically aimed at Eminem's then 7-year-old daughter Hailie. Eminem, well-known in rap circles for being [[PapaWolf fiercely protective of his daughter]], was pissed off at the line. He was so pissed off that he teamed up with D12 and Obie Trice to write a response track called "Hailie's Revenge", where they accused Ja Rule of ripping off Tupac, not being a real gangster, and saying that no one would remember him when he dies. Ja Rule just couldn't keep it going anymore after all of the insults thrown his way, and he ended up joining the dustbin of 2000s rappers that flashed in the pan for a moment before fading into obscurity. Since then, Ja Rule has all but vanished, and is now viewed as one of the prime examples of rappers who tried to leech off Tupac's fame and influence. The most noteworthy news to spring from Ja Rule came in 2017, when he was indicted for fraud due to his involvement in the debacle known as the [[Horrible/MusicFestivals Fyre Festival]]. With all of the controversy and bad blood around him, it's highly unlikely that Ja Rule will ever reach the same level of success again.

* Music/PuddleOfMudd became one of the biggest rock bands in the world after releasing their debut studio album ''Come Clean'', which yielded two massive hits and sold five million copies. Unfortunately, their follow-up, ''Life on Display,'' killed their popularity as fast as ''Come Clean'' made it. The album got trashed by critics and failed to go platinum. They had a small comeback in 2007 when the TitleTrack to their third album ''Famous'' was embraced with open arms by rock radio stations, but it was the Alfred Hitchcock-inspired "Psycho" that looked to put them back on top. But that's not what would happen when they released ''Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate''. The album tanked massively and got the same tepid reviews as ''Life on Display''. Less than a year afterwards, all the original members of the group [[IAmTheBand except Wes Scantlin]] were gone, and it looked like their 2011 cover album would be their last release. In later years, Scantlin became a [[TheAlcoholic raging alcoholic]] and even more notorious for his obnoxious behavior on and off-stage, such as [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_frontman_loses_it_mid_set_calls_out_fan_for_stealing_his_hou accusing a fan of stealing his house]] and [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_singer_arrested_for_the_fourth_time_this_year repeated arrests]]. The final straw was a gig in England in March 2016, when Scantlin was so drunk that [[http://rockfeed.net/2016/03/27/entire-band-quits-puddle-mudd-vocalists-stage-meltdown his bandmates just walked offstage]]. The band released its fifth album ''Welcome to Galvania'' in September 2019, which missed the Billboard 200. However, this would be relegated to a mere footnote in the band's history in April 2020 when a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiwxiiZ01L8&feature=emb_title video]] of them covering Music/{{Nirvana}}'s "About a Girl" was discovered, which quickly went viral and became the subject of several memes due to Scantlin's strained, off-key vocal performance. Today, Puddle of Mudd is one of the most hated bands of the new millennium, with any reference to them today only being done to criticize Wes Scantlin's "whiny voice", the aforementioned video, or as another example of "X-rated post-grunge garbage." Even in the "never say never" world that is the music industry, Puddle of Mudd has fallen so hard that it would be nothing short of a '''miracle''' for them to regain any respect.

* After the death of Music/TupacShakur in 1996, a large number of rappers throughout the late 1990s tried to capitalize on his image and persona. One of the more successful of these knockoffs was Ja Rule. Starting in 1999 with his single "Holla Holla", Ja Rule released several chart-topping songs through the 2000s. These include "Between Me and You", "I'm Real" and "It Ain't Funny". Ja had earned him four Grammy Nominations along with six top ten albums. He is also notable for launching the career of [=RnB=] songstress Music/{{Ashanti}}, who collaborated with him on several hit songs, including the Grammy-nominated #1 hit "Always on Time".\\
However, a number of factors would lead to his career's demise before the decade ended. Firstly, for someone who claimed to be a hardcore gangsta rapper, he sang far too often in his songs (and wasn't even a good singer to boot). Another was his overabundance of, as WebVideo/TheRapCritic describes, "thugs need love too" songs. Essentially, these were songs that tried to pass themselves as SillyLoveSongs (almost always with a female singer on the chorus singing soulfully about how much they needed Ja Rule), while he in turn raps about hardcore sex and how much of a gangster he still is despite his relationship with her. While these songs did do well, "Always on Time" being one of them, the dissonance was too much for some people, as a woman saying how much she loves you while you're simultaneously calling her a bitch and gold-digging whore rubbed people the wrong way. Not to mention he did an ill-advised collaboration song with Music/{{Metallica}} in 2002, which was widely hated by fans of both and promptly forgotten.\\
Ja Rule's death knell was the same reason many rappers in the 2000s fell off: [[BullyingADragon he started a feud with]] Music/{{Eminem}}. In 2002, Ja released a song titled "Loose Change", which was a diss track aimed at Eminem, Music/FiftyCent, and Music/DrDre. In the song, Ja Rule had a line specifically aimed at Eminem's then 7-year-old daughter Hailie ("Em, you claim your mother's a crackhead and Kim is a known slut, so what's Hailie gon' be when she grows up?"). This, [[PapaWolf understandably]], pissed off Eminem. It pissed him off so much that he teamed up with D12 and Obie Trice to write a response track called "Hailie's Revenge" where they accused Ja Rule of ripping off Tupac, not being a real gangster, and saying that no one would remember him when he dies. 50 Cent also dissed Ja Rule in a track, calling him a fake and a phony. Music/BustaRhymes joined in on the conflict by releasing "Hail Mary 2003", a remake of Pac's song "Hail Mary", which was a direct response to Ja Rule's remake of another of Pac's songs "Pain" (titled "So Much Pain"), wherein Busta also laid into Ja's appropriation of Tupac, saying he will never live up to such an icon of rap music. Ja Rule just couldn't keep it going anymore after all of the insults thrown his way, and he ended up joining the dustbin of 2000s rappers that flashed in the pan for a moment before fading into obscurity.\\
Since then, Ja Rule has all but vanished from the spotlight and is now viewed as one of the prime examples of rappers who tried to leech off Tupac's fame and influence. He has been in and out of jail for various drug, gun and assault offenses, and the most noteworthy news to spring from him came in 2017 when he was indicted for fraud due to his involvement in the debacle known as the [[Horrible/MusicFestivals Fyre Festival.]] His last album, ''Pain is Love 2'' from 2012, received tepid reviews and only sold 3,200 copies. While he has a new album, ''Twelve'', [[ScheduleSlip originally scheduled for February 29, 2020 but now in limbo,]] it's doubtful he will reach the heights he did in the 2000s.

* Music/TobyKeith was a big name in CountryMusic for many years. His 1993 debut single "Should've Been a Cowboy" was a #1 smash on the country charts, his first three albums all went platinum, and thirteen of his first fifteen singles made the Top 10 on the country charts. He hit a bump in the road with some label disputes that caused him to leave Creator/MercuryRecords for Creator/DreamWorksRecords at the end of the decade, but his second [=DreamWorks=] single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" went on to become a five-week #1 smash in 2000, while also becoming the biggest country music hit of the year and his first top-40 pop hit. He amassed five albums for [=DreamWorks=] between 1999 and 2005, with all five producing multi-platinum sales. The increase in hits was not without controversy; some fans derided Keith for including macho posturing in his material, and his [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror post-9/11 release]] "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" was seen as too over-the-top in its PatrioticFervor. Despite the pushback, Keith remained a major draw, and seamlessly moved to his own Show Dog label after [=DreamWorks=] Records closed in 2005. Keith's momentum began to slow in the Show Dog era due to a myriad of weak novelty songs, and a decision to always release one album per year -- meaning he often had to pull singles that were doing well on radio just to rush out the lead single to the next album. He seemed to bounce back in 2011 with "Red Solo Cup", which became a viral crossover. However, any momentum brought by that single was killed by his album ''35 MPH Town'' producing Keith's worst-performing streak of hit singles to date, and its followup never materializing due to its intended lead single coming nowhere close to the country top 40. Keith himself is now seen as a punchline for the use of cartoonishly-overblown PatrioticFervor, TestosteronePoisoning, and [[TheAlcoholic excessive use of booze]] in country music, as well as [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the utter incompetence of his labels]].

* Music/TobyKeith was a big name in CountryMusic for many years. His 1993 debut single "Should've Been a Cowboy" was a #1 smash on the country charts, his first three albums all went platinum, and thirteen of his first fifteen singles made the Top 10 on the country charts. He hit a bump in the road with some label disputes that caused him to leave Creator/MercuryRecords for Creator/DreamWorksRecords at the end of the decade, but his second [=DreamWorks=] single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" went on to become a five-week #1 smash in 2000, while also becoming the biggest country music hit of the year and his first top-40 pop hit. He amassed five albums for [=DreamWorks=] between 1999 and 2005, with all five producing multi-platinum sales. The increase in hits was not without controversy; some fans derided Keith for including macho posturing in his material, and his [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror post-9/11 release]] "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" was seen as too over-the-top in its PatrioticFervor. Despite the pushback, Keith remained a major draw, and seamlessly moved to his own Show Dog label after [=DreamWorks=] Records closed in 2005. Keith's momentum began to slow in the Show Dog era due to two factors: a myriad of weak novelty songs, and a decision to always release one album per year -- meaning he often had to pull singles that were doing well on raido just to rush out the lead single to the next album. He seemed to bounce back in 2011 with "Red Solo Cup", which became a viral crossover. However, any momentum brought by that single was killed by his album ''35 MPH Town'' producing his worst-performing streak of hit singles to date, and its followup never materializing due to its intended lead single coming nowhere close to the country top 40. The Show Dog-Universal merger only seemed to drag down Universal South's existing roster of artists thanks to InvisibleAdvertising and poor single choices, with nearly everyone else effectively disappearing. Keith himself is now seen as a punchline for the use of cartoonishly-overblown PatrioticFervor, TestosteronePoisoning, and [[TheAlcoholic excessive use of booze]] in country music, as well as [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the utter incompetence of his labels]].

