I learned a long time ago that no one can predict whether someone will catch on or for how long, and it's hard to render a verdict on whether a career has been a success or not.
Looking back at my favorite music era, the mid-late 90s, people who were critical and commercial successes are all over the map:
Mariah became 'a legend' in great part because of her voice and her persona. But her music took a long downward slope over the coming decades.
Janet Jackson fizzled out pretty quickly.
Sarah McLachlan had a spectacular sudden meteoric rise with Surfacing, and then she fell. Plonk. Not even a spectacular fall.
Fiona Apple was hailed as a bright new melancholic talent, and sort of a novelty act. I remember when Tidal came out, so many celebrities celebrated the voice of a soulful black woman coming out of this little white girl. Probably not a lot thought she'd become continually stranger and steadily more and more appreciated by critics until she scored a perfect 100 with a bizarre homemade album consisting of strange vocals and almost all percussion with little piano.
Tori Amos was appreciated for her musicianship but regarded as too strange for mainstream appeal, and she agreed with critics and did her own thing, covering genres from pop rock to baroque southern gothic alt-rock to electric rock and electronica to adult contemporary, classical and then an amalgamation of all those. She remains a force among those who embraced her and to all others she doesn't exist.
Jewel's debut album was hailed as that of a bright young talent with a big future in need of better production, and it was really overproduction that did her music in. But like Tori Amos, she seemed very creative, doing pop, spiritual, dance pop, children's and other genres of music along the way to an ever-shrinking niche audience that respects her.
Joan Osbourne's Relish is an extraordinary album and her voice was insanely good. And then we really never heard from her again, despite consistently releasing new music. It just never had the same soul.
Paula Cole was everywhere for a year or so and then she seems to have vaporized.
And Alanis--the biggest artist of her era, BOOM, an atomic bomb of catchy talent, and then gone in a flash.
Because of her voice, I think maybe people got it right with Mariah way back when: she'd be a 'legend' and a 'diva.' Because of her eccentricity and undeniable musical prowess, critics probably got Tori right too: a certain future in music, but not with a mainstream appeal. Most of the rest of them? No, most people couldn't have guessed their trajectories. And who among them is 'successful' and who isn't?
