Six Musicians With Pasts They Hope You'll Forget

My name is Alanis, I'm a white chick singer
The drums are a-smokin' and so's the bass
Shake your thing (chika chika chika, cha)
When you sing (chika chika chika, ooh yeah)
Just sixteen (chika chika chika, cha)
No disco queen (chika chika chika, oh yeah)

That's from "Oh Yeah," from the album Alanis released in Canada in 1992. If that wasn't frightening enough on its own, try and imagine it being sung to an electronic backing track that sounds as though it's been pulled from an early '90s Commodore Amiga game. Then imagine it sung by Alanis Morissette doing a bad impersonation of Sean Connery. Now imagine it not so much sung, as rapped. If you're imagining it correctly, you should now have a thin trickle of blood running out of each ear.

A year after inflicting this upon the Canadian public, Alanis returned with Now Is the Time, an album where Alanis proved she could branch out from terrible dance songs and could make terrible ballads as well. Here's a sampling of lyrics from the track "Big Bad Love":

I'm having dreams in the night of you baby
And Sigmund Freud would have thought I was crazy
I wonder why you've become an obsession
All I know is that I need to have your big bad love

The Canadian public decided it wasn't funny any more, and refused to buy the album. Alanis, growing out of the "teen pop sensation" phase, reinvented herself. When Jagged Little Pill became a monster hit in 1995, her label actually got all copies of Alanis and Now Is the Time pulled from circulation. Who would think the music industry could do something so Orwellian?

Oh, wait. Everyone.

Christian rock ranks right up there with Buddhist action movies in bad religion/entertainment combinations. It's therefore no surprise that, since becoming popular, Evanescence have tried to distance themselves as much as possible from their murky religious origins. Although the band strenuously deny that they have ever considered themselves a Christian rock group. It's no secret that its Christian members were once happy to use Christian radio stations and Christian retail outlets to shamelessly whore out their Christian influenced music. Just don't call them Christian rock, OK?

Became famous because...
Depressed teenagers the world over have managed to find inspiration in the faux-gothic, metal-lite of Evanescence. Admittedly, it inspires most to mope around and be even more miserable than usual, but at least it's making a difference. Lead singer Amy Lee, seems to account for a large part of their popularity, although in the eyes of most horny 15-year-old males, her vocals take a back seat to the fact that she was recently voted one of the hottest women in rock (clearly, some kids have a thing for Lily Munster).

Since rising to prominence in 2003, the band has sold a crapload of albums and picked up several prestigious awards (as well as a couple of Grammys), proving that you don't really need to be happy to be successful.

Became famous despite...

If there was an award for the rock star most likely to have his head flushed in the toilet by other, much cooler rock stars, then it would almost certainly go to former Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody, who said, "The message we as a band want to convey more than anything is simple--God is Love".

While the sentiment behind this statement is commendable, it doesn't exactly conjure up your typical rebellious rock star image of someone who bites the heads off bats or urinates on the audience. However, when you hail from Little Rock, Arkansas and are faced with the challenging task of trying to peddle gothic-influenced pop music to a population more interested in dueling banjos, some kind of marketing strategy is probably necessary.

Evanescence seized the large Christian market to flog copies of their demo CD, Origin. While not exactly in the Stryper league of hurling bibles into the crowd, they were more than happy to run with the Christian angle, as long as it garnered them an instant fan following. Of course, as soon as it became clear they could sell records the normal way, they dropped the Christian thing quicker than a flaming bag of dog poo.

Became famous despite...

If there was ever a recording that needed to be hidden in a sealed, underground vault to prevent future generations learning of its existence, the self-titled, first, last and only album by Y Kant Tori Read is it. This regrettable error of judgment also featured drummer Matt Sorum (the only member of Guns N' Roses who could actually make a pop band seem less cool) and managed sales figures that even the most complimentary of observers would struggle to describe as abysmal.

We all know the '80s was a tragic era for fashion, but there are surely few more regrettable jacket photos than the Pirates of the Caribbean meets dominatrix meets five-dollar whore shot of Tori that graces the cover of this recording. Clearly the majority of the music-buying public had a similar opinion, treating the album with such staggering indifference that Atlantic Records chose to abandon all promotion for the band about three seconds after it was released.

Unfortunately, Tori had just been signed to a massive six album deal (by an executive we suspect went on to a career washing car windows at intersections), leaving her record company stuck with the unenviable task of reinventing her as a serious artist (or, at the very least, an artist that didn't bear a frightening resemblance to a medieval hooker).

Quietly airbrushed from their biography however, is the fact that this hardcore band could once have been mistaken for the embarrassingly effeminate offspring of Spinal Tap and Cinderella, releasing several shameful glam metal albums that would make even Britny Fox cringe.

