Bad moves in the music business

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Bob Dylan's Christmas album

Bob Dylan has taken a distinct turn for the weird lately. First there were reports that the smell emanating from a portable toilet in the grounds of his California home was distressing neighbours, then came news that the enigmatic musician had been picked up by New Jersey police for loitering outside a house in the pouring rain. Sandwiched between the bizarre incidents, Bob announced he is to record an album of Christmas standards. Fans may have stuck by him throughout the musically self destructive late 60s, the God-bothering late 70s and the Grateful Dead-collaborating-Madonna-imitating mid 80s, but surely even Bob's fans have a limit? Expect to wince as a faux-moody, Howlin Wolf-esque version of Silent Night hits the charts this December, forcing Dylan loyalists, once again, to come to terms with their hero dismantling his recent artistic success.

Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13-year-old cousin

Things were going pretty well for Jerry Lee Lewis until 1958. Despite a fervent belief that his songs were evil, Lewis released a string of raucous, piano-led singles - including 'Great Balls of Fire' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On' - that positioned the Louisiana-born singer firmly in the rock'n'roll mainstream. However in May 1958, while awaiting Lewis' arrival at London Airport, a news reporter was fed information that the 22-year-old Lewis had secretly married his third wife, a young lady by the name of Myra Gale Brown who just happened to be his 13-year old first cousin. Despite initial protestations that Brown was in fact 15, the resulting public outrage ensured the UK tour was cancelled after only three dates. On his return to the US, Lewis was blacklisted from most radio shows, publically mocked by his own record label and went from playing $10,000-a night concerts to $250 club gigs.

Dabbling in right wing politics - David Bowie, Brian Ferry and Eric Clapton

One of the ten rock'n'roll commandments appears to be Thou Must Have Leftist Political Leanings so, when musicians make blatant right wing statements, you can expect their career to suffer at the hands of alienated fans. David Bowie was one of the first rock and roll stars to fall into this trap when, in the early 1970s he suggested Britain could benefit from a fascist government and that, in his opinion, Adolf Hitler was 'the first superstar'. Eric Clapton soon followed suit when in 1976 he voiced his support for Enoch Powell and suggested the government 'Throw the wogs out [and] keep Britain white' - a phrase often used by the National Front. In 2004 he reinforced his support for Enoch Powell and continues to deny Powell's views were racist. Finally, Roxy Music's Brian Ferry failed to learn the lessons of his musical forebears when, in 2007, he claimed Nazi films and architecture were 'amazing'.

Springsteen sacking the E-Street band

In 1989, at the height of his commercial success, Bruce Springsteen informed the legendary E Street Band that he was moving to LA and would no longer require their services as a backing group. Cue an immediate slump in commercial appeal, muted critical response and accusations he was 'going Hollywood'. It took a move back to New Jersey and a reunion with the E Street Band to resurrect The Boss' career a full decade after it went awry. Springsteen recently declared the 1990s a 'lost period'.

WAG collaborations - The McCartneys, The Ono-Lennons, Pete'n'Kate

Alongside the aforementioned flirtations with fascism, getting a non-musical wife or girlfriend involved in your music is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Paul McCartney went from the dizzy heights of being the third coolest Beatle to, well, Wings, as soon as he started making music with his wife, the late Linda McCartney. Meanwhile John Lennon started hanging around in bed instead of making music not long after Yoko Ono was promoted from mere muse to fully fledged musical collaborator. Peter 'Potty Pete' Doherty made the same mistake when he turned his back on his punk rock past for a taste of the high-life with Kate Moss, inviting her to sing on 2006's 'La Belle Et La Bete'. Doherty seemingly failed to notice his once-loyal fans alienation and watched his career implode as soon as the supermodel grew tired of his grotty ways.

Sam Preston and Donny Tourette doing Big Brother

Reality television is usually the domain of the had-it-lost-it crowd, which made Preston and Donny Tourette's decisions to enter the Big Brother house all the more confusing. Both fronted up and coming bands - The Ordinary Boys and Towers of London respectively - and, as their manically defensive pre-entry statements revealed, both were clearly aware of Big Brother's potential to destroy their credibility. While, Donny quit the show early to discover his embarrassed band in ruins, Preston made the Big Brother final and became a fully fledged celeb. His marriage to fellow housemate Chantelle Houghton appeared to be built on little more than trashy magazine deals and it soon became clear that the Ordinary Boys' were tired of their less-than-ordinary frontman. The band made a further two critically panned albums before splitting up - but not before a po-faced Preston stormed off Never Mind the Buzzcocks after presenter Simon Amstell read from his wife's autobiography.

Happy Mondays recording in Barbados

The Happy Monday's were long-established as '24 hour party people' when the time came to record their fourth album Yes Please!. In a bid to avoid the ecstasy and heroin culture that surrounded them in their native Manchester, the band opted to record the album at Eddy Grant's house in Barbados. Sadly the island was suffering from something of crack cocaine epidemic at the time which somewhat hampered the sessions. The resulting album cost so much to record that it bankrupted Factory Records and garnered nothing but crushingly negative reviews - the pick of which appeared in Melody Maker and simply read 'No thanks'.

Living With Michael Jackson

In early 2002 the journalist Martin Bashir convinced Michael Jackson to take part in a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The idea was that the nothing-off-limits format would reveal 'the truth' about Michael Jackson's everyday life - something fans were keen to discover after allegations of child abuse sent the king of pop into semi-retirement a decade earlier. The resulting footage not only confirmed rumours of Jackson's increasing eccentricity but also managed to reignite the debate over his relationship with children. With Bashir claiming he felt 'uncomfortable with the obsession', Jackson did little to help himself, confirming rumours that children - including the 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo - regularly slept in his bed. Arvizo later accused him of sexual abuse and a second child molestation trial began shortly afterwards. During the trial, which saw Jackson acquitted on all charges, the singer became dependent on Demoral, one of the cocktail of drugs that eventually killed him. Physically and mentally, Jackson never really recovered from the fallout of the Living With Michael Jackson documentary.

Stone Roses' Second Coming

Channelling artistic inspiration is, for many great musicians, not something that can be switched on and off. However waiting five and a half years to record the follow-up to your groundbreaking, culturally significant debut album is akin to commercial suicide - especially when said album dismantles the perfect pop formula you had cultivated in favour of extended guitar breaks and 'funky' rhythms. The Second Coming got a somewhat inevitable 'mixed reception' and before long the once indestructible Stone Roses were disintegrating. Key members left the band, concert dates were cancelled, with events coming to a head as fans booed and threw objects onstage during a disastrous performance at the Reading Festival in 1996. The Stone Roses split two months later.

Robbie Williams not rejoining Take That

To some people, Robbie Williams will always be the 'cool member' of Take That. He partied with Oasis, he swore, he took drugs and most importantly he left the band at the peak of their success - sick of his involvement in the embarrassing boy band scene that made him. Sticking to his guns, Robbie refused to be a part of Take That's reunion tour in 2006, choosing instead to release his critically panned Rudebox album. Take That have since gone on to release two hugely succesful albums -Beautiful World and The Circus - and have sold out stadiums around the world. However, Robbie Williams has recently admitted his desire to move back to England, rejoin the group and has even had a Take That tattoo done to prove his dedication to the group he once scorned. He is expected to rejoin Take That onstage, presumably with tail firmly between his legs, on their forthcoming world tour.

[Colston]

As much as I love Bob... and I do... I'm dreading this latest thing. After the horrible revisioning of some of his great tunes live this could be a point beyond which I cannot walk with him...

Some of Bruce's post E-Street material is great.