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1) You''re reduced to playing in a WHAM! tribute band.
2) Your record company pays you to go away.
3) 3 words: TIME-LIFE Infomercials!
4) You can't even get arrested for the kind of shenanigans that famous people normally do.
5) Someone approaches you with the brilliant idea of a 3-way collaboration between you, Michael Bolton and Kenny G.
6) People tell you that you sound like Milli Vanilli
7) Your backing band quits and then resurfaces as a highly paid wedding band.
The only endorsement deal you can land is for Preparation H. 9) Your first album gets reissued, ON 8-TRACK TAPES!
10) Your latest album ships gold and returns platinum!
11) The best gig you can hope for is being the opening act for a Milli Vanilli tribute band
12) The idea of working an office job actually starts to look appealing to you.
13) Ill-advised Connie Francis tribute album you released just went, ALUMINUM!
14) You get asked to do a guest vocal, on an album of Norwegian hot dog vendor songs.
15) You have to blame "illegal" downloading for why you're no longer famous, yet you weren't famous since the 80s.
16) You open up for the puppet show
17) Your tour van is a 1978 brown Econoline with orange shag carpet...
18) Your tour van has a Domino's Pizza logo on top...
19) Your tour van has the word ECNALUBMA badly painted over in the front...
20) When you have to sing duets with Mickey Thomas
21) When your songs are featured on American Idol
22) People come up after gigs and ask you why you don't play the songs more like the original artist when YOU were the original artist.
23) Clive Davis calls about making an album featuring guest appearences by 'hot' new artists you've never heard of.
24) Nobody recognizes you at your own band's fan club convention.
25) Even the County/State fair circuit stops booking you because they 'don't think you'll draw'.
26) Your publicity profile lists you as a 'legendary' artist.
27) That same biographical blurb states that, after the initial bout of fame you 'found that a lower profile suited you better' than stadiums, multiplatinum albums, girls, the mansion, private jet, etc.
28) You decide to 'get in with the kids' by moving to Ibizia and immersing yourself in the clubbing scene, at least 25 years after theoretically being old enough to know better.
29) Your Ibanez signature model guitar, that retailed for $2000+ back in the day, now moulders on the wall of music shops around the world, and is regarded as a bit of an anachronistic embarrasment by staff and wanna be guitarists alike.
30) You get to do commentary on a VH1 top 100 special
31) Your band has released an album every two years for two decades - all of the "greatest hits" and all of them selling in excess of 500 units. Incidentally, your last release of new material took place during the Carter administration.
32) An attempted reunion tour fizzled because the other three band members didn't want to give up their gigs as: a: pizza delivery guy, b: part-time computer technician, and c: lawnmower mechanic apprentice
33) Your face is on a milk carton or the post office wall.
34) When you can get to all your tour dates on one tank of gas.
35) When your adventurous prog rock opus you made in 1975 gets updated and reused as a soundtrack for an x rated porno film.
37) You're desperately begging the lone original member of your band not to quit, thus forcing you to come up with a new band name and never get another gig.
38) When the only radio stations that interview you are Net Radios and someone says hey, we are up to 10 listeners!
39) Celine Dion decides you are "worthy" of a cover
40) Your last good album is adapted by Disney as an "---- On Ice" production.
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