It’s a new year and while everybody is busy making resolutions they will likely break in the coming months, there are then artists who require such a major change. These are the struggling acts who are in dire need of reinvention.

Some artists have been recycling the same formulas for too long and need to change their tunes. On the other hand, there are those who should simply pick a niche and stick to it instead of constantly revamping their styles. You know, like Lil Kim…no, it’s a new year so I shall leave that joke alone.

Read all the good stuff below and join the fun.

10. Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson could easily remain in seclusion, shielded from the glare of the media spotlight that helped to drive her brother Michael to his death but instead, she is plotting a comeback. That’s right, she has been quietly recording new material for release in…well, nobody really knows when but the music is coming!

If Jackson wants to compete in a world dominated by younger acts who have built their careers by cleverly manipulating the blueprint she crafted during her pre-Super Bowl prime, she needs to take her music in a new direction.

Beyonce has massive stage productions that rival those of Jackson at her best, many of Rihanna striking visuals during the last five years have basically been recreations of The Velvet Rope and All for You eras and Ciara…has been trying.

Of course, to completely reinvent her style at this point may not be the best move but Jackson has always been a master at staying just one step ahead of her peers. Even the far-too-long Discipline album included a few gems – “Rock With U” – which could have been hits if they were released a few years later and promoted properly.

So, if she stops reemphasising her love of penis and focuses that energy into a creative rebirth, there might be hope for Jackson to return to the top of the charts.

If not, she still has a billionaire husband and buckets of her own money to spend on the other side of the world while people clone her old hits.

Press play on Jackson’s “Rock With U” and hit your mark.

9. Brandy

Brandy is releasing a new album called Two Eleven this year! What’s that, you say? The album dropped almost two years ago, failed to spawn a hit single on the Billboard Hot 100 and was quickly erased from history by her label?

Oh, silly me. It all happened so quickly that I barely noticed. I bet Brandy wishes that everyone else made a similar oversight.

There was a time when Brandy sold millions of records of records with little effort but that was also when consumers rated real musical talent above shocking visuals and catchy hooks.

Now, Brandy has suffered back to back to back commercial disappointments – the first being 2004’s Afrodisiac, followed by Human in 2010 – and she is painting her house with wallpaper made from unsold album booklets. If you bought Two Eleven, you would have seen what I did there.

How can Brandy possibly boost her career? Well, if she doesn’t become a full-time actress, she needs to experiment beyond the confines of R&B.

Brandy has one of the most unique voices in music and she can sing almost anything. Hence, taking the Lionel Richie approach to reinvention, which includes working with acts from other genres to reach a wider audience, might do the trick.

I wonder how a Brandy/Kelly Clarkson duet would sound? We already got the chance to hear her with Jessie J, so she should continue on that path and see where it leads.

Anything would be better than selling less than 200,000 copies of an album, even after it was put on sale for months and basically given away.

Feel free to listen to Brandy’s duet with Jessie J, “Conquer the World”, once again.

8. Alicia Keys

When Alicia Keys first hit the music scene in 2001 with her Songs in A Minor debut, she had a voice as rich as honey and it boomed from everybody’s headphones. Flash-forward to 2014 and her career is at a new low.

Keys’ latest album, Girl on Fire, debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 in November 2012 but its sales quickly cooled. So, the singer spent most of the following year peddling singles to whoever would listen. Unfortunately, that was no one.

It seems as though the golden child of R&B has lost her place as one of her generation’s leading performers. However, there is still hope.

If Keys finds a way to recover her vocals and compose songs that speak to her once expansive fanbase, she could reposition herself at the top.

My advice to Keys: Cut the garbage can-banging Swizz Beatz loves so dearly and let your sound evolve. There is no need for every other record to sound either like a nursery song or banger blaring from a stoop on the corner.

Here is an example of that recycled Beatz production on Keys’ “New Day”.

7. Chris Brown

Is Chris Brown still an artist or has he given up? Nobody seems to know (or care) since his personal problems have once again overshadowed his music career after his short return to public favour with the F.A.M.E. album in 2011.

Indeed, Brown has been trapped in a swirling mess of media scandals ever since he disfigured Rihanna’s face, and his music has suffered almost as badly as his image.

