Have any former teen girl singers gone full Scott Walker?

August 6, 2015 6:36 PM

Have any teen girl singers taken a hard left turn from bubblegummy pop to more avant garde music, a la Scott Walker or Alex Chilton?

After falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole that ended on Debbie Gibson's entry (don't ask), I was kind of surprised that she opted to play on nostalgia in her later career instead of using her talents and autonomy to reinvent herself as a more challenging and distinctive artist, the way Scott Walker or Alex Chilton did. This led me to wonder if any female pop stars/teen idols made the same kind of about face in their careers that Chilton or Walker did in theirs.

I'm not thinking of someone who rose to prominence as an eccentric and challenging personality, the way Sky Ferreira or Lorde did, or someone who was pigeonholed as a shallow pop star only to have surprising depths, a la Lesley Gore. The only artist I can think of who turned away from the popular original sound that made her famous to something more challenging is Alanis Morrissette. Are there others?

posted by pxe2000 to Media & Arts (41 answers total)

Best answer: Marianne Faithfull?
posted by en forme de poire at 6:40 PM on August 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

I'd compare, for example, this with this.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:43 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Tori Amos's first album was a little poppier than subsequent albums.
posted by Candleman at 6:56 PM on August 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Fiona Apple?
posted by unknowncommand at 6:57 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Taylor Momsen starred in the Grinch Stole Christmas and other musicals throughout her youth and was a very sweet character on Gossip Girl. She now fronts the band "Pretty Reckless". This development might be more interesting to a GG fan than one of musical interest.
posted by rubster at 7:00 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Michelle Branch took a more serious approach after her initial pop success but I'm not sure that she really achieved (or maintained) what you're looking for.
posted by rubster at 7:01 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: I'd cite Beyoncé Knowles's sister Solange as an example. Losing You isn't quite avant garde per se but it's definitely pretty different from her teenage output.
posted by capricorn at 7:03 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Alizée
posted by Confess, Fletch at 7:07 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Unknowncommand: I love Fiona, but she's always been autonomous and eccentric -- she just had a more provocative image and greater support from her record label when her first album broke. I'd put her in the same category as someone like Lorde. I'm wondering if a teen pop star has gone from chart-topping hits to, say, collaborating with SUNN O))).

Gentleman Caller just reminded me of Alexis Krauss from Sleigh Bells and Robyn, so there's that...
posted by pxe2000 at 7:13 PM on August 6, 2015

I'd suggest Kylie Minogue, who was the epitome of a manufactured pop idol and soap star, but wound up in the 1990s collaborating on murder ballads with Nick Cave.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:15 PM on August 6, 2015 [14 favorites]

On preview, was literally about to mention both Sleigh Bells and Robyn :)
posted by wats at 7:16 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Sheila Chandra was acting on TV at age 13, had a surprise UK no.12 single at age 18 with 'Ever So Lonely', then went on to do things like this.

And you'd be very surprised by the first album from the pre-teen Björk.
posted by scruss at 7:26 PM on August 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Kylie Minogue also performed with Fischerspooner in the 00s.
posted by griphus at 7:30 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Jolin Tsai is interesting - she's done both avant-garde and serious spoofs of her own persona as a pop singer in her latest work. I think her latest album, Play, focuses on that theme.

Gentlewoman (English subtitles) (avant-garde pop)
Play (English subtitles) (hyper top 40 pop)
The Great Artist (English subtitles) This third song is her middle point, I believe.
posted by yueliang at 7:37 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Kylie also collaborated with Manic Street Preachers in the late 90s; the video to 'I Did It Again' plays on the different phases of her career.
posted by holgate at 7:43 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Suzi Quattro was a musician before her girl group era and the Pleasure Seekers weren't exactly bubble gum pop, but her later career freed her from the mini skirt/T&A image of her popular beginnings.
posted by Trivia Newton John at 7:45 PM on August 6, 2015

How about Neko Case playing pop/punk with Maow?
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:46 PM on August 6, 2015

This might not be a perfect example but Siobhan Fahey went from Bananarama to Shakespears Sister
posted by modesty.blaise at 8:08 PM on August 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

Pink's always been pop, but she started out with a manufactured R&B sound. She ditched that the moment she got some creative control.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:19 PM on August 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I was just listening to an interview with Joy Williams of The Civil Wars, and she had a significant career as a teenager and young adult making cheesy contemporary Christian music before she branched out into more interesting directions.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:28 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Oh and Este and Danielle Haim from Haim started out in The Valli Girls.
posted by modesty.blaise at 8:33 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Joan Osborne?
posted by janey47 at 8:37 PM on August 6, 2015

Jewel and Nelly Furtado changed their sound a lot. I don't know if it's "challenging" a lot though.
posted by zutalors! at 8:49 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: If you're accepting that Alexis Krauss fits, maybe Jenny Lewis? She was an actress as a teen rather than a musician, but definitely had a re-invention with Rilo Kiley and her other musical projects in her adulthood.

