Rock singers fizzling out is a very common thing. You can’t be famous forever, after all. Quite a few incredible stars in rock music had very successful career beginnings, only to fizzle out fairly quickly. Let’s look at just a few examples of rock stars who deserved more lasting fame!
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Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton was pretty huge in the mid-to-late 1970s. Frampton Comes Alive! from 1976 was one of the best-selling albums ever, and Frampton successfully crossed the bridge from young up-and-comer to guitar god. Sadly, though, his follow-up works never quite saw as much success as that release. I’m In You from 1977 did well, but after that, his era of Top 10 albums was over.
There’s a good chance Frampton was simply too overexposed to have any lasting career success. Frampton still tours and is still a killer guitarist, but he’s not nearly as famous as he was back in 1976.
Don McLean
Who could ever forget Don McLean? The song “American Pie” is still one of the most iconic tunes of all time. McLean’s song “Vincent” was also a pretty hefty success.
Unfortunately for McLean, he could never quite match that early-career commercial success again. He certainly tried, but his later works just didn’t take to audiences. I think this is a little unfair, honestly. Plenty of his post-1971 albums are great collections of work. But after American Pie dropped, he never reached the Top 20 in the US again.
Billy Squier
Remember Billy Squier? This early-80s star had pretty substantial success with songs like “Everybody Wants You” and “The Stroke”. Sadly, in 1984, Squier’s quite controversial 1984 video for “Rock Me Tonite” is likely responsible for tanking an otherwise promising career. Thankfully, he is still respected as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter today, but his commercial success was more or less over after that point.
Joe Walsh
This entry on our list of rock singers fizzling out might be controversial. However, I stand by it. Joe Walsh of Eagles enjoyed a Hall of Fame start to his music career as a core member of the iconic rock band. From the 1970s through the early 1980s, it seemed like his career was going to have an upward and indefinite rise. Even his early solo stuff, like “Life’s Been Good”, was great.
However, after Eagles initially broke up in 1980, his solo work just wasn’t hitting. We can blame issues with substance abuse for that. While Walsh will also be respected as a guitar rick icon, his solo career was just not that great.
Jim Croce
This one will always break my heart. Jim Croce didn’t fizzle out following the early 1970s because his music wasn’t good or his creative choices weren’t hitting commercially. Rather, he was on the up-and-up, and his music seemed to be getting better and more commercially viable to mainstream listeners. Sadly, he died at the age of 30 in 1973, leaving behind a promising career that could have become legendary if he had more time.
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