10 Hard Rock Bands That Went Pop

There are legions of hard rock bands who think of nothing but hitting it big. Even though playing in ratty clubs is a blast, it doesn't compare to the stadiums of people singing your song back to you. While many bands have earned the title of stadium rockers, some have had to sell their soul to reach such heights.

At the outset, many of these bands had a pretty solid hard rock foundation, whether it be through blues, grunge, or metal. However, as the years went on, the idea of creating something commercial rather than headbanging became too large an opportunity to pass up.

Does that mean that these bands should be chastised for going pop? Hardly. A lot of times, these bands have come out with more accessible material that ends up being the greatest songs in their catalog. At the same time, poppier sounds can also lead to bad habits, which make the music go from pleasant to boring to insufferable.

That being said, let's take a look at a few of the hard rock bands of old who decided to go in a chart-friendly direction and see if they came out as a better band or swallowed by the mainstream monster.

Ghost were a nice little throwback once they hit the hard rock scene in the early 2010's. Though the imagery was 100% chamber music, the actual compositions underneath it all seemed to hearken back to the glory days of heavy metal like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. However, Tobias Forge was not planning on staying in these dark cathedrals for the rest of eternity.

With the release of the band's album Prequelle, everything had gotten a lot different from the operatic side of the band. After the success of the single "Square Hammer," most of this record is more tuneful than the band's previous material, with songs like "Rats" and "Dance Macabre" even having the potential to be played on standard rock radio. However, this was not a case of a band going down the tubes once they went pop.

This album proved to be the band's greatest career high yet, with even songs like the instrumental "Miasma" gaining praise for making a saxophone solo work in a metal context. Papa Emeritus may have been demoted to Cardinal on this outing, but no unholy pedigree could diminish the massive amount of talent still at work here.