Time can be a cruel, cruel master. That is especially true of the music industry, where you party hard and sleep when you're dead, etc.

Such hard living can have a particularly adverse effect on the ageing process – not to mention the fact that so many musicians are only in the public eye for a comparatively fleeting moment in time.

We were reminded of this fact just last week, when the new Travis video was unveiled. Remember Travis? Their frontman Fran Healy is a young man with big blue eyes and one of those silly 'Hoxton fin'-style haircuts, right? Wrong. He could now pass for Seasick Steve's marginally younger brother or a hipster Santa with his huge bushy white beard.

See evidence below:

  

With that bombshell in mind, we went digging for 7 other musicians that you might not recognise- or at the very least, who look very different to how they used to.

EMINEM

An easy one to start with. This ain't the Slim Shady we're used to – in this photo, taken just last year, he's putting the emphasis on the 'slim' part. Eat a pie, man.

  

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CALVIN HARRIS

Again, you might have seen this so-called 'transformation' doing the rounds in recent times, particularly since Calvin Harris started dating Taylor Swift and stripping down to his undies for Emporio Armani. He'll always be the geek with the bad hair and dodgy dancing to us.

  

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GAVIN JAMES

Here's our own Gavin James, seven years before he was the star in the making that he is in 2015. As a teenager, the Dubliner played in a band called The Problematic before launching a solo career. Here he is on Balcony TV around age 16, with a fine mop of hair and the voice that was starting to develop into something very special.

  

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RICHARD HAWLEY

You know Richard Hawley as the smoother-than-butter rock 'n' roll crooner, but in the 1990s he was guitarist for indie band Longpigs. It's difficult to get a good picture of him in any of their videos, but try to squint to see him second from left. (Take it from us, he looks different).

  

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HOZIER

You'll have heard of Hozier's time with Trinity Orchestra before he went on and conquered the world, but have you seen him? This was just four years ago, when he was 21, taken from a YouTube video where he was singing Arcade Fire's 'My Body is a Cage'. A lot can change in four years.

  

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ROBIN PECKNOLD (FLEET FOXES)

Fleet Foxes were a damn fine band and we're sad that they're not making music together anymore. You may remember frontman and songwriter Robin Pecknold as a long-maned, bearded type. Well, these days – having returned to college and now singing with a new band, The Gene Clark No Other Band – looking extremely different and a lot preppier than he used to.

  

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JOHN GRANT

We all know and love John Grant as the magnificently bearded solo musician that lays his heart out on the line in his songs. Before he was solo, he fronted a band called The Czars for several years, when he did not have aforementioned beard. He also grew his hair long and plaited it Pocohontas-style (below). And that is why we love him.