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Bands that dramatically changed their sound for the better?

#161
g-dude said:
Go back and check out their actual songs in terms of lyrics and construct, and stop at the time that Keith Moon died.

Huge change in lyrical content, approach to what the albums are, instrumentation, etc. I can’t think of another band that sounded au courant in the mid-60s, late-60s, and the entire trajectory of music in the 70s. They literally put out albums that sounded relevant in a vastly changing musical landscape.

Now go and listen to their new album. It’s unmistakably The Who. The wild thing is that it doesn’t sound like an album from any particular phase of their career, all of which sound really different. At the same time, it isn’t really a “modern” sounding album either. It’s almost like an artifact of an alternate reality of what rock would have sounded like without Hair Metal, Grunge, Alternative, Nu-Metal, etc.
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I was with you until “their newest album sounds just like the who”, to me I just see it as “Pete and Roger make a retirement album with session musicians”. They really should have hung up the coat or stop calling themselves The Who after John died. He was pretty much the last real piece of their sound left alive, and theres only so much Pete and Roger can do with Ringo’s kid on the drums. To me The Who was four people more than the sum of their parts and John, Keith, Roger and Pete are The Who, and everybody that came after was left to try to fill in big shoes that were never really filled. Well, Pete’s gotta pay for his boat racing somehow...
 
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#162
Given the context of the thread, and admitting that I have read only the first page, what follows may seem blasphemous, but

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band started as a folk/jug band and over time morphed into a country band. I suppose "better" depends on the kind of music you prefer, which for me ain't country.
 
#163
As far as metal bands go, In Flames went through quite a few changes - although most would argue that where they’ve ended has been a far cry worse than most anything else they’ve done. IMO, they peaked at Colony/Clayman, did some interesting stuff for Reroute and Soundtrack, and then fell off the map with most everything after that.
 
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#164
/\/\3phist0 said:
One of the most engaging shows .
I feel for his backing band, he wanders around the stage, (and the semi circle of amps) and just starts playing whatever. Still really fun!
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I saw Neil (a Crazy Horse show) once at a local outdoor shed - last act of the day, the sun's headed down, and a storm is brewing on the horizon. The band is not shielded at all from the wind or rain - you can see it hitting them as the storm hits us. Neil gathers the band together on the center of the stage for about 2 seconds. I'm thinking they're gonna bail, but no - the confab at the center of the stage was a switch in songs. They launch into "like a Hurricane" as the storm hits us full force. The storm takes out the PA - the folks at FOH are covering everything, trying desperately to save some of the equipment (that's already lost power). Neil motions the sound guys to turn the sidefills towards the audience, the monitor guy is now mixing for the crowd. Water cascades down the aisles - you don't dare head for the exits, as the current might knock you off your feet. The band keeps playing - they play the song throughout the whole 10 or 15 minute storm - torrential rain, gusty winds, lightning, everything. When the storm lets up, the band wraps up the song. I thought that might be it, but no - the band takes a 5 second break to wipe some of the rain off their guitars, and they're back at it. I have a hard time believing any of the previous bands would've stayed on stage, but Neil and Crazy Horse - they are probably insane to do that, but it was admirable nonetheless.
 
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#165
Swans.

If you squint really hard, there's a charm to their early sound on Filth, Cop, etc... But you're delusional if you'd actually think those albums are better than their trilogy albums.

Not to mention the various stylistic changes over the course of that time. From pioneering the No Wave genre, to Neo Folk, to Industrial tinged Alt Rock, and now the Post Rock epics they make now.

There's roughly 8 all time classic albums (to my knowledge) that they've put out over the course of 25-ish years.

There's also The Burning World as well... but we don't like to talk about that one
 
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#166
It's interesting that some of the band's works mentioned here were in my opinion much better early on than in their future. I'm certainly not going to argue. I'll just say that I often find that the music machine crushes creativity. Many of those indie bands that signed to majors back in the day ended up putting out really weak material aand got chewed up and spit out by the major labels.
 
#167
MisterUbu said:
I was with you until “their newest album sounds just like the who”, to me I just see it as “Pete and Roger make a retirement album with session musicians”. They really should have hung up the coat or stop calling themselves The Who after John died. He was pretty much the last real piece of their sound left alive, and theres only so much Pete and Roger can do with Ringo’s kid on the drums. To me The Who was four people more than the sum of their parts and John, Keith, Roger and Pete are The Who, and everybody that came after was left to try to fill in big shoes that were never really filled. Well, Pete’s gotta pay for his boat racing somehow...
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Totally disagree with you.

Frankly, out of the four I’d have ranked Entwistle as fourth of importance to “their” sound.

Having seen them live with Zak Starkey, he did an excellent job at playing like Keith but with more accuracy. To just call him “Ringo’s kid” does a disservice to someone who’s got more chops than his father when it comes to drums. It also ignores the relationship between him and Keith Moon, as it was Keith who bought him his first drum kit.

As for my rankings, it’s....