Became famous because...
In the early '90s the term "heavy metal" was pretty much applied to any group sporting long hair and tight pants, despite the fact that most looked and sounded about as threatening as Hilary Duff. Pantera however, deserved the label. Fronted by a shaven-headed redneck with a guttural bellow that could tear you a new asshole, and backed up by some of the largest, hairiest Texan metalheads ever to learn how not to play an instrument, these self-proclaimed Cowboys From Hell began a new wave of groove metal that financed the BMW's of many a hearing specialist.

The banned artwork that graced the cover of Far Beyond Driven (featuring a heavy-duty drill bit protruding from a location most people would prefer not to be drilled) and the charming fist-in-the-face cover of Vulgar Display of Power were appropriate metaphors for the ear-splitting sensation of hearing Pantera for the first time.

Became famous despite...

It's hard to choose the most shameful aspect of the complete travesty that was 1980's Pantera. Was it the teased hairdos and leopard skin spandex, the emasculating combination of which made it look as though Warrant could kick their ass? Was it the fact that most of their lyrics from this era make Alanis Morissette's early offerings look like the lost works of T.S. Eliot? Or was it this:

Their tracks often had ridiculous, innuendo titles that would even make Prince roll his eyes (see "Ride My Rocket," "Come-On Eyes" and "Nothin' On But The Radio"). For a taste of the shameful horror they were inflicting upon audiences during this era, check out this pansified verse from 1985's "Forever Tonight":

I wanna feel you in my arms
I wanna love you til the emptiness is gone
Take my hand
Tonite could be the nite
Understand my heart is cryin'
Oooooooooh, forever tonite

Yeah, we're talking Michael Bolton territory here.

While the above list of indiscretions is unquestionably disturbing, it's frightening to think that none of these are dire enough to qualify as the worst of their career. Yes, despite some humiliating fashion choices, despite once having a lead singer with the boy band name of Donnie Hart, even despite the fact that umpteenth vocalist Phil Anselmo at one point appeared to steal Cyndi Lauper's hairdo, the band somehow managed to concoct something even more embarrassing.

Our vote for the ultimate lowlight of Pantera's career is the following excerpt from 1985's "Hot and Heavy":

Take a look at my ice cream cone baby
Go ahead, take a lick
Can't wait to take you home
Beat you with my stick

Yeah.

There was however, a rather embarrassing flip side to their seemingly unmatched notoriety.

Became famous because...
Prior to 1988, hip-hop artists were generally more concerned with cool sneakers and ridiculously over-sized ghetto blasters, than popping a cap in muthafuckin' gangstas and hos. Once NWA appeared on the scene however, funky sounding rap songs like "My Adidas" and "I Can't Live Without My Radio" gave way to considerably less jovial titles, such as "One Less Bitch" and "To Kill a Hooker".

At the forefront of this change was producer and occasional performer Dr. Dre, who was rapidly becoming one of music's all-time ultimate badasses. For a perfect example of his badassiness (if such a word exists), you need look no further than the time FOX TV's rap music show Pump It Up, dissed his band. Dr. Dre decided that, rather than writing a scathing lyric or sternly worded letter to the station, the best response was to slam the host face-first into a wall... repeatedly. This was promptly followed up by a boot in the ribs, with a few punches to the back of the head thrown in for good measure. If you look at Cracked tomorrow and find this article has mysteriously vanished from the site, we think you'll have a fair idea why.

Became famous despite...

QUESTION: Which of the following artists was once regularly seen prancing around in an exceptionally fruity, white, body-length, sequined suit jacket, while wearing a decidedly unmanly application of eyeliner and lipstick.

A) Gay icon, Freddie Mercury
B) Gay icon, Elton John
C) Gay icon, Liberace
D) Hardcore gangsta rapper, Dr Dre

ANSWER: Although, in the privacy of their own bedrooms, the first three performers on this list have almost certainly been guilty of the aforementioned crime against fashion, the only artist who felt it appropriate to commit this indiscretion in public is the not-that-hardcore-after-all Dr. Dre.

While he now looks like he could break your neck without batting an eyelid, a few years before NWA made it big, Dre was part of an electro-hop act called World Class Wreckin' Cru, with a reputation that was decidedly more 'N Sync than NWA.

As well as wearing the above heinous costume, it also appears as though he took the "Doctor" part of his name a little too seriously, flouncing around with a stethoscope for that additional camp touch.

We hate to think how many tragically misdiagnosed patients it took for the world to realize it was just a costume. We also hate to think of how many wannabe gangstas grew up wanting to be like Dre, not realizing that was also just a costume, and that his previous one was not quite masculine enough for a spot in The Village People.

For something from the more recent past that a famous person hopes you'll forget, check out Mitt Romney's supremely awkward attempt to interact with black people on the Friday Nooner. Or if you're just in the mood for more ridiculous musicians, check out The 25 Worst Rapper Names of All Time.