u/Ghost-Quartet

So I finally got around to checking out some of Hoàng Thùy Linh's earlier music and I was like uuuuhhhh... what in the Rihannabees is this? Not that her early stuff is bad, but I came into it knowing her as the VPop queen who makes mature electropop blended with traditional Vietnamese sounds, so it was jarring to see her dancing in a warehouse to 2010s EDM.

Every artist is on a journey in their career and sometimes their journey takes them FAR from where they started, to the point where listening to their early work can feel like listening to a completely different person. This isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but it can be an interesting thing, so let's discuss.

• Who are some artists whose sound/image at the start of their career is completely different from what they'd do later?

• Was it a gradual transition, or a sudden shift?

• Do they stand by their older work? Or are they ashamed of it and try to hide it?

• Which "version" of them do you like more? Was the change a good thing?

Anyone who grew up in the '10s will remember the endless plugs for Beats by Dre (plus sister product the Beats Pill and later Lyft, but those are just the tip of an iceberg, because there is no limit to what artists will shill for a check.

(Did anyone else run out to buy some Benjamin Moore paint after watching Jennifer Lopez sensually strut by a can?)

Making music videos costs money and does not guarantee money in return, so product placement (getting paid by a company to feature their product in the video) can be a necessary evil to secure funding. That said, it's also sort of stupid, so if we're going to live in a capitalist hellscape where advertising is inescapable, let's at least have some fun with it.

What are the worst/funniest ways you've seen product placement shoehorned into a music video?