Boundary-crossing artists won both commercial and critical success simultaneously

Evidence

“The music industry’s mandate,” wrote critic Hua Hsu in 2004, “is to minimize risk, and for roughly four years, hiring the Neptunes has been as close to a sure bet as the machine allows.” Even as they dominated radio playlists and packed dance floors, the Neptunes won over critics for their “hybrid-minded compositions and outsider sentiments,” which Hsu noted made them seem “smarter than they are famous.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 82

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to ‘death of the sellout’ — a case where commercial dominance and critical cachet coincided rather than diverged.