"Challenging" may or may not be the word you use for her music but what she does is interesting.
posted by darksong at 9:03 PM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Alanis Morrisette was a Canadian teen idol before her angsty career in the U.S.
posted by Flamingo at 9:41 PM on August 6, 2015

Best answer: Joni Mitchell, honestly. Started out doing good-but-conventional folk music, got progressively weirder and more experimental (playing with African drummers well before Bow Wow Wow etc, collaborating with Mingus and Weather Report, a lot of sample-driven stuff in the 80s that isn't super well known, etc). The weird stuff didn't sell and sometime in the 90s she backed away from it again.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:28 AM on August 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: My husband suggests Fontella Bass, who had the big 1965 pop/R&B hit "Rescue Me," but then married Lester Bowie, moved to Paris, and worked with the much more experimental Art Ensemble of Chicago.
posted by lisa g at 12:30 AM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Maybe also Ani DiFranco? Her lyrics have always had depth to them, but musically she started out doing straightforward folk/singer-songwriter stuff and then got really stylistically omnivorous and branched out into a bunch of other stuff.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:39 AM on August 7, 2015

Er, I guess Joni Mitchell and Ani DiFranco don't count as "pop," though. I was thinking more generally of mainstream-to-fringe trajectories. Sorry.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:40 AM on August 7, 2015

Wendy James just gets better and better. Check out Racine 2.
posted by manyon at 3:14 AM on August 7, 2015

Alanis Morrissette went from Canada's bubblegum princess with songs like Too Hot in 1991 to a one woman ragefest in 1995 with You Oughtta Know.
posted by peppermind at 6:57 AM on August 7, 2015

Nico. The difference between the pop of Chelsea Girl to the droning noise cacophony of Marble Index is immense.
posted by munchingzombie at 7:06 AM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'll suggest adding Nina Persson to the growing list.
posted by doctornecessiter at 7:14 AM on August 7, 2015

Best answer: I do think that most people are misunderstanding your question, but that's ok. I do understand what you're asking, as an enormous cult-member fan of both Chilton and Walker. There's probably an entire longform meditation to be written on sexual politics with young girls in music and how they're usually scooped up by Svengalis and molded regardless. I do think that Tori Amos' transition from Y Kant Tori Read, a corny Lita Fordesque thing, to the Kate Bush clone that we know her as is a decent example. One could make arguments for Bjork's transition from pre-Sugarcubes teen pop to "Medulla" is another decent example.
posted by Birthday Salad at 9:25 AM on August 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

There's also Stella Vander, who as a French teen in the '60s had some pop hits that parodied ye-ye (she cowrote them with her uncle). In the '70s she joined Magma.
posted by lisa g at 9:28 AM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I actually think Bjork is a *great* example of this; her early solo albums were certainly quirky and different but definitely pop, and had the standard big MTV hit singles videos and such. Maybe her arc is more like Scott Walker's arc from, like, Scott 2 to Bish Bosch, though, since she was always a little more challenging than pure bubblegum.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:53 PM on August 7, 2015

Best answer: I feel like most of these examples are of changing direction, but not nearly as drastically as Walker did. Both The Pretty Reckless and The Civil Wars are pretty generic stuff, e.g.

Bjork is a good example.
posted by kenko at 2:41 PM on August 7, 2015

Best answer: If you're looking for something on the scale of "'m wondering if a teen pop star has gone from chart-topping hits to, say, collaborating with SUNN O)))" Taylor Momsen is definitely not an answer.
posted by kenko at 2:43 PM on August 7, 2015

Best answer: Nico is a great answer, though.
posted by kenko at 2:45 PM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Birthday Salad, I think you get me. I didn't do a great job of writing this, but I am wondering how many/if any female singers who were scooped up by Svengalis in their teen years were able to turn their backs on their handlers, break from the expectations their audiences had of them, and make something that reflected a more complex musical vision.

This probably says more about me than anything, but I was in the target demo for Debbie Gibson when she first broke out, and I hated her. Given how she prided herself on having autonomy (writing all her songs with little if any output from outsiders, playing keyboards and other instruments), I was surprised that she didn't get a little more challenging when her star began to fade, instead of going for the easy money that comes with nostalgia.

FWIW, based on the success of Robyn, Bjork, and some of the non-Anglophone artists mentioned in this thread, I'm wondering if it's easier for girl singers to get over their more commercial past to create a more challenging body of work in their adult years.

Also, I had only the most glancing familiarity with some of the names mentioned here (Taylor Momsen, Michelle Branch, etc) and had marked them as Best Answer so I could come back to them later.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:19 PM on August 7, 2015

Best answer: Mandy Moore immediately came to mind.
posted by SisterHavana at 12:26 AM on August 8, 2015