Hosfac, to add to your list of legends who switched from Gospel to R & R, might I mention "The King", Elvis?
Oh my god...how could I possibly forget The King? My mother would completely disown me for that. :p
Ok, yeah, I'm an ancient, but I live with a teenager and even she says KP is not the most popular singer in the world. Not someone anyone in her school would be all up and excited about, and there is only one kid in her high school who actually plays Sims and that's her!
This is why they're doing it. Let's look back to Sims 1 Superstar and look at the celebrities that came with that:
Freddie Prinze Jr: In 2003, he had several movies under his belt, none of which were anything close to being a blockbuster.
Christina Aguilera: In 2003, she was reforming her image from cheese to sleaze...and while she
was selling albums, it wasn't going as well as it should have been. Let's face it: she was living in Brittney Spears' shadow and trying to break out of it.
Avril Lavigne: At the time, she was a big name in Canada, but less so in Europe. In America, she was doing okay, but wasn't exactly a major chart topper. And when you get down to it, the American and UK charts are the rulers that people use to measure their musical success.
Marylin Manroe: In 2003, she had been dead for 40 years and had essentially ceased being mainstream relevant a very,
very long time ago.
Andy Warhol: Sort of made an appearance. Everyone knows his name because of
one famous picture and it's various derivatives, but you could put any of his other works along side of any random piece of clip art and almost nobody would be able to pick it out.
So we have people who either were barely relevant, people who wanted to be
more relevant, or people who weren't in a position to say no. Katy Perry clearly fits in with this trend.