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As James Bond proved in Casino Royale, there are some times in life when you just have to roll the dice, spin the roulette wheel, or leave your fate in the hands of the cards you get dealt; in other words, there are times when you have to take a gamble. Risks exist everywhere, whether you're sat at home playing online slots or you're the next Simon Cowell debating whether to back that novelty act from X Factor.
Many in the music industry have taken a chance in their time, some reaping the rewards of their audacity, some never seemingly recovering from a risk that went spectacularly wrong. Here we look at the music industry's five luckiest gamblers, who took a chance and rolled Lady Luck's musical dice.

1. Lady Gaga and the Meat Dress
She's a fashion icon, a performer known as much for her outlandish attire and dress sense as she is for making hit records, but even Gaga must have known that turning up to the MTV Video Music Awards wearing a dress made entirely from meat would provoke a huge response. It certainly did, elevating her even further in the worlds of fashion and music.

Admittedly, she took a great risk. No doubt veggie pop stars like Paul McCartney, Pink and Justin Timberlake weren't too impressed, nor her vegan fans; but perhaps her biggest gamble was turning up not knowing if Meatloaf would be at the awards, ready to fling her onto the barbecue after she'd collected her eight awards.

2. Dave Grohl forming Foo Fighters
When Kurt Cobain committed suicide it seemed that the surviving two members of (arguably) the most influential band of the 90s would drift into obscurity. Surely, nothing could replace the whirlwind of talent and raw energy that was Nirvana in their prime? So, when Dave Grohl announced he would be starting a new band called Foo Fighters, it was widely perceived as something of a risk. Many expected this faux-Nirvana offshoot to be an embarrassing, pale imitation of its predecessor. 17 years, three Grammy Award winning albums and several massive world tours later, Foo Fighters have become part of the Rock establishment and Dave Grohl is rightly lauded as one of the planet's finest musicians.

3. Crystal Waters' Gypsy Woman
Although this song has no redeeming features it somehow became a worldwide hit, and still provides mixers and DJs with material for enough remixes, redubs and samples to annoy most modern music fans. It was not just Crystal Waters' monotone delivery (that has the emotional depth of lavatory paper), nor was it the off-key, irritating Bontempi organ melody that was the worst thing. No, for sheer irritation on a Jeremy Kyle scale it has to be the "La Da Dee, La Da Da" chorus, which is like fingernails down a blackboard to most human ears.

Amazingly this song reached number one in five countries, number two in the UK (where it sold more than 200,000 copies) and number eight in the US (where it sold half a million); this has got to be the equivalent of sticking 10p on the slots and hitting a multi-million pound jackpot!

4. Jay-Z performs at Glastonbury
In amongst the Wellington-clad henna artists and just above the chemical haze that provides the heady atmosphere for Glastonbury, Jay-Z looked more out of place than Ned Flanders on the Jerry Springer Show. Noel Gallagher famously slated the event organisers' decision to book the artist, telling reporters: "I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong."

Not that this mattered to the American who, despite expectations that he would fall flat, delivered an outstanding set and has since set the trend for other hip hop and RnB artists, including his wife Beyoncé, to follow in his footsteps.

5. Frankie Goes To Hollywood Release Relax
Controversy can be the making or breaking of a song, especially for a band looking for a first hit. When Frankie Goes To Hollywood released their debut single Relax in October 1983 it received little attention, reaching number 35 in the charts, until the band appeared on Top of the Pops which elevated it to number six.
Six days later, Mike Read famously pulled the track live on air, citing the cover of the single and its lyrical content as "overtly sexual". The BBC summarily banned the single, an act which (as all good PR agencies will tell you) subsequently propelled Relax from being a minor top 10 hit into being the second best selling single of the year, behind only Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas, and one of the anthems of the decade.
It would be the first of three consecutive number one singles from the group from Liverpool; at one point Frankie had their second single Two Tribes and Relax at numbers one and two in the UK chart. It is little wonder the former Frankie band members still send Mr Read Christmas cards.

This feature is brought to you in association with Ladbrokes

2:29 PM | 21/06/2011