10 Music Artists Who Disappeared From The Limelight

The life and times of being a musician is no easy feat. While it's fun to deliver your songs to a crowd of screaming fans every night, the idea of going on a neverending cycle of album, tour, and promotion tends to wear on even the most stable minds after a while.

There comes a time where you need a break, but these guys took the break quite seriously.

Even though these artists may have been big names in the music scene at one point, there was a time were you heard literally nothing from them. It might seem crazy to turn down a life of fame and fortune, but these guys had had enough and moved on to a simpler life away from the circus atmosphere of the music business.

Hell, even the more celebrated artists who have returned to the limelight over the years have been known to indulge in a bit of reclusion from time to time.

Whether it be to just clear their head or to get as far away from their craft as possible, these musicians ended up pulling their plug on stardom. They may have made magic while onstage, but each of these players pulled off incredible vanishing acts once the spotlight left them.

When Weezer was first coming up the ranks, fans were ready for some levity in their rock music.

After years of talking about internal angst and heavy topics in the grunge movement, the charm of songs like "Buddy Holly" and "My Name Is Jonas" gave a voice for the more lighthearted version of rock and roll. At the same time, no one could have known about the anxiety-stricken frontman hiding behind those wide-rimmed glasses.

While Rivers Cuomo always wanted to be a rockstar, his introverted nature was not prepared for all the baggage that came with it. As soon as the band's self-titled album launched them into the stratosphere, he found out the adulation was not the kind of life he wanted, which led him to fits of depression while on tour. Once the band began work writing their follow-up album, Cuomo went off the grid, even enrolling at Harvard to try to blend in.

When he eventually re-emerged with new songs, the band's followup album Pinkerton ended up being hated by fans, which led the band to go on hiatus for nearly half a decade. Weezer may have a bigger voice in the rock scene nowadays, but after their classic period, there was a good chance that Rivers was down for the count.