* Music/{{Sugarland}} went from being one of the hottest acts in country music to falling completely off the radar. The group was founded by lead vocalist Jennifer Nettles, guitarist/mandolinist Kristian Bush, and guitarist Kristen Hall, all of whom had varying degrees of success in Atlanta's folk-rock scene. Their debut album ''Twice the Speed of Life'' produced three Top 10 hits and sold double-platinum, and Nettles sang duet vocals on Music/BonJovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home", a surprise hit on country radio in summer 2006. Not even losing Hall after the first album seemed to slow them down, as their second album sold even better, and accounted for their first #1 hits along with the SignatureSong "Stay", a spare five-minute acoustic ballad which won them two Grammys. ''Love on the Inside'' fared almost as well as its predecessors, netting the duo three more #1 hits and becoming their first album to reach #1 on Top Country Albums. Sugarland was also sweeping the Duo categories at the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association, and seemed to be dethroning Music/BrooksAndDunn as the genre's biggest duo.\\\
Then came their fourth album, ''The Incredible Machine'', in 2010. While lead single "Stuck Like Glue" was a massive crossover and their highest-selling digital single, the album itself was met with mixed reception for its increasing acoustic-pop and arena-rock influences mixed with LighterAndSofter lyrics (elements that were starting to show on ''Love on the Inside''), combined with a jarring {{steampunk}} influence on the album and corresponding tour. The criticism of the duo straying too far from its country roots was only exacerbated through collaborations with artists such as Music/{{Rihanna}} and Matt Nathanson. "Tonight", the final single from the album, became their worst-performing single. The final nail in the coffin, however, wasn't anything related to the band's music or their members' behaviors, but rather ''bad weather'', as just before their performance at the Indiana State Fair in August 2011, a stage collapsed in high winds, killing seven and injuring 58. The duo was held as [[TheScapegoat scapegoats]] for the accident and found themselves at the head of several lawsuits, ultimately resulting in them paying a large chunk of settlements. After cutting a song for the ''Film/ActOfValor'' soundtrack, they went on hiatus (which was already planned anyway due to Jennifer becoming pregnant).\\
Both Jennifer and Kristian recorded solo albums during the hiatus but found little radio success. Their 2018 reunion album ''Bigger'', despite fairly positive critical reception, sold a dismal 50,000 copies and saw both of its singles flop on the charts. In addition, nearly every bit of media coverage about the reunion [[OvershadowedByControversy felt it necessary to place prominence on the Indiana State Fair incident]]. Sugarland's legacy anymore seems to be that of an act that started out strongly, only to grow too [[GenreRoulette experimental]] and too reliant on style over substance -- or worse, as the band who saw their careers "[[{{Pun}} blown away]]" by an unfortunate weather occurrence they had nothing to do with.

* The "Class of '89" ushered in a new generation of country music, when acts such as Music/AlanJackson, Music/GarthBrooks, and Music/ClintBlack brought a new sound that blended traditional sounds (which were [[PopularityPolynomial starting to come back in vogue]] after the ''Film/UrbanCowboy'' era thanks to Music/RandyTravis, Music/GeorgeStrait, etc.) with a slicker, more commercial approach that freshened up the genre for a new generation of fans without fully abandoning traditional country values and sounds. While the "Class of '89" acts are not themselves examples by any means, they did create two examples of this trope by association:

* The sub-genre of bro-country has come to be this. In late 2012, duo Music/FloridaGeorgiaLine had a smash crossover with their debut single "Cruise", which would set the tone of country music by male artists in the years to come: hip-hop beats, hair-metal guitar work, and street slang were combined with lyrics about hot women, trucks, beer, and partying. In other words, bro-country effectively ran the hedonism of GlamRap through both {{fratbro}} and DeepSouth filters simultaneously. An article published in 2013 by ''New York'' magazine writer Jody Rosen coined the term "bro-country" to describe the insurgence of artists who were playing FollowTheLeader in the wake of "Cruise", including up-and-comers like Music/ColeSwindell, Music/SamHunt, Music/ThomasRhett, Music/BrantleyGilbert, and Chase Rice (who co-wrote "Cruise"). Existing acts like Music/LukeBryan, Music/JakeOwen, Music/BlakeShelton, and Music/JasonAldean also released singles that were at least partially indebted to the new sound. While younger male fans kept the songs in heavy radio rotation and strong sales, bro-country was quickly subject to derision for being StrictlyFormula, as lampshaded in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o a viral video mashup which played six bro-country songs on top of each other]] to show that [[FollowTheLeader they all sounded pretty much the same]]. The genre was also mocked for its misogynistic and shallow lyrics, along with an overall absence of country influence. Even other artists lambasted the shift: Music/{{Zac Brown|Band}} openly called Bryan's mid-2013 hit "That's My Kind of Night" one of the worst songs he had ever heard, and Music/SteveEarle called it [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy "hip-hop for people who are afraid of black people"]] and criticized new male artists from Nashville, while artists such as Music/BradPaisley and Music/KennyChesney expressed derision toward the mindset that bro-country was creating.\\\
One of the first real blows to bro-country came in late 2014, when female duo Music/MaddieAndTae came from nowhere with "Girl in a Country Song", a song lampooning bro-country's perspective on women which shot to #1 on the country charts. A few months later in 2015, radio consultant Keith Hill came under fire for making a sexist comment in an interview with ''Country Aircheck'', saying that radio stations should play fewer female than male artists, respectively comparing them to the tomatoes and lettuce in a salad. The ensuing controversy, dubbed [[{{Scandalgate}} "Tomatogate" or "Saladgate"]], led to a massive outcry about sexism and misogyny in the genre. By 2015, Rosen had [[OldShame expressed disdain for coining the term "bro-country"]] and regretted how it had come to become a derogatory term, while many music critics felt that the trends of the subgenre were dying down. Most of the artists who spearheaded bro-country -- Bryan, Aldean, Rhett, and Florida Georgia Line -- weathered the backlash by shifting to a more ballad-driven sound. Even the poppiest-sounding country songs since 2016 have displayed none of bro-country's themes whatsoever, and some artists even began to go out of their way to put more positive portrayals of women in their songs (such as Chris Janson's "Drunk Girl"). Also not helping matters was the changing politics of country music and its fans —- the genre was rapidly gaining popularity with young, culturally liberal women from pockets of the country generally less enthusiastic about country music. These fans were generally much more likely to push back against bro-country than the more conservative and predominantly male fans who made bro-country popular in the first place. By the end of TheNewTens, most male artists in country tended either toward a more romantic subgenre sometimes termed "boyfriend country" or to twangy sounds similar to the aforementioned "neotraditional" boom of the early 1990s, while many female artists such as Music/MarenMorris and Music/KelseaBallerini have rapidly risen in the ranks. In short, "bro-country" is very much dead and an OldShame for the genre as a whole.

* Music/TobyKeith was a big name in CountryMusic for many years. His 1993 debut single "Should've Been a Cowboy" was a #1 smash on the country charts and was the most-played song on country radio for the entire 1990s decade. His first three albums were all certified platinum, and all but two of his first fifteen singles had made Top 10 on the country charts. He hit a bump in the road with some label disputes that caused him to leave Creator/MercuryRecords for Creator/DreamWorksRecords at the end of the decade, but his second [=DreamWorks=] single "How Do You Like Me Now?!" went on to become a five-week #1 smash in 2000, while also becoming the biggest country music hit of the year ''and'' his first top 40 pop hit. He amassed five albums for [=DreamWorks=] between 1999 and the label's closure in 2005, with all five producing a near-endless string of smash hits and, for the first time in his career, multi-platinum sales. The increase in hits was not without controversy, as some fans derided him for beginning to include macho posturing in his material (such as "How Do You Like Me Now?!" and the CountryRap "I Wanna Talk About Me"). He also inspired further divisiveness with his [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror post-9/11 release]] "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)", which some felt was too over-the-top in its PatrioticFervor (and the subject of a highly publicized feud with Music/DixieChicks lead singer Natalie Maines). Despite the pushback over his new image, he remained a major draw at radio, and seamlessly moved to his own Show Dog label after [=DreamWorks=] Records closed.\\\
His momentum began to slow in the Show Dog era, due to two factors: 1.) a myriad of weak novelty songs such as "She's a Hottie", "Every Dog Has Its Day", and "Trailerhood" 2.) a decision to always release one album per year, an unfeasible choice when the singles charts moved much slower than in the 1990s -- thus meaning he often had to pull singles that were showing potential just to rush out the lead single to the next album. Despite this decline, he was still a big moneymaker thanks to Show Dog (which later merged with the existing Universal South label to become Show Dog-Universal), a line of mezcal, and the restaurant chain Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill. He seemed to bounce back in 2011 with "Red Solo Cup", which became a viral crossover due to its tongue-in-cheek lyrics and quirky, cameo-filled music video. However, any momentum brought by that single was killed by Toby choosing to make the next ''four'' singles all themed after alcohol in some fashion. This culminated in his album ''35 MPH Town'' producing his worst-performing streak of hit singles to date, and its followup never even materializing due to its intended lead single coming nowhere close to the country top 40. Meanwhile, I Love This Bar & Grill was coming unraveled due to a myriad of franchise issues, causing many locations to close and many more planned locations to stop construction abruptly. The Show Dog-Universal merger only seemed to drag down Universal South's existing roster of artists thanks to InvisibleAdvertising and poor single choices, with nearly everyone else save for Joe Nichols and Randy Houser effectively disappearing.\\\
Keith himself is now seen as a punchline for the use of cartoonishly overblown PatrioticFervor (not helped when he kept going back to America well so many times with "American Soldier", "American Ride", and "Made in America" -- nor by such things as his restaurant chain unironically calling its French fries "freedom fries" as late as 2015!), TestosteronePoisoning (see "I Wanna Talk About Me", "Who's Your Daddy?", "She's a Hottie", etc.), and [[TheAlcoholic booze]] (nearly every single from "Red Solo Cup" onward) in country music, as well as [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the utter incompetence of his label]].

