10 Teen Starlets Who Couldn’t Quite Make The Transition To Adult Pop Diva
6. Ashley Tisdale
After riding the High School Musical roller coaster, Ashley Tisdale got off to a flying start as a pop star. Debut LP Headstrong landed at number five on the Billboard 200 and delivered memorable hits “Be Good To Me” and “He Said She Said.” Unfortunately, she couldn’t repeat that success with sophomore set Guilty Pleasure — despite the album living up to its title. The 30-year-old decided to focus on acting instead, but did release a random single in 2013 called “You’re Always Here.”
Biggest hit: “We’re All In This Together” Best song: “Hair”
7. Aly & A.J.
In many ways Aly & A.J. ushered in the pop/rock that would become Disney’s mid-’00s signature sound with 2005 LP Into The Rush. The sisters followed that up with another hit album, “Potential Breakup Song”-spawning Insomniatic, but then fell off the radar until resurfacing as 78violet in 2013. They won a lot of new fans with the dreamy folk-pop of “Hothouse” and are reportedly working on a new album.
Biggest hit: “Potential Breakup Song” (#17 on the Billboard Hot 100) Best song: “Potential Breakup Song”
8. Miranda Cosgrove
What happened to the iCarly pop princess? One minute she is teen-pop’s reigning ‘it’ girl, the next she’s best known for appearing in Michael Jackson memes. It’s a confounding turn of events considering the 22-year-old came out swinging with top 10 album Sparks Fly and then followed it up with an excellent EP boasting contributions from Max Martin, Shellback and Greg Kurstin. #JusticeForMiranda.
Biggest hit: “About You Now” (#47 on the Billboard Hot 100) Best song: “Dancing Crazy”
9. Bella Thorne
Bella Thorne nipped her own music career in the bud before it even started. The Shake It Up! starlet scrapped her debut LP because she didn’t want to release “auto-tuned bad music.” Instead, she dropped an EP of “auto-tuned bad music” called Jersey. While the five-song set hid a couple of guilty pleasures (the Bebe Rexha and Charli XCX co-writes), you can’t help but think she should stick with acting.
Biggest hit: “Watch Me” (#86 on the Billboard Hot 100) Best song: “One More Night”
10. Jeanette McCurdy
Jeanette McCurdy played Miranda Cosgrove’s sidekick Sam Puckett on iCarly and its spin-off Sam & Cat. Instead of leveraging her fame into a pop career, which is the usual route for multi-talented teenagers, the 23-year-old headed to Nashville and recorded a country album. It performed reasonably well on the country chart, but the self-titled followed up bombed and she now stars on Sci-Fi drama Between.
Biggest hit: “Generation Love” (#44 on the Billboard country chart) Best song: “Not That Far Away”
Can any of these ladies bounce back? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter!
