10 Amazing Rock Bands That Went Pop

Most artists who decide to go pop usually need some sort of settling in period for the fans. As much as it might be fun to pull a bait and switch from one album to the next, it's also a real easy way to lose a whole slew of fans in the process. When you have the Beatles' legacy to fall back on though, you tend to have a much smoother transition into the pop realm.

Then again, it's almost hard to even call what Paul McCartney did at the start of his solo career pop, given how much he was still indebted to the rock and roll that shaped him when he was Fab. Even when making a new project with Wings, you could still hear bits and pieces of his past glory on tracks like Band on the Run. Then things started to get weird...really weird.

Looking to get a different vibe off the audience, Paul's career trajectory went all over the place towards the late '70s, recording an album of pure pop with London Town and even taking to record some of the songs on an actual yacht. There were even some bold new experiments, as songs like Coming Up showed him digging deeper into the synth-centric music that would be coming down the pipeline in the '80s. As hokey as some of the songwriting could get at times, the Cute Beatle actually managed to turn his '70s cheese into gold once the decade turned a corner.