* In 2003 and '04, Music/AshleeSimpson piggybacked off of her older sister Music/{{Jessica|Simpson}}'s reality show ''Series/NewlywedsNickAndJessica'' to enjoy a meteoric rise. She was billed as a DarkerAndEdgier version of Jessica (she dyed her hair black! And she played rock!), and was expected to follow Jessica's footsteps to become a major pop star with a PopPunk sound akin to Music/AvrilLavigne. Her first album, 2004's ''Autobiography'', went triple platinum. Then came [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RrLAgi_mBY her disastrous performance]] on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' in October 2004, where she was [[ThatSyncingFeeling caught lip-syncing]] when her band started playing the wrong song, followed by an embarrassing "hoe-down" when she [[OhCrap realized what was happening]]. While she still had three more hit songs following the incident, her image was badly tarnished. Matters were only made worse by an equally disastrous half-time performance at the Orange Bowl a few months later, in which she ''was'' singing live -- and it showed.\\\
Together, the two concert debacles created the impression that Ashlee couldn't actually sing without studio help, and [[CreatorKiller her music career was all but over]]. Her following album, 2005's ''I Am Me'', sold far less than ''Autobiography'' and didn't even reach the platinum mark, and she only released one more album after that, the commercial bomb ''Bittersweet World'' in 2008. She's had a bit more success as an actress, playing Violet Foster on the short-lived ''Series/MelrosePlace'' SequelSeries and Roxie Hart in Broadway and West End productions of ''Theatre/{{Chicago}}'' while mostly abandoning the punk image of her days as a pop star, but when she's brought up today (outside the tabloids and reality TV), it's usually in the same breath as Music/MilliVanilli, as the punchline of jokes about lip-syncing and manufactured pop stars.

* Not long after they were discovered by [[Music/LimpBizkit Fred Durst]], Music/PuddleOfMudd became one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Their album ''Come Clean'', released in 2001, would become one of the biggest sleeper success stories of the year. By the end of its run, ''Come Clean'' would have sold more than five million copies. Unfortunately, their follow-up, ''Life on Display,'' would prove to kill their popularity as fast as ''Come Clean'' made it. The album got trashed by critics and failed to go platinum. They would have a small comeback in 2007 when the title track to their third album ''Famous'' was embraced with open arms by rock radio stations, but it was the Alfred Hitchcock-inspired "Psycho" that looked to put them back on top. But that's not what would happen when they released ''Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate''. The album tanked massively and got the same tepid reviews as ''Life on Display''. Less than a year afterwards, all the original members of the group [[IAmTheBand except Wes Scantlin]] were gone, and it looked like their 2011 cover album would be their last release. In later years, Scantlin became a [[TheAlcoholic raging alcoholic]] and even more notorious for his obnoxious behavior on and off-stage, such as [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_frontman_loses_it_mid_set_calls_out_fan_for_stealing_his_hou accusing a fan of stealing his house]] and [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_singer_arrested_for_the_fourth_time_this_year repeated arrests]]. The final straw was a gig in England in March 2016, when Scantlin was so drunk that [[http://rockfeed.net/2016/03/27/entire-band-quits-puddle-mudd-vocalists-stage-meltdown his bandmates just walked offstage]]. The band released its fifth album ''Welcome to Galvania'' in September 2019, which missed the Billboard 200. However, this would be relegated to a mere footnote in the band's history in April 2020 when a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiwxiiZ01L8&feature=emb_title video]] of them covering Music/{{Nirvana}}'s "About a Girl" was discovered, which quickly went viral and became the subject of several memes due to Scantlin's strained, off-key vocal performance. Today, Puddle of Mudd is one of the most hated bands of the new millennium, with any reference to them today only being done to criticize Wes Scantlin's "whiny voice", the aforementioned video, or as another example of "X-rated post-grunge garbage." Even in the "never say never" world that is the music industry, Puddle of Mudd has fallen so hard that it would be nothing short of a '''miracle''' for them to regain any respect.

* {{Charity Motivation Song}}s. The first few multi-artist singles were done in response to the famine in Ethiopia in TheEighties, and they were seen as revolutionary in bringing many artists together to promote a worthy cause. Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" and USA For Africa's "Music/WeAreTheWorld", both aimed at supporting those affected by the famine, [[FollowTheLeader are credited for kicking off the trend]] (though a Canadian response to both singles called "Tears Are Not Enough" was also successful), and other multi-artist singles since then, such as the 1991 song "Voices That Care" (aimed at boosting the morale of those fighting in the Gulf War -- which ended the very day the single got released) and the Artists Against AIDS Worldwide recording of "What's Going On", made international charts. As time went on, however, ValuesDissonance kicked in and multi-artist charity songs are now largely viewed as {{Glurge}} and (as [[http://www.avclub.com/article/we-care-a-lot-14-overblown-charityadvocacy-songs-b-2217 this brilliant AV Club article]] notes) mostly concerned about promoting the artists themselves instead of the cause.\\\
While the UK, who brought us "Do They Know" many years earlier, has continued to pump out multi-artist charity singles, many of which went to #1, the last American one of note was the 2010 "We Are The World" remake benefiting those affected by the Haitian earthquake, which, despite [[CriticProof peaking at #2 on the charts]], was widely panned by critics and [[FirstInstallmentWins considered inferior to the original version]]. Adding a rap verse, having autotuned parts courtesy of Akon and T-Pain (both of whom became this trope after a few years), and giving parts to people such as Music/MileyCyrus, Nick Jonas, and Music/JustinBieber, probably did not help, even though it also featured the likes of Tony Bennett, Music/BarbraStreisand and Music/CelineDion, as well as keeping the vocals of Music/MichaelJackson from the original as a tribute to him. It also held the distinction of being the lowest-rated song of all-time on Rate Your Music for several years. Nowadays, even the original charity singles like "We Are the World" have been derided as egotistical-sounding glurgefests -- the only song to really escape this is Band Aid's original recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which may also be a divisive song but still enjoys airplay around Christmastime and otherwise doesn't share much of the tropes that sour many charity recordings; and even that song is accused of having a negative portrayal of Africa.

* Of all the artists to top the Hot 100 in TheNewTens, few fell as hard and fast as R&B singer Music/RobinThicke. He had been around for years, with several hits on urban radio, one major pop hit ("Lost Without U", also the top single of 2007 on the R&B chart) and steady work as a songwriter for other artists. He finally broke through in 2013, riding a wave of NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity thanks to his kinda-sleazy song "Blurred Lines", which became the unofficial Song of the Summer, and an equally controversial performance with Music/MileyCyrus at the 2013 [=VMAs=]. This seemed to work primarily because of a carefully constructed image of a RuleAbidingRebel - he played the part of a [[HandsomeLech lecherous womanizer]], but got something of a pass because he was clearly HappilyMarried and devoted to his wife and high school sweetheart, actress Paula Patton, who appeared on the cover of his debut ''A Beautiful World''.\\
However, the controversy surrounding "Blurred Lines" began to catch up to it, with a popular Tumblr post that featured rape survivors holding up cards with their rapists' quotes on them that eerily echoed the song's lyrics and others like it gaining public attention. Moreover, throughout 2013 and 2014, stories began to emerge that Thicke's sleazy creep persona ''wasn't'' all an act, and after getting proof in the form of a photo taken in an elevator with mirrored walls showing him groping a female fan, Patton publicly left him. His follow-up album ''Paula'', as the name implies, was a transparent, desperate and depressing attempt to win her back, only digging him further down. And to make [[FromBadToWorse matters worse]], ''Paula'' bombed with only 24,000 copies sold in the US in its first week (compared to 177,000 for his debut) and international numbers even worse (only 550 copies in Canada, 530 in the UK, and ''158 in Australia'' - [[HumiliationConga even being knocked out of the top 500 bestselling albums of the year]] in that country by a GreatestHitsAlbum from Music/{{Blondie}}, which sold 15''9'' units). By the summer of 2014, Thicke's name became more synonymous with "that rapey song" than anything else, with few people defending the implications of "Blurred Lines" anymore.\\
Things only got worse for Thicke with the allegations that he copied his megahit from Music/MarvinGaye, which proved to be true, and in March 2015, Thicke and collaborator Pharrell Williams (who managed to escape this status) lost the lawsuit and were forced to pay Gaye's descendants $7.5 million due to the jury finding that "Blurred Lines" infringed the rights of "Got to Give It Up". Today, most of the rhythmic and urban stations that he had been a staple of for over a decade have dropped him from the airwaves, or at least significantly downplayed his presence. Even airplay of his mega-hit nowadays is sporadic as the aforementioned subtext and infringement of the song have become its most famous aspects. [[http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/why-robin-thicke-new-vanilla-ice/ Thicke has been called]] the Music/VanillaIce of the 2010s. It's likely he'll be seen as an OldShame for many of his former fans and for those who actually liked "Blurred Lines" at the height of its popularity (what also doesn't help is the fact that Music/WeirdAlYankovic parodied it to make "Word Crimes" for ''Mandatory Fun''). What truly solidified Thicke's DeaderThanDisco status was in 2015, where rap superstar Music/FloRida attempted to breathe some life into his career by having him sing in his summer jam "I Don't Like It, I Love It". Not only did it not help revive his career, but he brought the song down as well. It spent weeks floating at the bottom of the charts and fell short of the Top 40 peaking at ''#43'', before subsequently plummeting downward. Comparing that to Rida's other two singles from the ''My House'' EP ("G.D.F.R." and the TitleTrack), which had no problems reaching the Top 10, it's easy to see why it failed to be a hit. The final nail was "Back Together" featuring Music/NickiMinaj, which tried to throw back the disco sounds of "Blurred Lines", only to fail to get any traction whatsoever. While other similar R&B crossover stars with a single pop hit like Pharrell Williams remain iconic examples of R&B in TheNewTens, Thicke is seen as a quintessential OneHitWonder to most of the general public. Of course, [[CareerResurrection "never say never"]] is the mantra of the entertainment industry, but for him to recover from falling that far that fast with [[OvershadowedByControversy all the controversy surrounding him]] would take nothing short of a miracle at this point.