Almost every song released by Brown since 2012’s Fortune sounds as if it was recorded for a mixtape, with little thought given to innovation or quality. Quite simply, his music is garbage.

At this point, Brown’s best option would be to write for other acts and take at least three years away from the spotlight. Despite his obvious talent, Justin Bieber has replaced Brown as America’s favourite bad boy and there is no demand for his music.

When Brown is ready to return, it would be a good idea if he covers his wide array of tattoos, learns to sing without auto-tune and releases material that reflects true artistic development. In other words, Brown needs to grow up.

Enjoy the irony of Brown and Bieber’s duet, “Next to You”.

6. Usher

Usher has been looking for himself since his last album – released in 2012 – and he better find the answer soon because consumers are quickly losing interest. Luckily, this is the perfect time for him to stage a comeback.

Now that the EDM craze has finally subsided and slower-paced contemporary R&B has regained popularity, Usher has the opportunity to take the final steps toward achieving legend status. After all, he is already an icon.

By that, I don’t mean the type of artist the American Music Awards honors for attracting the most Twitter followers.

Returning to his R&B roots doesn’t require Usher to completely abandon his experiments with Dance music. Rather, he can continue to build on the trend he started with “Climax”, which seamlessly merged the two competing genres in brilliant form.

Let’s get caught up with “Climax” one more time.

5. Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is barely six years into her career and her popularity is already dropping faster than Jennifer Hudson’s dress size. Great, now I can’t get that Weight Watcher’s commercial out my head.

Despite arguably being one of the best Pop albums of 2013, ARTPOP is now ranked as Gaga’s worst-selling album to date with little over 500,000 copies sold. Yes, that number would actually be impressive for regular acts today but for an artist as popular as Gaga, who is still relatively “new” on the music scene, it’s quite embarrassing.

To add insult to injury, Gaga’s previous offering, Born This Way, sold more than double the total of ARTPOP in its first week – a fact Interscope Records representatives must have noted as they reportedly ranked the record as a commercial disaster. Gaga has denied rumours suggesting the promotion of the album set Interscope back at a 25 million dollar loss but I doubt she would publicly admit to any such failure.

ARTPOP failed to make an impact with consumers because it was released a year too late. If the album hit shelves during the peak of the EDM wave in 2012, it would have been a smash. Sadly, it didn’t and nobody gave the soft glow of electric sex called “G.U.Y.” a chance.

Vivid description of Gaga’s music courtesy of Ralphie Parker from A Christmas Story.

What Gaga needs is change her approach, and try being less of a Madonna and more of an Amy Winehouse. She has the voice and musical talent to rival even Adele but she will only achieve that by shedding gimmicks that are now so 2010.

Remember when Gaga worked with Tony Bennett on “The Lady is a Tramp”?

4. Mariah Carey

After almost 25 years in the music industry, Mariah Carey is still making headlines across the globe. Unfortunately, she is now more popular for her diva antics than the voice that made her famous.

It is no secret that Carey’s chart impact has waned and that she has been struggling to stay commercially relevant since her last top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, “Obsessed”, in 2009. Yet, how did one of the music industry’s most successful female artists suddenly lose her grip?

Let’s quickly run through the series of events: Carey got married to Nick Cannon in 2008, thus damaging her image as an unattainable sex symbol. Then, she made her private life visible to the world, and her music quickly took a backseat to discussions about ring pop wedding proposals and cringeworthy magazine covers of Cannon cupping her pregnant breasts.

Add those stunts to an unstable management team – Carey switches representation more than Rihanna changes hairstyles – a string of horrible live performances, blatant lip-syncing, her passing the age of 40 and terrible singles choices, and it is no mystery why Carey has become a parody of her former hit-making self.

Dear Mariah Carey, you have two choices at this point. Either you get serious about your music career and take the necessary steps toward salvaging whatever popularity – and vocal ability – you have left or you make The Art of Letting Go your last mainstream release and quietly transcend to the Barbra Streisand/Prince territory of “I make music for fun, not sales.”

I’m getting emotional. Watch one of Carey few non-dubbed, live performances from 2013 and talk amongst yourselves.

