5 Flop Solo Careers That Have Earned Respect From Younger Generations

So many musicians go it alone, wielding only their voice and maybe an instrument, only to fail commercially and critically. And then there are the rock stars who left their successful band for flop solo projects. Members of both camps may languish in obscurity forever, their music unfortunately never embraced by the masses, or they get their accolades and huge royalty checks decades later when the next generation of musicians enjoys, employs, and popularizes their work.

This is a very specific club of rock and rock-adjacent musicians. They put everything they had into their solo careers, or departed the safety of a band to pursue a different sound, and that music remained on record store shelves due to a largely apathetic or unappreciative public. But then a funny thing happened: acts like Nick Drake, Dennis Wilson, Debbie Harry, Alex Chilton, and Daryl Hall were on the receiving end of praise for their solo stuff by the musicians they influenced who went on to be extremely successful. Here are some solo artists that flopped the first time around that got respect years later from the younger crowd.

Between 1969 and 1972, Nick Drake released only three albums: "Five Leaves Left," "Bryter Later, and "Pink Moon." His music was captivatingly atmospheric, enchanting, and haunting, propelled by Drake's gentle acoustic guitar and remarkable voice that could hit angelic high notes and gutturral low ones with equal aplomb. A performer whose style was out of step with what was hip at the time, Drake's albums sold poorly, and none made it to the charts in the U.K. or the U.S. during his lifetime, which ended in 1974. Drake, coping with serious mental health issues, died by suicide at age 26.

The Drake revival unfolded very slowly. A biography on the musician was published in 1997, with a documentary following in 1999. In 2000, the magical "Pink Moon" title track perfectly soundtracked a Volkswagen TV commercial depicting a group of young people on a quiet drive on a starry night. Drake's album sales increased by more than tenfold. And with that, Drake was one of the coolest singer-songwriters of the early 2000s. His music sold better than ever, while some of his songs appeared on the soundtracks to movies such as "Garden State," "The Royal Tenenbaums," and "Serendipity," while contemporary acolyte Norah Jones released a version of Drake's "Day is Done."

Blondie was one of the biggest bands of the 1970s and 1980s, and lead singer Deborah (Debbie) Harry was the breakout star. A successful solo career for the versatile vocalist seemed like an inevitability, but that's not how things transpired for Harry. Two singles off her debut album, 1981's "Koo Koo," failed to reach the Top 40, and "Rush, Rush," her contribution from the soundtrack to the 1983 film "Scarface," missed the Hot 100 entirely. Harry returned to Blondie for a spell before a breakup, then released more little-noticed solo projects and got the band back together permanently in 1998.

In the 2000s, "Rush, Rush," not a hit the first time around, was embraced by a disparate variety of hip-hop acts and indie rock bands. Major rap acts like the Beatnuts, Cam'ron, and French Montana all sampled the "Scarface" track for their songs "Yae Yo," "Yeo," and "G*d D**m," respectively. Also in the 20th century, the decades-old song was covered by acts  including Septimus Orion, the Electric Hellfire Club, and the Happy Mondays.

Part of the tragic history of Big Star is that the 1970s rock band went virtually unheard when it was active. Helping to nail the '70s power pop sound, Big Star's three studio albums were poorly distributed due to record label bungling, and they broke up long before their albums became cult classics. Nevertheless, core member Alex Chilton embarked on a solo career. On his own, he became as much of a cult figure as Big Star would be, regularly releasing experimental pop-rock on small and independent labels throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. None of them sold half a million copies or more, appeared on a major chart, or generated so much as a minor hit single.

But the next generation of people who made cool alternative rock in the style of Chilton knew all about the singer-songwriter, and they got the word out. In 1987, foundational indie rock band the Replacements included a song called "Alex Chilton" on its album "Pleased to Meet Me," and it became one of the group's best-known and most-listened-to tracks. Members of R.E.M. and the Bangles are avowed fans of Chilton's body of work, and in 1994, when Counting Crows was one of the hottest emergent bands in the U.S., frontman Adam Duritz often changed a lyric of its hit "Mr. Jones" from "I want to be Bob Dylan" to "I want to be Alex Chilton." Duritz recruited Chilton, one of his heroes, to be its opening act on a major tour.

Dennis Wilson found fame as the drummer in the Beach Boys, playing on the band's 1960s hits about cars, surfing, and women, but later moved into a songwriting role. Wilson eventually parlayed his talents into a solo album, 1977's "Pacific Ocean Blue." A collection of bittersweet, haunting, and grizzled meditations on the highs and lows of modern life, the LP peaked at No. 96 on the Billboard album chart and sold around 200,000 copies, paltry numbers for someone associated with a group as massive as the Beach Boys. A follow-up album was never finished; Wilson died at age 39 in 1983. 

As the years passed, "Pacific Ocean Blue" was largely forgotten, and only briefly available on CD in the 1990s before it disappeared again. But then, taste-making and authoritative music critics started talking up Wilson's lost masterpiece. Mojo highlighted the work in its "Buried Treasure" feature, and it was touted in books like "All-Time Top 1000 Albums" and "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die." In 2008, Caribou/Epic/Legacy unveiled a multi-unit, deluxe special edition of "Pacific Ocean Blue." Music aficionados so clamored to finally hear Wilson's songs that they sent the release to No. 16 in the U.K. and No. 8 on the internet music chart in the U.S. The songs continued to captivate musicians, too. With the band Chewing, Nik Ewing of the indie outfit Local Natives covered the entirety of "Pacific Ocean Blue" in 2018.

Even fans of the duo Daryl Hall and John Oates, often incorrectly known as Hall and Oates, may not know that Hall's solo efforts were, by and large, commercially disappointing. Primary singer Hall's contributions overshadowed Oates', but when Hall made overtures toward a career without Oates, the hits were not a foregone conclusion. Completed in 1977 and held by RCA Records until 1980, "Sacred Songs" charted at a lowly No. 58 and produced no hit songs. After a few more years with Oates, Hall's synth-pop single "Dreamtime" hit the Top 5 in 1986, the only time Hall by himself would ever chart that highly.

Hall and Oates took an extended break from one another in the 1990s, and after that hiatus and an early 2000s comeback ensued, respect for Hall only grew. Hall's music helped establish the genre of softer, adult-oriented pop-rock, paving the way for bands like Matchbox 20, the Goo Goo Dolls, Train, and Plain White T's. All of those bands and more showed off their fandom and paid their respects when they jammed near and with Hall on his 2000s internet-based performance show "Live from Daryl's House."