* EmoMusic, specifically the 'emo-pop' that burst into the mainstream in the early-mid 2000s. Popularized by bands such as Music/FallOutBoy and Music/MyChemicalRomance, it experienced considerable backlash in the last couple of years of the decade, to the point where artists previously considered to be at the heart of the scene were publicly mocking it. By TheNewTens, groups that had formerly embraced the style had either disbanded or modified their sound, the labels 'emo' and 'scenester' had become epithets and insults among young people, and modern metalcore/scenecore, electronicore, and certain deathcore acts took their place as emo culture gradually transformed into scene.\\\
By 2017, there was evidence of a little nostalgia for the genre though - [[https://amp.dailydot.com/upstream/emo-night-new-york-los-angeles/ "Emo Nights" were being hosted in multiple populous US cities]], wherein [=DJs=] would play "emo" songs from the early to mid 2000s and the attendees (usually those who were teenagers in the genre's heyday) would often sing along to their old favorites. Those club nights ran parallel to the rising indie popularity of "emo revival" bands like Modern Baseball, although the style of music they play hews closer to the late '90s midwest emo sound than 2000s emo-pop.
* While scene (basically the DenserAndWackier evolution of emo) largely supplanted emo, it too has become Deader Than Disco as of the late 2010s. The roots of scene started to emerge on [=MySpace=] and Facebook roughly around 2005 or 2006 and slowly grew over the next two years when emo was on its last legs and most emo-pop acts were either transitioning to more straightforward pop punk or post-hardcore sound or breaking up. Unlike emo, there was no actual scene genre, but it can generally be agreed upon that modern metalcore (particularly Music/TheDevilWearsPrada, Music/AskingAlexandria, Music/BringMeTheHorizon, Music/ADayToRemember, Music/EscapeTheFate, Music/BlackVeilBrides, Music/MotionlessInWhite, and Music/FallingInReverse; the association was so strong that this type of metalcore was commonly dubbed "scenecore"), electronicore, crunkcore, and certain deathcore artists (primarily Music/SuicideSilence, as well as Attila and Chelsea Grin) were commonly associated with the culture, and the Warped Tour was the tastemaker and general epicenter of the movement. It rapidly ascended to the forefront of alternative youth culture throughout 2009, and by 2010, it had fully taken emo's place, and the image of the swoop haircut (for men) or poofy, layered, heavily dyed hair (for women) and bright, garish, high-contrast color motifs was burned into the cultural consciousness. By 2013, however, it was beginning to die out; the steady decline of the Warped Tour was dragging down scene with the ship, while the death of Mitch Lucker and the near-constant stream of sexual misconduct allegations against numerous musicians helped hasten its demise, and it rapidly died off over 2014 before keeling over completely in 2015. Its fall completely wiped out electronicore and the last vestiges of crunkcore, while the modern metalcore acts that were tied to it found themselves either breaking up or substantially retooling their sounds, and scene fashion barely hung on in the juggalo subculture for another year or two. Nowadays, scene is generally regarded as the distillation of all of the most ridiculous and trashy aspects of the late 2000s and early 2010s youth culture full of annoying music, predatory scumbags using their position to sexually exploit young fans, and ceaseless petty drama, and while most of the acts that successfully escaped the scene label are still doing quite well, the ones who didn't survive are viewed as the dregs of the Warped Tour, and scene fashion is almost exclusively viewed as the current domain of [[LowerClassLout lowlives]].

* PostGrunge is dead in the water today, being to the TurnOfTheMillennium what the trope namer was to TheSeventies -- the punchline of a decade. It originated when bands played music that took the [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth most popular elements]] of {{Grunge}} music while scrubbing down the more experimental elements and doing away with the dour lyrics that were undergoing a backlash at the time due in part to Music/KurtCobain's suicide. Post-grunge quickly became the most popular mainstream rock genre in the late '90s and only continued to get bigger in the 2000s, providing an ample amount of crossover hits and the forerunners of the genre such as Music/FooFighters, Music/{{Creed}}, and Music/{{Nickelback}} became some of the biggest bands in the world. And since post-grunge was mainstream friendly, people flocked to it to get away from more "dangerous" music genres; then, when "dangerous" music was in vogue again, a wave of harder-tinged (yet still mainstream-friendly) acts like Hinder, Music/{{Buckcherry}}, and Music/SavingAbel came out to cater to those who were starting to write the original acts off as too light.\\\
By the late 2000s though, fatigue would set in for a variety of reasons. Firstly, while other rock genres, most notably EmoMusic and the PostPunk[=/=]GarageRock revival, grew in popularity around this time period, post-grunge reigned with a virtual stranglehold on the mainstream to the point where it became inseparable from rock music as a whole, especially with its oversaturation on American radio stations. On top of that, the genre built up a reputation for being [[StrictlyFormula formulaic]] in its musical structure and lyrics. With those two combined, it didn't take long for a backlash against the music and the bands playing it to reach full swing. Bands like Creed and Nickelback became the biggest targets of mockery and were held responsible for having [[GenreKiller "killed rock music"]] (or at least leaving it stagnant). The harder-tinged acts also faced backlash for the [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll childishly hedonistic]] and [[MisogynySong misogynistic]] themes of their own lyrics; the bands that avoided these sorts of themes had to either modify their sound or [[GenreShift abandon the genre completely]] in order to stay afloat. And because post-grunge had become nearly inseparable from rock music as a whole for over a decade, many rock fans felt that once the genre succumbed to its own fatigue, it did [[TakingYouWithMe lasting damage to rock music's reputation]] and contributed to its decline from the mainstream music scene of the 2010s, enabling ElectronicMusic to fill in the void and finally establish a foothold on the mainstream American music consciousness. Music/{{Shinedown}}’s 2009 #7 hit "Second Chance" remains, as of 2020, the most recent pop crossover hit from the Mainstream Rock genre charts.\\\
Today, post-grunge is held up as a cautionary tale in what happens when you take a genre as unique as grunge and turn it into a [[MoneyDearBoy mass-produced commercial product]]. Only a few bands managed to survive the fall and still consistently put out hits and play to decently sized audiences (though not nearly as large as in their prime), and even then, those bands [[NewSoundAlbum incorporated elements of other genres into their sound]] to the point that some would say they're "[[NoTrueScotsman not really post-grunge anyway]]" or [[GenreShift abandoned it altogether]]. Besides them, the scene is a graveyard full of bands that can't chart to save their lives, are stuck playing in small clubs, and are little more than targets of mockery (if they aren't completely forgotten altogether). Whenever anyone uses the term [[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Butt%20Rock "butt rock"]] in a derisive fashion, they're most likely referring to post-grunge, and one would have a hard time finding a rock band formed in the '10s that plays this style, since LighterAndSofter pop/indie-inspired rock and ElectronicMusic-infused rock have become the vogue. If a band is going to play harder-edged rock in this day and age, it will most certainly not be in the style of post-grunge.

