The problem is that OP makes the accusation (that's not the right word but I'm having a brain freeze and can't think of what the proper word is) that these artists had "commercial or critical fall off". That could be read to mean they succeeded wildly in the charts but critics hated their work, ie they sold out, or that the critics loved them but they had no chart or album sales success. If you accuse (again not the right word I know) an artist of that, it's hard to defend it because you're basically damned if you do and damned if you don't. I personally rate LD but not NLMD and I like SMASC but think Tonight is garbage. Nevertheless, Bowie had hits from them, big ones. He was never going to be able to (nor I think did he want to) maintain the sort of style he did in the seventies. That was then, this was, um, then too. You know what I mean.
But if OP's premise had been that they were commercially successful but vapid in terms of creativity, or vice versa, that might be an easier argument to take up. As it is, it looks (may be reading it wrong) as if he's saying what I said above: they either had chart success but their work was awful, or their work was great but got no recognition. He seems to apply both, choose as per artist. Which doesn't give them much of a chance if so. I'm really not sure what he's saying, but in terms of commerciality and popularity, well, see my previous post.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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