- 6/24/2025
From pop stars to rock legends, some musical transformations just don't hit the right note. Join us as we count down our picks for the musicians who attempted bold reinventions that left fans scratching their heads! These artists risked their established sounds for something new—only to watch their experiments crash and burn.
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00:00The Prime Queen
00:02The Prime Queen
00:04Is crying sitting
00:06Outside of my door
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo
00:10And today, we're counting down our picks
00:12For the musical artists who
00:14Attempted to switch up their sound, public image
00:16Or both, only
00:18To be met with crickets
00:20I'm telling you, if I was your role manager
00:22I'd drop Chris Gaines like a hot plate
00:24This is SNL the 25th year
00:2610. Katy Perry
00:30Typically, we should encourage people
00:40To be themselves and let their individualism
00:42Shine. However, in the case of
00:44Perry and her 2017 album
00:46Witness, fearing it all
00:48Might not have been the way to go. Perry
00:50Went on a four year sabbatical
00:52After the release of her hit album, Prism
00:54Citing a personal need to focus on
00:56Rejuvenating her mental health
01:06In describing the feelings
01:08That had inspired Witness
01:10The pop star confessed to the Guardian
01:12That Katy Perry was a character
01:14She had created and that she planned
01:16To embrace her given name of Katherine Hudson
01:18Despite Perry's radical honesty
01:20Reviewers found Witness shallow
01:22And disingenuous
01:24And that its attempts at tackling politics
01:26And female empowerment
01:28Didn't meet the mark
01:30Bish, bish, bish
01:32Another one in the basket
01:34Number 9. Korn
01:36Time's a love king
01:38In these days
01:40Holding on to everything
01:42Look, we're not saying
01:44That we expected these beloved
01:46Kings of new metal to produce the next
01:48Abbey Road, but when lead singer
01:50Jonathan Davis claimed that the band's goal
01:52For the path of totality
01:54Was to create art that's different
01:56And not conform to what's going on
01:58We definitely expected, well,
02:00Not whatever it ended up being
02:02Sometimes I made
02:04The life
02:06I made everything
02:08From every time
02:10The December 2011 record
02:12Marked a significant change-up
02:14For Korn, in which they embraced
02:16The then inescapable sounds
02:18Of the era's electronic music
02:20Particularly dubstep
02:22While they strove for authenticity
02:24Collaborating with artists like Skrillex,
02:26Noisia, and Excision
02:28The path of totality was halted dead
02:30In it's tracks
02:31By it's instantly dated genre leanings
02:40Number 8. Snoop Dogg
02:52You'd be hard pressed to find someone
02:53Who doesn't love Snoop Dogg
02:55A.K.A. Hip Hop's favorite uncle
02:57And spokesperson
02:58Whether it's hanging with Martha Stewart
03:00Or his eclectic social media presence
03:02Snoop has seemingly done it all
03:04So it only tracks that
03:06After years as a legendary
03:07And prolific rapper
03:09He would naturally make the transition
03:11To performing reggae
03:12Put your lighters up
03:14Get high with me
03:15Fly with me
03:16Ain't no dividing us
03:19Rebranding himself to Snoop Lion in 2013
03:22The artist traveled to Jamaica
03:24And immersed himself in its culture
03:26Taking inspiration from famous reggae musicians
03:29Like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Whaler
03:31Unfortunately, Snoop's leap of faith went up in smoke
03:35The resulting reincarnated album
03:37Received lukewarm reviews at best
03:39And peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200 chart
03:42They gonna love me
03:44Home eat my chutney
03:45All go clone with the diamonds in the back
03:49Number 7
03:50Jewel
03:51Jewel rose to prominence with 1995's Pieces of You
04:01Which produced the hits
04:03Who Will Save Your Soul
04:04And You Were Meant For Me
04:06Her 2003 album 0304
04:08Completely threw out the playbook
04:10In the album's liner notes
04:12She wrote that this record
04:13May seem different to you
04:14To me
04:15It's closer to what has been in my head
04:17For years
04:22To say that 0304 seemed different
04:25Was a dramatic understatement
04:27A far cry from the folk rock stylings
04:29Of her previous albums
04:310304
04:32Attempted to re-establish Jewel
04:34As a star of contemporary dance pop
04:36While the record debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200
04:39And garnered mostly positive reviews
04:42Her follow-up quietly pretended 0304
04:45Never happened at all
04:54Number 6
04:55Drake
04:56I was alone in this world
04:58And I needed people
04:59I know my funeral
05:01Gonna be late
05:02Cause how I treated people
05:03I don't wanna go
05:05Canadian rap superstar Aubrey Drake Graham
05:08Has never been one to shy away from a good marketing gimmick
05:12Just look at his 2015 mixtape
05:15If you're reading this, it's too late
05:17A cheeky middle finger to the rapper's record label
05:20While Drake had indeed flirted with electronic music
05:23Before dropping 2022's Honestly
05:26Nevermind
05:27That album represented his first full foray into the genre
05:37Despite the shift in sound
05:39Even positive reviews
05:40Criticized Drake for failing to bring anything new to the table
05:44Said Pitchfork's Alphonse Pierre
05:46A breezy Drake dance album sounds great in concept
05:49But the half-measure housebeats and lackluster songwriting
05:53Keep it from really popping off
