One of the things I’ve enjoyed most from today’s era of streaming music has been the introduction to artists and songs I would have never known about otherwise. Unlike the old days of music where only the specific label-selected tracks from specific label-selected artists ever got public air time, streaming services are happy to host any and all music from any and all artists, and will suggest whatever they think you will enjoy most, whether it’s a stadium-filling superstar or a small time indie artist whose biggest gig was their family reunion. Streaming, of course, has its own drawbacks, namely its less-than-stellar artist compensation and the effect it has had on album sales (wanna know why shows are so much more expensive? This is why), but from the perspective of a consumer it’s a bountiful harvest of music discovery. About 2/3 of the shows I’ve been to over the past five years have been artists I discovered entirely thorough streaming.
One of the music discoveries I least expected was the expanse of solo work, side projects, and collaborations from A-list artists. Take Serj Tankian for example. Serj has been a busy boy since System Of A Down, um, went on hiatus. In addition to an intermittent solo artist career Serj has transitioned to composing instrumental film scores (mostly for Armenian films), with six soundtracks to his name since 2016. Kind of a shame to see someone who screams as well as he does not using their vocal talents, but there’s no denying the beauty of his compositions.
If you do find yourself jonesing for that iconic Serj voice, he also did a cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla” for one of the recent movies, and joined his old SOAD drummer for a high energy rendition of Starman.
Another excellent example is Lzzy Hale, who has done so many guest appearances on other artists’ songs that there’s an entire playlist for it on Spotify. The playlist is nowhere near complete, but includes collaborations with Machine Gun Kelly, Stone Sour (doing an amazing cover of “Gimme Shelter”, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Lindsey Stirling, and even an electronica track with Dada Life. Most recently she paired with Mongolian throat-singing metal band The HU to create the song “Song of Women,” which I can’t say enough about (seriously, if you listen to just one song in this post listen to that one).
Acting as a Kevin Bacon between these two artists is David Draiman, lead singer of Disturbed. All the way back in 2013 David created a side project, a band named Device. The project didn’t last, but it did put out a lone album. The album contained several guests, including Serj on the track “Out of Line” and Lzzy on the track “Close My Eyes Forever” - itself, rather fittingly, a cover of a collaboration between Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne.
What other collaborations and side projects from major artists have slipped under the radar of the musical mainstream?