What it must be like to be a celebrity who has suddenly fallen out of favor with a once-adoring public. The confusion, the despair, the isolation. They probably go through at least three of the 5 Stages of Grief. There also tends to be a fair amount of desperation that seeps into their hearts the longer they've been forced into the shadows. For some reason, that desperation reeks a lot more when it's coming from a musician. Though there's no scientific term for this, it's theorized that former music stars' grasp of reality just gets shakier with each passing day that they're not in the studio recording. Let's call it "Songpoxia." (There, now it is science.) And make no doubt about it, it's almost impossible to keep these musicians out of the spotlight for very long, regardless of how potentially sad the outcome is. Because, in their own minds at least, there's a big comeback on the horizon. A wonderful, Johnny Cash-like resurgence is just an album or a tour away. Who cares if they haven't been relevant in over a decade? The time to re-shine is now! Give them all credit for trying, because sometimes these left field comebacks are outrageously successful. Most of the time, though, they serve as cautionary tales that no one ever seems to heed.