1) Pete
2) Roger
3) Keith
4) John

Why is Pete on top? Because if you listen to Roger’s solo stuff it sounds like Roger. When you listen to Pete’s solo work, you can’t help but hear The Who.
 
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#171
micguy said:
I saw Neil (a Crazy Horse show) once at a local outdoor shed - last act of the day, the sun's headed down, and a storm is brewing on the horizon. The band is not shielded at all from the wind or rain - you can see it hitting them as the storm hits us. Neil gathers the band together on the center of the stage for about 2 seconds. I'm thinking they're gonna bail, but no - the confab at the center of the stage was a switch in songs. They launch into "like a Hurricane" as the storm hits us full force. The storm takes out the PA - the folks at FOH are covering everything, trying desperately to save some of the equipment (that's already lost power). Neil motions the sound guys to turn the sidefills towards the audience, the monitor guy is now mixing for the crowd. Water cascades down the aisles - you don't dare head for the exits, as the current might knock you off your feet. The band keeps playing - they play the song throughout the whole 10 or 15 minute storm - torrential rain, gusty winds, lightning, everything. When the storm lets up, the band wraps up the song. I thought that might be it, but no - the band takes a 5 second break to wipe some of the rain off their guitars, and they're back at it. I have a hard time believing any of the previous bands would've stayed on stage, but Neil and Crazy Horse - they are probably insane to do that, but it was admirable nonetheless.
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Kind of explains "rust never sleeps"
This article better describes my last audience with him
Neil Young, craftsman and his tools
 
#172
I think Jefferson Starship is one band that changed their sound for the better.
Started out as folk rock group Jefferson Airplane, had some hits with White Rabbit and Somebody To Love, changed their name to Jefferson Starship in the seventies, became a soft rock act, fires everyone except Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and Marty Balin.
Then Marty Balin left in the late seventies and was replaced with Mickey Thomas.
They became the AOR corn fest known as Starship by the late Eighties and the rest is history.

On the other hand, Red Octopus is one of the best records ever made.
 
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#173
StereoPlayer said:
I call it the evolution of a band.
These come to my mind easily.

The Beatles
Jeff Beck in general.

Really, a lot of bands evolve their sound.
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The Beatles started out with a catchy pop sound that evolved into something totally different. Yellow Submarine would never have been accepted without them 1st establishing themselves with the likes of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"
 
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#175
IMMusicRulz said:
I think Jefferson Starship is one band that changed their sound for the better.
Started out as folk rock group Jefferson Airplane, had some hits with White Rabbit and Somebody To Love,
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That's kinda true, but with a twist. Somebody to Love (or Someone to Love in it's first recording) and White Rabbit were originally released by The Great Society - a band that were (by their own admission) Jefferson Airplane wannabe's. Grace Slick was the singer in that band, and in an interesting twist, The Jefferson Airplane hired her and redid those songs on Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane became, for a couple of songs, a Tribute band to a band that wanted to be the Jefferson Airplane.
 
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#179
The Human League changed after a lineup switch and wound up being a new wave hit machine for a while.

Overall this thread cracks me up. "Better" is subjective. Most of us prog snobs, myself included, prefer 70s Genesis to 80s pop Genesis, but to millions of people 80s Genesis is infinitely more listenable. It's just speculation but I'm going to guess that Phil Collins and the guys thought the band was better in some ways after the change; if I ever get a chance to ask them I'll let you know. I will admit that the self-titled album Genesis has some great tunes on it, Home By the Sea, Second Home by the Sea, Mama, It's Gonna Get Better, songs I have loved for many years.

And the business with Rush in the 80s is highly debatable. Older 70s Rush fans like my older cousin hated everything after Moving Pictures because of "too many goddam synthesizers! They just push a button and it makes the music for them!". Well, I love all Rush eras, especially the 70s, prog stuff, but my favorite albums might be Signals and Grace Under Pressure. Those two albums defined the time for me as a teenager and as I get older and listen to them over and over they hold up, and thematically represent a more mature band, both lyrically and musically. In the 70s it was all about dragons and wizards. In the 80s it was about society and nuclear war fears. Major shift, and despite my cousin's nonsense Lifesons' guitar work on those early 80s albums was very strong to my ears.

But it's all my opinion, in a thread full of opinions, of course.
 
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#180
Im not sure if these three have been mentioned:

The flaming lips - they went from a psychedelic influenced punk sound from their first 3 albums, gradually becoming more experimental to the point of moving away from guitars all together to make synthesizer-tape -loop based pop songs as a three piece. Its a serious jump from Hear It Is, to A Priest Driven Ambulance and then The Terror. They pretty much became a different band around the turn of the millennium.

Another band to a lesser extent is Sweet, they were a bubblegum pop group trying to write hits in the 60s to a seriously driving 70s glam rock with synthesizers

Oh yeah, and The Guess Who? If you listen to their singles over the years it sounds like different bands under the same name (which is most likely a result of all the personnel changes)
 
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