* Music/{{Creed}} was arguably the biggest band in the world around the turn of the 21st century, reaching their peak with their Diamond-selling sophomore album ''Human Clay'' in 1999. However, between frontman Scott Stapp's on- and off-stage antics and their {{Signature Song}}s "With Arms Wide Open" and "Higher" being played on a seemingly infinite loop on the radio, a backlash formed from which the band would never recover despite breakups, reunions, and follow-up albums. The tipping point came when the band performed in Chicago at the Allstate Arena in 2002. Stapp was so drunk that he could barely stand up, and he fell off the stage several times and eventually got booed off after only three songs, with many people calling it one of the absolute worst performances in the history of rock music. Creed soon broke up, and [[TheBandMinusTheFace the backing band]] formed Music/AlterBridge with a different singer. While never nearly as successful as Creed (just one gold album and a #1 Mainstream Rock hit), Alter Bridge is [[SurprisinglyImprovedSequel a much more respected band, with Mark Tremonti becoming an elite guitarist]]. When Creed reunited in 2009, tour sales were so poor that tickets cost ''less than a dollar.'' Stapp's personal life, meanwhile, spiraled out of control, to the point that he was broke and living alone in a hotel for a period of time; while he managed to cobble together a solo career, said career has never risen above small rock clubs in the few areas of the United States and Canada where his style of rock still draws. His brief run with Art of Anarchy saw similarly middling returns and culminated in a lawsuit against him in 2018 for failing to fulfill his contractually-obligated duties to the band.\\\
Today, Creed remains one of the biggest pariahs of the music world, being [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-ten-worst-bands-of-the-nineties-20130509/1-creed-0736783 voted as the worst band]] of the '90s by the readers of ''Magazine/RollingStone'' in 2013 by such an overwhelming margin that the editors said the competition "wasn't even close" between Creed and second-placer Music/{{Nickelback}}. Today, it is a social taboo to admit to being a Creed fan or even admitting to owning one of their albums during their GloryDays, the general consensus on them being that they were a [[PoorMansSubstitute poor man's ripoff]] of Music/PearlJam with an obnoxious frontman (both [[{{Yarling}} on]] and [[{{Jerkass}} off]] the stage). [[http://grantland.com/features/taking-concert-doubleheader-creed-nickelback-world-most-hated-bands/ An article]] by Creator/ChuckKlosterman about his experience seeing both Creed and Nickelback's New York concerts the same night notes how "people who talk about Creed want to position themselves as distanced from what Creed is alleged to represent".
* Hinder, as noted above, was one of the many bands that fell to this status due to the fall of PostGrunge. After spending some time in the underground, they signed a deal with Universal Records in 2005. While "Get Stoned", their first single off of ''Extreme Behavior'' (their major-label debut), wasn't a massive hit, it was enough to make the album debut at #6 on the Billboard 200. That changed when "Lips of an Angel" was released. The band's rise was meteoric from there. Topping multiple charts and staying there for a while, "Lips of an Angel" was ''ubiquitous'', to the point that a CountryMusic cover by Jack Ingram was also a minor success. The other two singles off of the album ("How Long" and "Better than Me") soon followed suit and managed to essentially take over the airwaves for this band, and this was all enough to propel the parent album to triple-platinum sales. Hinder was one of the biggest modern rock acts on the planet at this time. ''Take It to the Limit'', their 2008 follow-up, debuted even higher at #4, and while its main singles "Use Me" and "Without You" weren't ''quite'' as huge as "Lips of an Angel", they still filled up rock radio. That being said, it was obvious that the band had slid some, as it took forever to even reach Gold and has still not reached Platinum; some of this may have been their move towards a sound more reminiscent of HairMetal as opposed to the hard rock-tinged post-grunge of ''Extreme Behavior''.\\\
The first sign of serious trouble was when both singles from 2010's ''All American Nightmare'' barely charted (though the TitleTrack was a #6 hit) and the album itself only debuted at #37. While plenty of bands would still see this as a big success, it was a ''massive'' slide from where they were. Not only did this not correct itself by 2012, but ''Welcome to the Freakshow'', their fourth major-label album, debuted at #65 (only selling 60,000 copies as of 2015), and "Save Me", the lead single, charted even lower. Sales were so bad that their major label Republic Records unceremoniously dropped them. The final nail in the coffin was when frontman and founder Austin Winkler left the band ''in the middle of a tour'' due to his drug issues. The band tested out Jared Weeks, the former frontman of Music/SavingAbel (another band that fell to complete obscurity when post-grunge declined), for the rest of their tour, only for him to leave soon afterward. Now signed to The End Records, a rock label owned by rising star BMG, they released ''When the Smoke Clears'' with a friend of the band on vocals to negative reviews; it managed to peak in the 70s on the Billboard 200 before vanishing the next week. Lead single "Hit the Ground" barely charted on Mainstream Rock, and the band had to crowdfund the album just to try and build some buzz due to nonexistent promotion from their label. Hinder's 2017 album, ''The Reign'', failed to chart, with "Remember Me" peaking at a lamentable ''#39'' on rock radio. Around that time, the remaining band members sued former lead singer Winkler [[http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7949080/hinder-sues-former-lead-singer-trademark over trademark infringement]].\\\
While still around, Hinder has gone from being a well-drawing live act and being all over the airwaves to playing in small clubs with other has-beens and barely making the charts, and their music is viewed as emblematic of everything that was wrong with modern rock in the mid '00s and early '10s: trashy, misogynistic, childishly hedonistic, and generally moronic. When people refer to an act as "butt rock", they're talking about bands like Hinder. Also, it's [[ItWasHisSled pretty well known by now]] that "Lips of an Angel" is about a man pining for his ex despite his ''present'' girlfriend being in the next room, and saying he has to whisper even though he belts out the chorus... in other words, it's a song that's all about YourCheatingHeart. This becomes HarsherInHindsight when one realizes that [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5041045/Former-Hinder-singer-Austin-Winkler-accused-strangling.html Winkler is divorced, and was accused of domestic abuse by an ex-girlfriend]]. Suffice to say, Hinder is all but forgotten, and if they're even remembered at all, it's to be a punchline for being one of the worst examples of "x-rated post-grunge".
* Music/LimpBizkit started out in 1997 after they were discovered by Music/{{Korn}}'s Jonathan Davis. Limp Bizkit's debut ''Three Dollar Bill, Y'all$'' initially went unnoticed, but they were able to get good word-of-mouth spread out through extensive touring, eventually going up to #22 on album charts. Their blend of metal and hip-hop combined with {{angst}}y lyrics and use of turntables was a winning combination for teens and young adults across the world, and brought NuMetal to the forefront of mainstream culture. They also performed at Woodstock '99, which ended in complete disaster, and the band's performance of "Break Stuff" was highly criticized as having fanned the flames of discontent among the crowd. Whether it truly was their fault or not is still debated over to this day. Still, this did nothing to hinder the sales of their sophomore album ''Significant Other'', which shot up to #1 and went 7x platinum in the US alone. Their fame skyrocketed even further when their following album ''Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water'' was released in 2000, which debuted at #1, going platinum in its first week, and overall sold over 20 million records worldwide. Songs like "Nookie", "Break Stuff", "Re-Arranged", "My Way", "Take a Look Around", and "Rollin'" dominated the airwaves of rock radio. They even crossed over to urban radio with the [[Music/WuTangClan Method Man]]-backed "N 2 Gether Now". They were on top of the world, and while they never were critical darlings, [[CriticalDissonance their sales spoke differently]].\\\
However, the band's popularity rapidly collapsed in the early-mid '00s. First was when their guitarist Wes Borland left - [[EnsembleDarkhorse he was a fan-favorite and considered the most talented band member]], so his departure left a huge hole in the lineup. Next, they were forced off the stage on the Chicago date of the [[Music/{{Metallica}} Summer Sanitarium Tour]] in 2003 when audience members hurled trash at Durst and chanted "FUCK FRED DURST!" until Durst stormed offstage. Finally, their 2003 album ''Results May Vary'' was delayed multiple times, got terrible reviews when it finally came out, and barely made it past platinum. Not helping matters was an ill-received cover of "[[Music/TheWho Behind Blue Eyes]]". This album proved to be a GenreKiller for nu metal, which was already in decline at the time, and had come to hate Limp Bizkit as a whole; the general feeling within nu metal circles was that they had made a monster that was going to destroy the genre, and had turned it into every single thing it was not supposed to be. The album was also a CreatorKiller for Limp Bizkit, as the band soon went on a hiatus. They later reunited in 2011, when their album ''Gold Cobra'' got the best reviews in their career, yet it debuted at a dismal #16 on the Billboard 200. However, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7r1IctCR_A "Endless Slaughter"]], their latest single off of the [[DevelopmentHell oft-delayed]] ''Stampede of the Disco Elephants'', was met with near-unanimous derision and was widely decried as an incoherent, nonsensical mess.\\\
Once one of the turn of the Millennium's most popular rock bands, Limp Bizkit is now considered a disgrace to the genre, and even though nu metal did [[PopularityPolynomial regain some esteem in the eyes of the music industry and the public]], they're still considered a complete joke even by casual listeners. Rock radio has almost completely given up on Limp Bizkit, and most of their airplay comes from "N 2 Gether Now" on urban radio. The band is so hated in the States that [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff most of their touring is done overseas]], where they weren't hit nearly as bad as with the backlash. The last time they really made any news at all was when long-time turntablist DJ Lethal was fired due to his [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll drug issues]]. While they're still relatively popular in Europe and Latin America, few bands are more hated nowadays than Limp Bizkit, and the funny thing is, [[http://www.aux.tv/2015/03/turns-out-fred-durst-hates-limp-bizkit-fans-as-much-as-everybody-else/ Fred Durst doesn't really disagree with the criticism]].
* Not long after they were discovered by [[Music/LimpBizkit Fred Durst]], Music/PuddleOfMudd became one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Their album ''Come Clean'', released in 2001, would become one of the biggest sleeper success stories of the year. The song "Blurry" would go on to become an enormous megahit, being played nonstop on rock and pop stations across the country. "She Hates Me" would continue the hot streak, and "Control" and "Drift & Die," although not commissioned to pop radio, would keep their popularity in the stratosphere. By the end of its run, ''Come Clean'' would have sold more than five million copies.\\\
Unfortunately, their follow-up, ''Life on Display,'' would prove to kill their popularity as fast as ''Come Clean'' made it. The album got trashed by critics and failed to even go platinum, and none of its singles came close to the monumental success of "Blurry" or "She Hates Me." Puddle of Mudd quickly vanished from public consciousness after that. They would have a small comeback in 2007 when the title track to their third album ''Famous'' was embraced with open arms by rock radio stations, but it was the Alfred Hitchcock-inspired "Psycho" that put them back on top, as it would go on to be their biggest hit on both the active and modern rock formats since "Blurry". It looked like Puddle of Mudd was about to reclaim their throne.\\\
But that's not what would happen when they released ''Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate''. Not only would the album tank massively and get the same tepid reviews as ''Life on Display'', despite two #6 hits on Mainstream Rock ("Spaceship" and "Stoned"). Less than a year afterwards, all the original members of the group [[IAmTheBand except Wes Scantlin]] were gone, and it looked like their 2011 cover album would be their last release.\\\
In later years, Scantlin became a [[TheAlcoholic raging alcoholic]] and even more notorious for his obnoxious behavior on and off-stage, such as [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_frontman_loses_it_mid_set_calls_out_fan_for_stealing_his_hou accusing a fan of stealing his house]] and [[http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/puddle_of_mudd_singer_arrested_for_the_fourth_time_this_year repeated arrests]]. The final straw was a gig in England in March 2016, when Scantlin was so drunk that [[http://rockfeed.net/2016/03/27/entire-band-quits-puddle-mudd-vocalists-stage-meltdown his bandmates walked offstage]].\\
\\
In 2017, Scantlin went to rehab, later sobered up and settled his legal problems. The band released its fifth album ''Welcome to Galvania'' in September 2019, which missed the Billboard 200. Despite very poor sales (about 1,675 copies [not including streams/tracks] on its first week), ''Galvania'' was generally seen as an improvement over ''Volume 4'', with its lead single "Uh Oh" becoming their first Top 10 Mainstream Rock hit in nearly a decade. However, this would be relegated to a mere footnote in the band's history in April 2020 when a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiwxiiZ01L8&feature=emb_title video]] of them covering Music/{{Nirvana}}'s "About a Girl" was discovered, which quickly went viral and became the subject of several memes due to Scantlin's strained, off-key vocal performance.\\
\\
Today, Puddle of Mudd is one of the most hated bands of the new millennium, with any reference to them today only being done to criticize Wes Scantlin's "whiny voice" (or his uncanny resemblance to professional wrestler Wrestling/{{Edge}}), the aforementioned video, or as another example of "X-rated post-grunge garbage." Even in the "never say never" world that is the music industry, Puddle of Mudd has fallen so hard that it would be nothing short of a '''miracle''' for them to regain any respect.

