This Guy Was SO LAME…When He WORE #1 Band’s T-Shirt on TV-it RUINED Their Career!--Professor of Rock

So in the music business, the climb to the top can take years and years of grueling hard work. But a fall from grace? That can happen in the blink of an eye. Today, we are back with another episode of "Career Killers.” We haven’t done one of these in a while, so it’s time! We’ve got the story of Winger, who had to cancel their upcoming tour and call it quits after their credibility was destroyed by an MTV cartoon and 3 seconds of a rival band’s music video. Then, there’s the legendary prog-rock trio Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who literally spent themselves into bankruptcy by bringing a 70-piece orchestra on the road, only to be forced into a "disco" makeover that finished them off for good. And you won't believe the tale of the British new-wavers After the Fire who broke up their band just weeks before their song exploded into the top 5 in America… turning them into a "ghost band" with no one to take the stage. They lost all the momentum they’d worked years to gain. It’s a wild ride through hubris, heartbreak, and bad timing. Let’s get into it! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Producer Brandon Fugal Honorary Producers Frank Kuna, zachery perry, Shayne Smith, Tom Stokes, Walter O. Wright II ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to the Professor of Rock Podcast Apple: https://apple.co/445fVov Spotify: https://spoti.fi/42JpfvU Amazon: https://amzn.to/44b5D6m iHeartRadio: https://bit.ly/444h8MO ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patreon: http://bit.ly/ProfessorofRockVIPFan Merch Store: https://professor-of-rock-lsn-shop.fo... Instagram: https://bit.ly/Instagram_Professor_of... #classicrock #80smusic #vinylstory #onehitwonder Hey Music Junkies, Professor of rock always here to celebrate the greatest artists and the greatest songs of all time. If you remember the Snoopy snow cone machine, you’ll dig this channel of nostalgia. Make sure to subscribe so I come up in your feed, or better yet, unsubscribe and resubscribe so you’ll get my videos. Remember to like, share, and comment. Alright, it’s time for another edition of career killers. where one bad decision led to career demolition. So coming in at #7, I’m going with New York City’s own hard rock outfit Winger. Winger emerged in the late 80s as a band that had enough musical chops to back up the hair. The band was fronted by the classically trained Kip Winger and featuring the incredible guitar work of Reb Beach. Their 1988 self-titled debut was a rock-solid start, reaching #21 on the Billboard 200 and going platinum status on the strength of hits like "Seventeen" and "Headed for a Heartbreak". When the 90s kicked into gear, their 2nd album, “In the Heart of the Young,” kept the momentum going. It hit platinum and climbed to #15. But the clock was ticking. And 80s hair metal, glam metal, pop metal, or good old 80s metal, whatever you want to call it, was falling out of fashion. And Winger was becoming the butt of the joke. They tried to pivot with a heavier, more sophisticated sound on their 1993 album “Pull,” but it was a tough time. That’s becauseWinger found themselves in the crosshairs of MTV’s unofficial 90s tastemakers… Beavis and Butthead. Mike Judge's animated slacker duo debuted on MTV in 1993 and Winger became one of their favorite targets. The show's recurring character, Stewart — a clueless, awkward kid who wet his bed — was dressed in a Winger tee in episode after episode. The joke was persistent and brutal. The message was that Winger was a band that only losers loved. Night after night, on the most powerful music channel in the world, this idea was hammered home to millions of teens. It was a social death sentence. Meanwhile, you could catch Butthead wearing an AC/DC shirt and Beavis wearing Metallica… giving each of those bands a boost of Gen X cred. Speaking of Metallica. In addition to Winger’s relentless mockery from Beavis and Butt-Head, also Metallica had a role to play in taking down Winger’s career. In 1991, the band released their self-titled Black Album, which would sell over 33 million albums worldwide. The LP produced monster rockers like Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam, Sad But True, and Nothing Else Matters… whose music video caused all kinds of havoc for Winger. Almost 3 minutes into the video, you can see Lars Ulrich using a poster of Kip Winger as a dartboard. According to the band, they used band posters as dartboards all the time… It was just Winger’s bad luck to be the one caught on tape. It’s estimated that the music video for Nothing Else Matters was aired on MTV roughly a 1000 times between 1992 and 1993, which is roughly 3 times a day for a year. And on average 15 to 20 million daily viewers.