“You have to be unique, and different, and shine in your own way.” ― Lady Gaga
I was looking at one of those lists of famous people who were told they were rubbish, and decided to compile a musical one to cheer us all up
Keep on doing what you are doing !
·The Beatles didnt get signed by Decca in 1962 “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” adding “the Beatles have no future in show business”.
·Lady Gaga was dropped by Island Def Jam Records after only three months.
· Ludwig van Beethoven: his music teacher told his parents “as a composer he is hopeless”
· Jedward -The chirpy irish twins got dropped by record label Sony after their first single flopped. They went on to have two Number 1 albums, and a further two Number 1 singles (and yes we can too have Jedward on the list)
· Katy Perry – signed to Red Hill Records and that folded. She then signed Island Def Jam, then got dropped, then signed to Columbia and got dropped again.
· Barbra Streisand – Her first Broadway performance opened and closed on the same night.
· Mozart was sacked from his gig as organist as a court musician in Salzberg .
· Stravinsky. The first performance or the Rite of Spring was booed off and the audience rioted – not in a good way…
· Billy Joel. After his first album flopped Billy spent 6 months playing bar piano in a lounge under a different name .
· Madonna. Her first band, The Breakfast Club, was dropped by their record label.
.Lindsey Stirling. violinist, dancer, performance artist was Kicked off Americas Got Talent quarter final – with comments
‘You’re not untalented, but you’re not good enough’ Piers Morgan :
“You need to be in a group. … What you’re doing is not enough to fill a theater in Vegas. Sharon Osborne
Lyndsey went on to sell 200,000 copies of her debut album
· Cyndi Lauper was told by doctors in 1977 she couldn’t sing again because of her badly damaged vocals. In 1984, she won a Grammy.
· Elvis Presley. Got a C in music and his teacher told him he couldn’t sing.
He recorded 2 records that did nothing and then failed an audition where he was told by the band leader that he should stick to truck driving “because you’re never going to make it as a singer.”
· Marilyn Monroe was booted from 20th Century-Fox, after producers declared her “unattractive.” (ok I know she isn’t a musician but she did some fab singing and this was too good to leave out)
· Dino Fekaris, song writer wrote “ I will survive” after being fired by Motown Records, (lucky for Gloria Gaynor !)
“They let me go after almost seven years. I was an unemployed songwriter contemplating my fate. I turned the TV on, and there it was: a song I had written for a movie theme titled Generation was playing right then. I took that as an omen that things were going to work out for me. I remember jumping up and down on the bed saying, ‘I’m going to make it. I’m going to be a songwriter. I will survive!”
· Destinys Child – er yes Beyonce group signed with Elektra Records but was dropped before they could release an album
· Verdi was rejected from a prestigious music conservatory in Milan, because he “wasn’t talented enough.” He wrote 28 operas, including La Traviata and Aida.
· Britney Spears. Her first demos were turned down by 3 labels – one saying “there wasn’t going to be another Madonna,”
Bonus fact or the “if your names not down you’re not getting in” award
· Chic ‘La Freak’ was written after Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers couldn’t get into Studio 54 (infamous Disco) Instead of going dancing they went home and wrote a catchy tune dedicated to the evening called “F–k Off,” Later when they recorded it, they decided to drop the swearing, so they tried it as “Freak Off.”
The title sounded duff, but when they tried it as an opening line “aaaahh Freak Out!” they knew they had a bullet…