A cautionary tale for all the budding pop and rock stars of the new millennium.

Sure, today your album may have just reached 16 time platinum status. Your record may even rank as one of the best debut albums of all-time. Your popularity at this time may be so great, major sports stars may be tripping over their sneaker laces to snag an appearance in your latest music video.

You’ll be so popular you won’t even have to try that hard to come up with an idea for said video. You can just drive around in a golf cart followed by a film crew documenting your amiable and folksy nature amidst your new jock buddies. People will love it.

You meteoric rise may be so bright and fiery that you could snag a Grammy, a People’s Choice trophy, and any number of those crappy music awards Dick Clark hands out, all within a six-month span.

All of this may come to pass, but be sure to put in the work to guarantee your second, third, and fourth albums don’t suck. If you waver in your commitment to your art, faster than a Dan Marino spiral hits a slant pattern, a decade later you could be hawking Burger King’s latest salad-dressing slathered fried chicken taste sensation on TV commercials, all the while wearing a purple sequin-covered western shirt and a ten-gallon hat.

Don’t think it couldn’t happen to you Usher.