Artists that were successful in one decade but couldnt' find their musical place in the next?

Earth, Wind & Fire is the first that comes to mind.

In the 70's they were described as "innovative, precise yet sensual, calculated yet galvanizing".

In 1980 they gave us this....


The following year was a nice return to form but didn't quite recapture that magic they once had before.

 

The "Queen of Disco"?

 

I don't generally buy the premise of your question. Good songs resonate in whatever decade.

 

A lot of the big 60's and 70's acts had a ton of difficulty in the 80's IMO. Neil Young is one of the few that was able to continue to make albums I liked during that decade. That's fine, of course, because I prefer to listen to newer artists than veterans if they are able to deliver. I'll take an artist at their peak rather than follow them to the end of the world.

 

Possibly the Kinks - their 70s and 80s output isn't as highly regarded as their 60s output

 

I'd go as far to say that a third of all music acts in the 60s couldn't make it in the 70s or at least stopped recording by then.

 

Michael Jackson & Prince in the 90's.

 

I'm not so sure about that with Prince.

Prince in the '90s:

Diamonds & Pearls (1991) - UK 3x Platinum, US 2x Platinum - Outselling Around the World in a Day (1985), Parade (1986) and Sign 'O the Times (1987)

Love Symbol Album (1992) - Beats out Lovesexy (1988) in sales.

Come (1994) & The Gold Experience (1995) - UK Gold, US Gold - Not too shabby during the whole WB fiasco.

Emancipation (1996) - US 2x Platinum - His first double platinum record in the US since 1991.

1990 & 1999 - Graffiti Bridge & Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic - The beginning and end of the decade: at least he scored Gold with both of those.

Alas, it wasn't until 2004 - eight years after Emancipation - could he claim a double platinum record, in Musicology. That was his last platinum record. Ten years ago.

 

The Beatles in the 60's then Let It Be 1970.

 

George Harrison in the 80's.
The Beach Boys to some extant in the 70's.

 

Donovan

 

In the US, they were at the height of their popularity from roughly 1977 to 1983.

 

The Beach Boys were done commercially by 67.

 

If you stretch "80s" to include 1991, then I'd say most hair metal bands fit this topic.

Some have made careers for themselves since, such as Crüe and Poison. But they've never come close to their 80s era success.

 

Well, yes. But this is supposed to be by decade.

 

David Bowie fits in, "Scary Monters" is an autobiographic album, a retrospective, the eighties were very irregular as well as the nineties...

 

Abba.

ruled in the 70s - fizzled out by 1982 when they couldnt even get it up to number one in England or Aussie, where they dominated before

 

Not true. They had a top 10 hit in 1973 (the admittedly awful "Rock and Roll Music") and two top 50 hits ("Sail on Sailor" and "It's OK") in 1973 and 1976. Two more in 1979 ("Good Timin'" and the disco "Here Comes the Night"). 5 (FIVE!) top 20 hits in the 80s, including a #1.

They had more top 20 hits in the 1980s than the Byrds did in the 1960s!

The Surf's Up (1971) album was a top 30 hit. 15 Big Ones made the top 10 in 1976. The Beach Boys In Concert made the top 30 in 1973. Even Holland made the top 40!

Plus, of course, two massive '60s hit compilations in 1973/'74 (Endless Summer - #1 and Spirit of America - #8).

 

Hair Metal in the 90s.

 

Status Quo: Great in the 70's, not so good in the 80's.

 

Artistically maybe, commercially no.

 

What about Billy Joe Royal? In the 1960's came such hits and/or classics as "Down In The Boondocks," "I Knew You When," the original "Hush," and "Cherry Hill Park." In the '70's - ???
I seem to remember Mac Davis in that category - big in the '70's (the #1 "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me," Top 20 "One Hell Of A Woman"), but couldn't get arrested trying to get a hit in the '80's.
And of course Helen Reddy. A far cry from fellow Aussie expatriate Olivia Newton-John in terms of chart sustainability from one decade to the next.
And then there were The Cowsills, who pretty much disappeared from the chart map in the '70's after their '60's string of hits.
Speaking of EW&F and not finding one's musical place in the succeeding decade - how 'bout Barry White?

 

Prince was still a big deal in the early 90's. Diamonds and Pearls was massive. It's also a very great record.

 

With all the constant talk of an Abba comeback, people forget that they were really struggling by 1982. Only one biggish hit off The Visitors, and the 2 'new' songs on their The Singles comp faring quite poorly on the charts.

I've always maintained that they split at exactly the right time. If only more acts knew when to quit! The fact that Abba have never reformed makes me respect them even more.

 

Practically all of them. Especially when 'decade' is a span of ten years rather than a largely irrelevant calendar designation like 1980 to 1990.

Most acts that allegedly can't find their musical place have to be viewed relative to whatever 'trend' that mass culture happens to be chasing.