* In the early '90s, Music/MCHammer was one of the biggest rap stars in the world, with his album ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'' selling ten million records -- the first rap album to ever accomplish that feat -- and "U Can't Touch This" becoming a sensation. A big part of Hammer's success was that he was considered a [[TheMoralSubstitute family-friendly alternative]] to the GangstaRap of the day, since he made it a point to keep his music fairly clean. However, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6_BkVXGXdU discussed]] by WebVideo/TheRapCritic, there soon came three factors that derailed Hammer's success. First, the GangstaRap boom caused MC Hammer to switch his sound in order to stay relevant, taking on a more hardcore, DarkerAndEdgier persona. This not only [[ContractualPurity ruined the clean-and-wholesome image]] that he had cultivated, but hip-hop fans [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy didn't buy this street-wise hustler act for a second]]. Second, [[WolverinePublicity Hammer was massively overexposed]]. Rivals like Music/LLCoolJ were dissing Hammer for what they saw as over-the-top commercialization, which included his SaturdayMorningCartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Hammerman}}''. Finally, he single-handedly redefined the phrase "ConspicuousConsumption" for [[TheNineties Generation X]]. He boughtmassive mansions, multiple cars, thoroughbred racehorses, gold chains for his dogs, and kept an entourage that ballooned to nearly two hundred people. (Allegedly, Hammer would "hire" friends and relatives to do nothing.) He had to file for bankruptcy in 1996 as a result of this, and he remains a symbol of living beyond one's means. By 1997, MC Hammer had all but vanished from mainstream attention, known only as a washed-up punchline with "U Can't Touch This" as a OneHitWonder.

* Music/MCHammer is a notorious example. In the early '90s, he was one of the biggest rap stars in the world, with the album ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'' going diamond (ten million sold -- the first rap album to accomplish that feat) and "U Can't Touch This" becoming a sensation. He made flaunting flashy clothes and an opulent lifestyle fashionable (rather than the strictly "hood" styles of most rappers of the time) and was on the leading edge of rappers acting as commercial pitchmen. A big part of his success was that he was considered a [[TheMoralSubstitute family-friendly alternative]] to the edgier rappers of the day; he was a devout Christian who started his career as a street preacher and a member of a Gospel rap group called the Holy Ghost Boys, and made it a point to keep his music fairly clean and include a religious song on every one of his albums even after he went into secular music.[[note]]After his rap career fizzled out, he went right back to preaching.[[/note]] Between all of this, MC Hammer was frequently, and unironically, called hip-hop's version of Music/MichaelJackson, the "King of Rap" whose legacy would shape the genre for decades to come. However, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6_BkVXGXdU discussed]] by WebVideo/TheRapCritic, there soon came three factors that derailed his success.\\

First, the GangstaRap boom caused him to switch his sound in order to stay relevant, shortening his name to "Hammer" and taking on a more hardcore, DarkerAndEdgier persona. Whilst his 1994 album ''The Funky Headhunter'' was a platinum-selling success upon its release, and spawned the minor MemeticMutation "it's all good", it [[ContractualPurity ruined the clean-and-wholesome image]] that he had cultivated, which had allowed him to sell rap to mainstream America [[LighterAndSofter without the controversy raised by the more hardcore artists]]. On one hand, seeing him in a Speedo thrusting his crotch while surrounded by scantily-clad women in the song "Pumps and a Bump" (in a video that would be banned from Creator/{{MTV}}) alienated the parents who saw him as a family-friendly alternative to the sex and violence in contemporary pop and rap music. And on the other, it got him laughed at as a SellOut and a [[RuleAbidingRebel poser]] by actual gangsta rappers and hip-hop fans, who knew of his clean-cut reputation and [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy didn't buy his tough, street-wise hustler act for a second]]. The fact that he recorded several diss tracks probably didn't help.\\
\\
Second, [[WolverinePublicity he was massively overexposed]]. Even at his height, rivals like Music/LLCoolJ were dissing him for what they saw as over-the-top commercialization, which included shoes, T-shirts, Hammer pants, and his SaturdayMorningCartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Hammerman}}''. This may have actually provoked his switch to gangsta rap, as it's possible that he felt he needed to prove to his detractors that he wasn't a one-trick pony.\\
\\
Finally, he single-handedly redefined the phrase "ConspicuousConsumption" for [[TheNineties Generation X]]. There was his infamous mansion, for starters. Then there were his expensive music videos, which set records at the time. Throw in the cars, the thoroughbred racehorses, an entourage that ballooned up to nearly 200 people at one point (allegedly, he would "hire" friends and relatives who needed a job to do nothing as a form of charity) and to top it all off, the ''gold chains for his Rottweilers''. He had to file for bankruptcy in 1996 as a result of this, and he remains a symbol of living beyond one's means. This is referenced in Music/{{Nelly}}'s song "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)", where he talks about how he's going to "blow thirty mil like I'm Hammer."\\
\\
By 1997, MC Hammer had all but vanished from mainstream attention, known only as a washed-up punchline. Even now, his reputation has been damaged to the point that he is remembered by younger audiences as a OneHitWonder. That demographic would be shocked to discover that not only did he have six top 40 hits (including five top ten hits), but "U Can't Touch This" was only his ''[[ChartDisplacement fifth]]''[[ChartDisplacement -highest charting song]] on the Hot 100, only reaching #8. "Pray" peaked at #2, "Have You Seen Her" went to #4, "Too Legit to Quit" went to #5, and even [[Film/TheAddamsFamily "The Addams Groove"]] went to #7.
* Music/SouljaBoy exploded out of nowhere in 2007 with "Crank That (Soulja Boy)", a viral dance tune that became the first ever rap song to become a hit through the power of the internet. The dance spread across pop culture like wildfire, and the accompanying music video got a whopping ''27 million views'' on Website/YouTube at the height of its popularity, an insane number when [=YouTube=] was still in its infancy. The song topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks in late 2007, when he was just [[ImprobableAge 17 years old]]. A year later, he released "Kiss Me Thru the Phone", which would become an inescapable rap crossover hit that was played non-stop on both pop and rhythmic stations, and sold over five million in the U.S. alone. It seemed like Soulja Boy would continue onward into more viral success.\\
\\

* Of all the acts that fell off at the turn of the '10s, few fell harder than Music/TPain. Despite getting panned by critics for largely abandoning rapping in favor of Autotune-assisted singing, his debut album produced two Top 10 hits and became a staple of clubs and parties around the world. He continued to build on that success with his 2007 album ''Epiphany'', which produced his first #1 hit and became his first chart-topping album. By this point, a large number of artists began [[FollowTheLeader mimicking his style]], with varying degrees of success. However, backlash against T-Pain's overexposure, use of Auto-Tune, and less-than-positive lyrics built up over time, and after 2008 each successive album release produced fewer sales and hit singles. As he was the GenrePopularizer of his particular brand of auto-tuned music, he had a hard time escaping from the niche he carved for himself once it fell from popularity. While T-Pain is still recording and performing today, it seems unlikely he will ever recapture the glory of his early career.

* Of all the acts that fell off at the turn of the '10s, few fell harder than Music/TPain. His popularity exploded with his 2005 debut album ''Rappa Ternt Sanga''. Despite getting panned by critics for largely abandoning rapping in favor of Autotune-assisted singing, the album produced two Top 10 hits and became a staple of clubs and parties all over the world. He continued to build on that success with his 2007 album ''Epiphany'', which produced his first #1 hit and became his first chart-topping album. By this point, a large number of artists began [[FollowTheLeader mimicking his style]], with varying degrees of success. However, backlash against T-Pain's overexposure, use of Auto-Tune, and less-than-positive lyrics built up over time, and after 2008 each successive album release produced fewer sales and hit singles. As he was the GenrePopularizer of his particular brand of auto-tuned music, he had a hard time escaping from the niche he carved for himself once it fell from popularity. While T-Pain is still recording and performing today, it seems unlikely he will ever recapture the glory of his early career.

* Of all the acts that fell off at the turn of the '10s, few fell harder than Music/TPain. After he was discovered by Akon, his popularity exploded with his 2005 debut album ''Rappa Ternt Sanga''. As the title would suggest, he abandoned rapping early on in favor of singing. However, calling it "singing" was something of a stretch. The entire album was one big celebration of auto-tune, which T-Pain used to make his voice sound more robotic. Despite being panned by many critics, the use of auto-tune quickly caught on and produced two Top 10 hits with "I'm Sprung" and "I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)". He also helped rap legend E-40 have his first major pop hit by appearing on his 2006 track "U & Dat". His music became a staple of clubs and parties all over the world. He continued that success with his 2007 album ''Epiphany'', which proved to be an even bigger success, as it produced his first #1 hit with "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')", became his first chart-topping album, and sold even more than his first album did. In early 2008, he also made Music/FloRida a star by appearing on his debut 10-week #1 single "Low", making him inescapable everywhere. By this point, it seemed like everyone was following his lead with extensive use of auto-tune, as countless rappers and singers were [[FollowTheLeader mimicking his style]]. It looked like T-Pain was going to carry on as one of the leaders of modern hip-hop music.\\
However, as he got more and more popular, an equally large backlash had also been forming. He was already widely disliked for his use of auto-tune that so many mimicked, as well as his lyrics that often [[OdeToIntoxication glorified]] the use of [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll alcohol and drugs]] and [[MisogynySong objectified women]]. Auto-Tune itself was also starting to get a backlash by the '10s, which may have been spearheaded by Music/JayZ's hit "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)", made as a response to the omnipresence of the software. T-Pain began to be seen as a symbol of what was wrong with urban music, and while it wasn't immediately noticeable, the fall was beginning to take place. His 2008 album ''[=Thr33=] Ringz'' only peaked at #4 on charts despite being released a year after his last chart-topping album, producing one Top 10 with "Can't Believe It" that was powered by Music/LilWayne, and two other songs that only barely scraped the Top 40. Aside from a minor success with DJ Khaled's "All I Do Is Win" in 2010, the transition to the '10s marked the beginning of the end for him. While 2011's ''REVOLVEЯ'' produced a #10 hit with "5 O'Clock", featuring Wiz Khalifa and Music/LilyAllen, it was powered solely by a strong debut from Khalifa's fanbase, as he was a hot, fast-rising rapper at the time (and, to a lesser extent, some Americans deciding to give Allen a chance after [[AmericansHateTingle ignoring her for years]]). The followup "Turn All the Lights On" (featuring Music/NeYo) failed to even reach the ''Hot 100''; the album itself only debuted at a measly #28 and became his first album to not reach certification. Robotic auto-tune began to die out because of this; the many artists he influenced began to move away from that kind of sound. Not helping matters was hip-hop and R&B's general decline from being ''the'' mainstream genres, and the rise of ElectronicMusic supplanting it at clubs and parties. This may have been the result of hip-hop being flooded with obvious auto-tune in the first place. All of this left T-Pain in a tough spot since he couldn't easily escape the backlash to auto-tune due to being the GenrePopularizer for it. The fall became evident in 2013 when he released "Up Down (Do this all Day)", which featured B.o.B., and it reached a measly #62. The following year, he released a {{greatest hits album}} titled ''T-Pain Presents Happy Hour: The Greatest Hits'', which didn't even make the Top 200. T-Pain's planned fourth album ''Stoicville'' was [[ScheduleSlip repeatedly delayed since 2014]] and the three singles he released for it, [[TitleTrack "Stoicville"]], "Make that Shit Work" and "Roof on Fye", have failed to chart anywhere at all. His actual fourth album, ''Revolver,'' peaked at 25 on the U.S. charts, while his fifth and sixth didn't braek the top 100. \\
Though still touring today and nowhere near as hated during his peak, T-Pain has gone from playing in massive arenas and headlining big events to playing in nightclubs, resorts, and small-name music festivals. His music is now viewed as emblematic of everything wrong with hip-hop in the mid-to-late '00s - trashy, excessive, misogynistic, annoying, and generally idiotic, something that is plaguing sub-genres ;ole t. It's telling when almost all of his music nowadays is completely forgotten, only remembered for the terrible lyrics and annoying auto-tuned voice that sang them. Even the songs that he was featured in have been forgotten by sheer association (who seriously remembers E-40's "U & Dat", Rick Ross' "The Boss" or Lil Mama's "Shawty Get Loose"?). "Buy U A Drank", "Low", and "All I Do Is Win" seem to be the only exceptions to this as they're the only songs to still get airplay on throwback stations, with his spot on "Low" making up most of it. He had a minor comeback in 2014 when he appeared on Creator/{{NPR}}'s ''Tiny Desk Concerts'' video series, singing some of his old hits without the auto-tune and with a more soulful delivery. While [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjXUg1s5gc the video]] racked up 13 million views, became a minor internet sensation, and was for a time the most viewed video in NPR's history, it did not result in him making any significant comeback on the charts. In early 2019, he won ''Series/TheMaskedSinger'', further proving he can sing without autotune, but it ''still'' didn't give him a sizable comeback. While "never say never" is the motto of the music industry, it'll be miraculous if T-Pain could ever crawl out of the hole he's fallen in.