3. Christina Aguilera

Christina Aguilera has already reinvented herself more than any other performer on this list so what could she possibly do next that will shock consumers enough to care about her music again? She should just be herself.

We’ve seen Aguilera impersonate Mariah Carey, Pink, Britney Spears, Madonna, MIA and Santigold but only once has she ever dared to give us a glimpse of real artist behind the drag queen makeup.

Back to Basics was a rare moment when Aguilera let us hear her many influences rolled into a New Orleans-styled gumbo of Pop and Soul. Although it entailed several tracks of her untamed wailing, the record proved that Aguilera has a special talent to look beyond popular trends and take risks as a serious artist.

Naturally, however, Aguilera let the praise she received during that era inflate her already enormous ego to an even greater size and she quickly abandoned her new Adult Contemporary niche in favour of yet another new sound on Bargainbin Bionic.

Read more about the consequences of Aguilera’s many transformations on her career here.

With her voice and raw talent, Aguilera has been wasting her time by trying to compete with a generation of acts dominated by Rihanna and Katy Perry. Instead, she should make music that truly reflects the old Soul hits we all know she sings off-key in the shower.

Stop trying to make a statement, Aguilera. Just make music.

Here is Aguilera yelling for joy on “Ain’t No Other Man”.

2. Jay-Z

As far as many of Jay-Z’s longtime fans are concerned, his music career ended after The Black Album of 2003. This is the point when casual followers and young gay men who only care about him because he’s married to Beyonce get upset.

Jay-Z’s albums have become beat-driven and instead of actually telling stories in his songs, he repeatedly boasts about his money, wife and many investments.

Propaganda is the propelling force behind the Carter empire and Jay-Z has used it to trick people into thinking that he is still a great artist. People told them ’bout the flames but they couldn’t see through the smoke.

Think about it: Were media headlines boasting about the quality of Magna Carta Holy Grail or were they entirely centred on its release strategy? Clearly, people cared more about Jay-Z’s “new rules” than his uninspired, tired and need to be retired lyrics.

Until Jay-Z gets in touch with his inner storyteller, we will be subjected to his bragging about world domination for another ten years. On the bright side, we don’t have to listen.

I do enjoying reminiscing by listening to Jay-Z’s “Song Cry”, though.

1. Ciara

Ciara is the Princess of Crunk&B. Sadly, that genre died in 2007, along with her working relationship with Jazzy Pha and her last clear shot at scoring a hit.

All three of Ciara’s most recent albums – Fantasy Ride, Basic Instinct and Ciara – failed to top 200,000 in sales. Also, she hasn’t cracked the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 since 2009 when she made the smart decision to venture into Pop music with “Love Sex Magic (Ft. Justin Timberlake)”.

However, Ciara’s genius proved to be fleeting because after landing global success with “Love Sex Magic”, she tried to take things back to the streets. Unfortunately for her, those streets were now under the control of more talented artists with far greater reach – Rihanna and Beyonce.

Both Rihanna and Beyonce have been trying to out-hood each other since 2008, and everything climaxed during the last year. First, Rihanna bust it wide open in “Pour it Open” then, refusing to be out-sexed, Beyonce struck back with “Partition”. Penis-appreciator Janet Jackson must be so proud.

Meanwhile, Ciara’s self-titled album was widely ignored by her own fans and it’s only lukewarm hit, “Body Party”, was rather underwhelming when compared to its rivals. Hey, at least Future enjoyed watching her dance enough to get engaged to her.

Let’s go back to “Love Sex Magic”. Any music fan with a brain can see the potential Ciara has as a Pop act instead of a wannabe hood rat diva. In fact, there were many calls for “Overdose” from the Ciara album to be properly promoted internationally because it could have been a hit.

Ciara really needs to let her dreams of being the voice of the “ratchet” generation go. The chances of her rebounding from three flop albums are incredibly slim but striking out in an entirely new direction as a Pop artist just might work.

I leave you with “Love Sex Magic”.

Which other artists are in need of reinvention? Who should have been left off this list? Is Trini Trent just a shady hater who doesn’t deserve to blog his thoughts in public? Leave your opinions and don’t be surprised when I respond.