10 Amazing Rock Bands That Went Pop

10. Peter Gabriel

Whenever someone decides to make the move into pop, it never makes for the smoothest of transitions. Hell, if anything, most of the artists who sell out do it so drastically that you get tonal whiplash just by listening to the songs back to back. There are a few common ground elements though, and Peter Gabriel used them exquisitely with the release of So.

Throughout the length of its runtime, this entire record feels like pop on prog's terms, having just as much weight in the arrangements as it does with the hooks that it's trying out. Regardless of what kind of genre this falls into, you can always count on Gabriel coming through with a catchy melody to tie everything together. There are even some callbacks to world music, which is certainly a switchup from the normal bubblegum you'd find on the radio, including an African jam during the tail end of the song In Your Eyes.

Despite some of the more outlandish moments, the record also has stuff like Sledgehammer that seems to be the strange brainchild of something like the Talking Heads being filtered some weird futuristic form of Memphis soul music. Gabriel may have just been a music weirdo, but his approach to pop has made him fit into the legendary mold in a way that not even Phil Collins could have pulled off.