In 2017, Scantlin went to rehab, later sobered up and settled his legal problems. The band released its fifth album ''Welcome to Galvania'' in September 2019, which missed the Billboard 200. Despite very poor sales (about 1,675 copies [not including streams/tracks] on its first week), ''Galvania'' was generally seen as an improvement over ''Volume 4'', with its lead single "Uh Oh" becoming their first Top 10 Mainstream Rock hit in nearly a decade. However, this would be relegated to a mere footnote in the band's history in April 2020 when a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiwxiiZ01L8&feature=emb_title video]] of them covering Music/{{Nirvana}}'s "About a Girl" was discovered, which quickly went viral and became SnarkBait and the subject of several memes due to Scantlin's strained, off-key vocal performance.\\

In 2017, Scantlin went to rehab, later sobered up and settled his legal problems. The band released its fifth album ''Welcome to Galvania'' in September 2019, which missed the Billboard 200. Despite very poor sales (about 1,675 copies [not including streams/tracks] on its first week), ''Galvania'' was generally seen as an improvement over ''Volume 4'', with lead single "Uh Oh" becoming their first Top 10 Mainstream Rock hit in nearly a decade. Today, Puddle of Mudd is one of the most hated bands of the new millennium, with any reference to them today only being done to criticize Wes Scantlin's "whiny voice" (or his uncanny resemblance to professional wrestler Wrestling/{{Edge}}) or as another example of "X-rated post-grunge garbage." Even in the "never say never" world that is the music industry, Puddle of Mudd has fallen so hard that it would be nothing short of a '''miracle''' for them to regain any respect.

Finally, the anti-disco backlash is seen by many as having had a very ugly undercurrent. Music historians who have investigated why disco became so fiercely hated agree that overexposure and elitism weren't the sole factors behind the death of disco, but that [[ValuesDissonance homophobia, sexism, and racism]] also played into it (disco having succeeded, if only for a brief time, in uniting Americans across color and sexual lines). Robert Christgau [[http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pj78.php called out]] the latent homophobia and racism in the "Disco Sucks" movement as early as 1979, and witnesses to Disco Demolition Night noted a startling amount of destroyed records that belonged to black artists who never actually touched disco. What's more, [[https://timeline.com/disco-sucks-movement-racist-homophobic-2d4e63b43a0e?gi=74d214def5eb the racism was more than open in the Midwest]], as Music/TwistedSister found out.[[note]]They had Music/BarryWhite hung in effigy, which the white male patrons loved, yelling "Hang the n---r!"[[/note]] As WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows [[https://youtu.be/pvzgn9XSjgI?t=4m47s pointed out]], hatred of disco often spilled into a more general backlash by white listeners against ''all'' African-American music, effectively raising a wall between the "white" and "black" music worlds that wouldn't be crossed until the mid-80's, when black artists like Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}} and white artists like Music/TalkingHeads and Music/PeterGabriel became superstars with artistically strong music that was easily accessible to both white and black audiences; top tens in the early 1980's were topped by strictly white-oriented talent such as Eddie Rabbitt and Sheena Easton. While overexposure and concerns of elitism are generally seen as having been more valid reasons for the backlash, the bigotry that intertwined with much of it cause many retrospective analysts to call the nature and extent of the "Disco Sucks" movement into considerable question, with most nowadays feeling that the bigoted aspects ultimately co-opted and overshadowed the whole affair, turning it into a display of far-right strongarming that coincided with the Conservative Revolution of the late 70's, culminating in the election of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan in 1980. The culturally conservative climate combined with the AIDS crisis made the practice of cruising clubs for casual sex seem dangerous. \\

Its downfall came around the 2010s for many reasons. One, the genre is frequently mistaken from Cloud Rap, which resulted in many rappers like Music/DannyBrown distancing themselves from the swag rap movement. Two, the term "swag" has been frequently ridiculed by mainstream listeners and the general public alike by 2012 due to its overusage online, which resulted in the term falling off the wayside by 2014. And three, its detractors have frequently accused the genre of having simplistic and highly stereotypical lyrics that heavy relied on materialism, glorification of drugs (such as weed, codeine lean, and prescription pills like xanax), misogynistic overtones, and especially its heavy usage of the term "swag" and other internet lingo, despite certain acts like Odd Future and Lil B playing these cliches for laughs and as a critique of modern day radio-friendly hip-hop. Any chances of the genre coming back is all but dead due to all of these acts either disbanding, changing their sound completely, and growing out of these topics over more nuance subject matter, combined with many offshoots of Cloud Rap such as [=SoundCloud=] Rap, Emo Rap, and most infamously, Mumble Rap catching the attention of many newer acts, losing what very little chance the genre have on a revival.

Its downfall came around the 2010s for many reasons. One, the genre is frequently mistaken from Cloud Rap, which resulted in many rappers like Music/DannyBrown to distance himself from the swag rap movement. Two, the term "swag" has been frequently ridiculed by both mainstream listeners and general public alike by 2012 due to it over-usage online, which resulted in the term felling off the wayside by 2014. And three, the genre has been frequently accused by it's detractors over it's simplistic and highly stereotypical lyrics, which heavy relied on materialism, glorification of drugs (such as weed, codeine lean, and prescription pills like xanax), misogynistic overtones, and especially it's heavy usage of the term swag and other internet lingo, despite certain acts like Odd Future and Lil B playing these cliches for laughs and as a critique of modern day radio-friendly hip-hop. Any chances of the genre coming back is all but dead due to all of these acts either disbanding, changing their sound completely, and growing out of these topics over more nuance subject matter, combined with many offshoots of Cloud Rap such as [=SoundCloud=] Rap, Emo Rap, and most infamously, Mumble Rap catching the attention of many newer acts, losing what very little chance the genre have on a revival.

* Another offshoot of crunk, snap, is also stone dead. Spawned in UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}} sometime in the mid-'00s, its origins aren't entirely clear, though most will point to Dem Franchize Boyz and [=D4L=] as the creators of the genre. What is known is that it quickly became ''monstrously'' popular. A LighterAndSofter variant of crunk that downplayed the aggression in favor of a more danceable sound, snap ruled the charts from 2005 to around 2008 thanks to hits like [=D4L=]'s "Laffy Taffy", Dem Franchize Boyz' "Lean wit It, Rock wit It", David Banner's "Play", and the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)", which were downright ubiquitous and sold absolutely incredible amounts via online sales.\\

[[AC:Rappers]]
* Music/MCHammer is a notorious example. In the early '90s, he was one of the biggest rap stars in the world, with the album ''Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em'' going diamond (ten million sold -- the first rap album to accomplish that feat) and "U Can't Touch This" becoming a sensation. He made flaunting flashy clothes and an opulent lifestyle fashionable (rather than the strictly "hood" styles of most rappers of the time) and was on the leading edge of rappers acting as commercial pitchmen. A big part of his success was that he was considered a [[TheMoralSubstitute family-friendly alternative]] to the edgier rappers of the day; he was a devout Christian who started his career as a street preacher and a member of a Gospel rap group called the Holy Ghost Boys, and made it a point to keep his music fairly clean and include a religious song on every one of his albums even after he went into secular music.[[note]]After his rap career fizzled out, he went right back to preaching.[[/note]] Between all of this, MC Hammer was frequently, and unironically, called hip-hop's version of Music/MichaelJackson, the "King of Rap" whose legacy would shape the genre for decades to come. However, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6_BkVXGXdU discussed]] by WebVideo/TheRapCritic, there soon came three factors that derailed his success.\\

