Every pop era has its winners — but for every band that survives, a dozen get left behind. In this bonus lecture, The Pop Professor takes you on a graveyard tour of pop history’s forgotten giants: the doo-wop idols and teen heartthrobs wiped out by the British Invasion, the Motown hitmakers who lost their crown in the ’70s, the British Invasion copycats who couldn’t keep up with the Beatles, the hair-metal gods made obsolete by grunge, the ’90s alt-rockers blindsided by teen pop, the TRL darlings and nu-metal acts swallowed by the internet, and the viral stars of the 2010s who burned out as quickly as they blew up.

Because pop doesn’t just crown new stars — it eats its old ones. The Left Behind reminds us that even the biggest names can vanish when history shifts, but for one shining moment, they mattered.

Text The Professor

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