05:55My momma wish I woulda went corporate
05:57She wish I woulda went exec
05:58I still turn to a CEO
06:00So the lifestyle she respect
06:01Number 5
06:03Neil Young
06:04See somebody walking down the street
06:06Hanging here in a shuffling feed
06:10Young's experimental 1983 album Trans
06:14Represented a staunch departure from his signature sound
06:17A staunch departure from his politically charged brand of folk rock
06:21Instead, guitars were swapped for metallic synthesizers
06:25And the singer's distinctive wail with a proto-Daft Punk vocoder
06:28We can draw the data pigs
06:30We can draw the data pigs
06:31We can draw the data pigs
06:32We can draw the pigs
06:33We can draw the pigs
06:34We can draw the pigs
06:35We can draw the pigs
06:36We can draw the pigs
06:37The Canadian-born icon
06:38Has shared that the album
06:39Was an attempt to communicate with his son Ben
06:42Who was born with cerebral palsy
06:44As well as a lamentation
06:46On an increasingly detached and digital world
06:49Although he clearly went in with good intentions
06:52Trans was met with mostly baffled reviews at the time
06:56With Barney Hoskins of NME comparing its vocoder use
06:59To the kind of horrid electronic carols
07:01You get on your Christmas TV
07:10Number 4
07:11Chris Cornell
07:12In the early to mid-2000s
07:19Super producer Timbaland was unstoppable
07:21Having produced Justin Timberlake's smash hit albums
07:24Justified
07:25And future sex love sounds
07:27Timbaland went on an almost unprecedented hot streak
07:30Culminating in the release of his 2007 solo album
07:33Shock Value
07:34After turning himself into a household name
07:37His next challenge was
07:38Of course
07:39Turning Soundgarden and Audio Slave frontman Chris Cornell
07:43Into a pop star
07:44Almost completely eschewing the hard-rocking styles
07:47Of Cornell's past projects
07:49Scream was ultimately nothing more than a whimper
08:00The album was blasted by critics
08:01Who found the collaboration between Timbaland, Cornell, and Timberlake
08:05Incongruous
08:06Said all music
08:07Scream is one of those rare big-budget disasters
08:10An exercise in misguided ambition
08:13That makes no sense outside of pure theory
08:20Number 3
08:21Lil Wayne
08:22To this day
08:29It's hard to know exactly
08:31What Dwayne Lil Wayne
08:32Carter was thinking
08:33When it came to his notorious 2010 album
08:36Rebirth
08:37Hot off the heels of his critically acclaimed
08:39Grammy-winning and best-selling 2008 record
08:42The Carter III
08:43Wayne announced in 2009
08:45That he was leaving hip-hop behind
08:47After a series of delays
08:57Rebirth finally dropped in February of 2010
09:00And it was met with an icy reception
09:02It appeared that Wayne's vision of rock and roll
09:05Was drenched with autotune
09:07And borrowed more from Blink-182 than Led Zeppelin
09:10Altogether
09:11Rebirth was largely described by critics
09:14As the worst album of 2010
09:16And Wayne abandoned his rock star dreams
09:19Cause when she go black
09:21You never go black
09:22She wore her hair black
09:23With girls in the back
09:25Did she do that ass
09:26Black, black, black
09:27Black, black
09:28Number 2
09:29Miley Cyrus
09:30And we can't stop
09:32And we won't stop
09:36Maybe this is a bit of a cheat
09:38After all, Cyrus definitely shed her titty-bopper image
09:42With the boundary-pushing 2013 album Bangers
09:45However
09:46It wouldn't exactly be accurate
09:47To say that her transformation
09:49Was widely accepted by audiences
09:51Seeking a change from her lead role
09:53On Disney's Hannah Montana
09:55Cyrus drastically overcorrected
09:57Embracing a more mature, more adult image
10:00Without giving fans time to adjust
10:02To the changes she was making
10:04I came in like a wrecking ball
10:07I never hit so hard in love
10:11Her performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards
10:15Has since become the stuff of pop culture legend
10:18And not in a good way
10:19It should be noted though
10:21That in the years since
10:23Cyrus has pulled off a career comeback
10:25With aplomb
10:26And her recent records
10:27More than reflect that
10:28Boy I adore
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10:511. Garth Brooks
10:54Yeah, maybe you saw this one coming
11:09But how could we not?
11:11Possibly the most famous
11:12And most intensive case of a musician attempting a total reinvention
11:16Brooks' bizarre transformation into the fictional Chris Gaines
11:20Will be studied for generations
11:22Country singer Brooks developed the Gaines alter ego
11:25As both a marketing stunt
11:26And as a way to explore new sounds
11:28Donning goth-inspired wigs and makeup in the process
11:32Brooks' sole album as Gaines
11:34Fittingly entitled
11:35Garth Brooks in
11:36The Life of Chris Gaines
11:38Failed to perform
11:39And has since mostly been forgotten
11:41Outside of its novelty
11:42They better than that guy you got this week
11:44Talking about Chris Gaines?
11:46Yeah, that lame-ass trick
11:47He don't show up to rehearsals all week
11:50Then he's strutting around here in that crazy-ass suit, man
11:53Who do you think he is?
11:54Dude, have you heard him sing?
11:57I don't need to hear him sing to know I don't like it
12:00I just think he's bizarre
12:01Which musical reinvention on our list
12:04Had you cringing the hardest?
12:06Are there any we missed?
12:07Be sure to let us know in the comments below
12:10So you never know how
12:12How everything could turn around
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