* Of all the acts that fell off at the turn of the '10s, few fell harder than Music/TPain. After he was discovered by Akon, his popularity exploded with his 2005 debut album ''Rappa Ternt Sanga''. As the title would suggest, he abandoned rapping early on in favor of singing. However, calling it "singing" was something of a stretch. The entire album was one big celebration of auto-tune, which T-Pain used to make his voice sound more robotic. Despite being panned by many critics, the use of auto-tune quickly caught on and produced two Top 10 hits with "I'm Sprung" and "I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)". He also helped rap legend E-40 have his first major pop hit by appearing on his 2006 track "U & Dat". His music became a staple of clubs and parties all over the world. He continued that success with his 2007 album ''Epiphany'', which proved to be an even bigger success, as it produced his first #1 hit with "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')", became his first chart-topping album, and sold even more than his first album did. In early 2008, he also made Music/FloRida a star by appearing on his debut 10-week #1 single "Low", making him inescapable everywhere. By this point, it seemed like everyone was following his lead with extensive use of auto-tune, as countless rappers and singers were [[FollowTheLeader mimicking his style]]. It looked like T-Pain was going to carry on as one of the leaders of modern hip-hop music.\\\
However, as he got more and more popular, an equally large backlash had also been forming. He was already widely disliked for his use of auto-tune that so many mimicked, as well as his lyrics that often [[OdeToIntoxication glorified]] the use of [[SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll alcohol and drugs]] and [[MisogynySong objectified women]]. Auto-Tune itself was also starting to get a backlash by the '10s, which may have been spearheaded by Music/JayZ's hit "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)", made as a response to the omnipresence of the software. T-Pain began to be seen as a symbol of what was wrong with urban music, and while it wasn't immediately noticeable, the fall was beginning to take place. His 2008 album ''[=Thr33=] Ringz'' only peaked at #4 on charts despite being released a year after his last chart-topping album, producing one Top 10 with "Can't Believe It" that was powered by Music/LilWayne, and two other songs that only barely scraped the Top 40. Aside from a minor success with DJ Khaled's "All I Do Is Win" in 2010, the transition to the '10s marked the beginning of the end for him. While 2011's ''REVOLVEЯ'' produced a #10 hit with "5 O'Clock", featuring Wiz Khalifa and Music/LilyAllen, it was powered solely by a strong debut from Khalifa's fanbase, as he was a hot, fast-rising rapper at the time (and, to a lesser extent, some Americans deciding to give Allen a chance after [[AmericansHateTingle ignoring her for years]]). The followup "Turn All the Lights On" (featuring Music/NeYo) failed to even reach the ''Hot 100''; the album itself only debuted at a measly #28 and became his first album to not reach certification. Robotic auto-tune began to die out because of this; the many artists he influenced began to move away from that kind of sound. Not helping matters was hip-hop and R&B's general decline from being ''the'' mainstream genres, and the rise of ElectronicMusic supplanting it at clubs and parties. This may have been the result of hip-hop being flooded with obvious auto-tune in the first place. All of this left T-Pain in a tough spot since he couldn't easily escape the backlash to auto-tune due to being the GenrePopularizer for it. The fall became evident in 2013 when he released "Up Down (Do this all Day)", which featured B.o.B., and it reached a measly #62. The following year, he released a {{greatest hits album}} titled ''T-Pain Presents Happy Hour: The Greatest Hits'', which didn't even make the Top 200. T-Pain's planned fourth album ''Stoicville'' was [[ScheduleSlip repeatedly delayed since 2014]] and the three singles he released for it, [[TitleTrack "Stoicville"]], "Make that Shit Work" and "Roof on Fye", have failed to chart anywhere at all. His actual fourth album, ''Revolver,'' peaked at 25 on the U.S. charts, while his fifth and sixth didn't braek the top 100. \\\
Though still touring today, T-Pain has gone from playing in massive arenas and headlining big events to playing in nightclubs, resorts, and small-name music festivals. His music is now viewed as emblematic of everything wrong with hip-hop in the mid-to-late '00s - trashy, excessive, misogynistic, annoying, and generally idiotic. It's telling when almost all of his music nowadays is completely forgotten, only remembered for the terrible lyrics and annoying auto-tuned voice that sang them. Even the songs that he was featured in have been forgotten by sheer association (who seriously remembers E-40's "U & Dat", Rick Ross' "The Boss" or Lil Mama's "Shawty Get Loose"?). "Low" and "All I Do Is Win" seem to be the only exceptions to this. Airplay is virtually non-existent, only getting an occasional spin on throwback stations, with his spot on "Low" making up most of it. He had a minor comeback in 2014 when he appeared on Creator/{{NPR}}'s ''Tiny Desk Concerts'' video series, singing some of his old hits without the auto-tune and with a more soulful delivery. While [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjXUg1s5gc the video]] racked up 13 million views, became a minor internet sensation, and was for a time the most viewed video in NPR's history, it did not result in him making any significant comeback on the charts. In early 2019, he won ''Series/TheMaskedSinger'', further proving he can sing without autotune, but it ''still'' didn't give him a sizable comeback. While "never say never" is the motto of the music industry, it'll be miraculous if T-Pain could ever crawl out of the hole he's fallen in. And since he's the symbol of one of the most reviled trends of [=2000s music=], that miracle is a vanishing possibility.
* Music/VanillaIce burst onto the hip-hop scene in 1990 with his debut single "Ice Ice Baby", which topped the Hot 100. His next single, "Play That Funky Music", wasn't ''quite'' as big as "Baby", but it was enough to peak at #4. All of this was enough for Ice's debut album ''To the Extreme'' to spend 17 weeks on top of the ''Billboard 200'', going on to sell over 7 million copies in the United States. At this point, Vanilla Ice had a bright future ahead of him.\\\
Unfortunately, his record label, SBK Records, had created a fake backstory about Vanilla Ice, and worst of all, Ice was being accused of plagiarism, [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial which he awkwardly denied]]. As it turned out, the bassline for "Ice Ice Baby" was stolen from Music/{{Queen}} and Music/DavidBowie's "Under Pressure", while "Funky Music" did not properly credit Wild Cherry's lead singer Rob Parissi as a songwriter. The original artists were then properly credited after the lawsuits were settled, at the cost of "Funky Music" being blacklisted from most radio stations. His motion picture debut, ''Film/CoolAsIce'', [[BoxOfficeBomb didn't make the Top 10 on its debut weekend]], got terrible reviews, and earned Ice a [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie]] for Worst New Star (and its soundtrack debuted at #89). All his albums since then have ''completely failed to chart anywhere''. His second album, 1994's ''Mind Blowin''' was a gigantic commercial flop, not even making the Billboard album chart that ''To the Extreme'' had topped just four years earlier. He changed his image on that album to a dreadlocked stoner, inspired by Music/CypressHill, but no one took that reinvention seriously. When he released his third album, the RapRock effort ''Hard to Swallow'' in 1998, [[http://www.mtv.com/news/1435113/vanilla-ice-explains-his-skate-rock-comeback/ the executives at Republic Records]] ''seriously'' compared it Creator/JohnTravolta's CareerResurrection in ''Film/PulpFiction''. It was also a huge dud, and once again, no one bought his new image as a nu metal singer. He soon fell into drug addiction and at one point was nearly DrivenToSuicide, forcing him to (understandably) put his recording career on hold to focus on his mental health recovery.\\\

* After the death of Music/TupacShakur in 1996, a large number of rappers throughout the late 1990s tried to capitalize on his image and persona. One of the more successful of these knockoffs was Ja Rule. Starting in 1999 with his single "Holla Holla", Ja Rule released several chart-topping songs through the 2000s. These include "Between Me and You", "I'm Real" and "It Ain't Funny". Ja had earned him four Grammy Nominations along with six top ten albums. He is also notable for launching the career of [=RnB=] songstress Music/{{Ashanti}}, who collaborated with him on several hit songs, including the Grammy-nominated #1 hit "Always on Time".\\\
However, a number of factors would lead to his career's demise before the decade ended. Firstly, for someone who claimed to be a hardcore gangsta rapper, he sang far too often in his songs (and wasn't even a good singer to boot). Another was his overabundance of, as WebVideo/TheRapCritic describes, "thugs need love too" songs. Essentially, these were songs that tried to pass themselves as SillyLoveSongs (almost always with a female singer on the chorus singing soulfully about how much they needed Ja Rule), while he in turn raps about hardcore sex and how much of a gangster he still is despite his relationship with her. While these songs did do well, "Always on Time" being one of them, the dissonance was too much for some people, as a woman saying how much she loves you while you're simultaneously calling her a bitch and gold-digging whore rubbed people the wrong way. Not to mention he did an ill-advised collaboration song with Music/{{Metallica}} in 2002, which was widely hated by fans of both and promptly forgotten.\\\
Ja Rule's death knell was the same reason many rappers in the 2000s fell off: [[BullyingADragon he started a feud with]] Music/{{Eminem}}. In 2002, Ja released a song titled "Loose Change", which was a diss track aimed at Eminem, Music/FiftyCent, and Music/DrDre. In the song, Ja Rule had a line specifically aimed at Eminem's then 7-year-old daughter Hailie ("Em, you claim your mother's a crackhead and Kim is a known slut, so what's Hailie gon' be when she grows up?"). This, [[PapaWolf understandably]], pissed off Eminem. It pissed him off so much that he teamed up with D12 and Obie Trice to write a response track called "Hailie's Revenge" where they accused Ja Rule of ripping off Tupac, not being a real gangster, and saying that no one would remember him when he dies. 50 Cent also dissed Ja Rule in a track, calling him a fake and a phony. Music/BustaRhymes joined in on the conflict by releasing "Hail Mary 2003", a remake of Pac's song "Hail Mary", which was a direct response to Ja Rule's remake of another of Pac's songs "Pain" (titled "So Much Pain"), wherein Busta also laid into Ja's appropriation of Tupac, saying he will never live up to such an icon of rap music. Ja Rule just couldn't keep it going anymore after all of the insults thrown his way, and he ended up joining the dustbin of 2000s rappers that flashed in the pan for a moment before fading into obscurity.\\\