Weirdest Hookup In Music History

Red Hot Chili Peppers will be returning to British shores for the first time in a number of years this winter, with support from BABYMETAL, a Japanese girl group mixing J-pop and metal put together by a talent management agency. Think Spice Girls mixed with Avenged Sevenfold. What the thousands of fans who turn out to see Anthony Keidis and co. will think about this bizarre pop-metal concoction remains to be seen, but it’s certainly one of the stranger double-billings in music, especially given the influence and success of the Chillis: you would think there would be plenty of disciples of their style to take on tour with them.

This is, after all, a band with a thirty-plus year career, with twenty of those years spent as one of the biggest and most successful bands on Earth, one of the few genuinely stadium-filling groups out there. From their humble beginnings in Los Angeles, the Chillis went through tragedy and turmoil before they found lasting success, drugs tearing through the band in the early ‘80s. With Rick Rubin producing their multi-million selling Blood Sugar Sex Magik LP in 1991 and the success of a single ‘Under the Bridge’, the band finally broke through to the mainstream with their blend of hard rock and ‘70s-inflected funk, where they have remained ever since.

BABYMETAL, in contrast, are a trio of teenage Japanese girls playing what has been described as ‘kawaii metal’. Managed by talent agency Amuse Inc., they have thus far released two commercially successful albums; a self-titled debut (2014) and Metal Resistance (2016), plus a slew of singles dating back to 2011. Backed by a band of professional metal musicians, they play chugging, head-banging riffs set to melodic, J-pop-infused melodies, with romantic lyrics aimed at young teens rather than the death-and-depression content preferred by most metal bands. Truly, this is chalk and cheese, but there have been more than a few bizarre match-ups in the music world over the years.

Lou Reed & Metallica

One of the greatest and most innovative songwriters of all time went and made an album out of nowhere with the most popular metal band on the planet in 2011, with the release of Lulu. That it turned out to be Lou Reed’s last album before his death in 2013 feels somewhat fitting for a man who spent half of his career being deliberately obtuse by doing things like following up his biggest chart success with a double-album of nothing more than guitar feedback and noise. Metallica, for their part, are game, and despite the hatred Lulu received—Reed received death threats from perpetually teenage Metallica fans—the album somehow just about works, a truly weird concoction.

Elton John and Eminem

Elton John, one of the world’s most successful singer-songwriters, has been credited by Eminem, one of the world’s most successful rappers, with helping him out of his addiction to prescription drugs. The two met at the Grammys in 2001, when Elton performed the sung vocals on Eminem’s hit ‘Stan’ and the two held their hands up together in solidarity, despite criticism levelled at Eminem for his use of homophobic language on his Marshall Mathers LP. The two have remained friends since.

Jack White and Insane Clown Posse

Back in 2011, Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, owner of Third Man Records, world-respected songwriter and guitarist, called up Insane Clown Posse, the almost universally-derided comedy rap group, most famous for ‘Miracles’, a song featuring such classic lines as “F****n’ magnets, how do they work?” a question that anyone who is literate should be able to answer. Most people surely thought it was a late April Fools’ joke, but nope, Insane Clown Posse were to rap over a Mozart piece (yes, really) with Jack White behind the mixing desk. Lo and behold, Lech mich im Arsch was born.

DMX and Marilyn Manson

Hardcore hip-hop and bleak industrial rock are two very strange bedfellows indeed, but on closer inspection perhaps DMX inviting Marilyn Manson to feature on ‘The Omen’, a standout track from his 1998 sophomore album Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood, is not so strange. DMX already took inspiration from gory horror films, mining the blood-soaked claustrophobia of American B-movie grindhouse cinema for his own lyrics, with Marilyn Manson traversing the same landscape for his own work, flipping it to suit his own demented sonic landscape. ‘The Omen’ broods like it’s primed for something terrifically ugly, and works superbly as a result. Opposites do attract, which would surely answer Insane Clown Posse’s question.

Flaming Lips & Ke$ha

With her second album, Warrior in 2012, Ke$ha already proved that she could handle a strange, out-of-nowhere collaboration: that album featured performances from Iggy Pop, The Strokes, and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys, and was all the better for it, becoming a bizarre guilty pleasure. Even more bizarrely, Ke$ha appeared on the opening track of Flaming Lips’ album Heady Fwends, on the track ‘2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)’ alongside Biz Markie. It’s a wacked-out psych-noise thunderbolt of a piece that suggests Ke$ha has more in her than just the desire to be a famous pop-star. Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has noted that the abuse Ke$ha received from her producer Dr. Luke has stopped them from collaborating further, a sad state of affairs that one can only hope will be resolved, especially on the basis of work like this.