Musical artists whose style has "evolved" - for better or worse

Cafe Society
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How about the BeeGees?

In the 60’s, they were almost a folk quartet, with songs like “I started a Joke” and “Massachussetts”.

Then they became disco monsters in the 70’s.

The Eagles went from being country-rock to more straight-ahead guitar driven rock when Joe Walsh joined the band.

Eric Clapton started off in heavy electric blues-rock, went through an MOR phase, and now he’s almost a traditional blues musician.

Beck went from being a smart-ass punk to… whatever he is today. But excellent all the way.

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Anyone my age will remember Marianne Faithful from the 60s. She was a bit of British fluff that had a pleasant singing voice. I saw her years later and couldn’t believe the change. Her voice was completely gone, as were her looks, and her singing style was…incomprehensible.

A big disappointment for me is jazz pianist David Benoit. The guy did some nice albums and now has fallen into the ‘smooth jazz’ crap that seems to be invading the airwaves like some malignant elevator music virus. I know that being a starving artist gets old, but he’s really prostituted himself.

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Metallica

Kill 'Em All - Thrash metal at its core, taking inspiration from the NWOBHM bands like Mercyful Fate and Black Sabbath, this comes ripping onto the scene with no remorse :wink:

Ride The Lightning - A heavy metal masterpiece with a little more melody, including the ever popular Fade to Black and the instrumental Call of Ktulu.

Master Of Puppets - The perfect album IMO, with streams of melody and and metal that could make anyones bones quiver. Welcome Home (Sanitarium) is the highlight for me (seeings how its my favorite song ever).

…And Justice For All - The 4th masterpiece in a row, with the haunting One and crushing Blackened. Could it get any better than this? Well maybe not according to some…

Metallica - Known to fans worldwide as the black album. Metallica fans of old felt betrayed by the ballad Nothing Else Matters, while songs like Enter Sandman and Sad But True remained true to form heavy metal. This record would shoot the band into a worldwide major success and led them on 2 and a half years of touring.

Load - The new era of Metallica that was met with mixed emotions by fans of old. Gone are the thrashing tunes of Puppets or Justice, and songs like Hero Of The Day and King Nothing are the new, lighter approach of Metallica.

Reload - Continuing the “Load” era of Metallica, still we have no classics as in the 1st 4 albums, yet songs like Unforgiven II make us wonder if they will ever go back to the old days.

S&M - Some people would say Metallica has gone mad, preforming a virtual “greatest hits” set with an orchestra. I myself thought it was a thing of beauty, unmatched power and energy. Some would have you think this was the end of Metallica, and it was almost true, though not due to this album. There were many many problems within the band that had existed for the better part of a decade, and few years later they would lose their bass player and the lead singer went into rehab. It looked bleak untill…

St. Anger - Metallica was definitely back to the form of the early 80s. Rather then revisit that style though, they re-invented it. The entire album is on speed, no melodys, no ballads, no solos, just pure raw aggression. The boys also added a new bass player who brought an energy to the band they haven’t seen since their 1st one.

Metallica has definitely evolved, for better or worse, but their fanbase continues to grow despite the few dissidents who have abandoned them for changing. All in all I think Metallicas evolution is great, and I also think their next album will show how rejuvinated the boys really are.

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That’s actually leaving out a couple of steps… From the Cradle was traditional blues stuff… I think he’s most recent stuff is WAY more MOR.

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Brian Eno: the Rosetta Stone of art/electronic/ambient/New Age musics. Musician (synths & keyboards), occasional singer, top-draw producer (David Bowie’s “Berlin” albums, Devo, Talking Heads, U2, John Cale, and many others), and visual artist in his own right. Has done glam/art rock (as keyboardist for Roxy Music on their groundbreaking debut LP), experimental drone and ambient musics (about a dozen albums’ worth), a very sophisticated sort of pop/rock (collaborating with John Cale on Wrong Way Up), world music/art rock fusion (collaborating with David Byrne on My Life In the Bush of Ghosts), music for films, music for imaginary films, music for art installations, designing the installations/exhibitions for other artists’ work, and has also exhibited his own art, with his own music for a backdrop. Credited as being the main inventor of “Frippertronics,” a primitive but landmark tape-delay technology (and music remixing technique) for his collaboration with Robert Fripp, No Pussyfooting, back in 1973. He also created the “Oblique Strategies” card deck that can be used to help direct (or inspire?) artistic creation, and has created ambient music computer screensavers.
XTC: poppy punk, reggae- and ska-influenced dance/punk, XTC leader Andy Partridge’s ahead-of-his-time dub experiment album, Explode Together (1980), New Wave pop/rock, acoustic pastoral English folk/pop, XTC-calling-themselves-“The Dukes of Stratosphear”-era psychedelic homage works, power pop/rock, and orchestral/folk pop – sometimes in a singer/songwriter confessional mode.

Talking Heads: naive-sounding bubblegum punk/pop (“the worst shit I ever heard” – Tony Bongiovi, producer and Jon Bon J’s uncle), eclectic, arty pop/rock, arty NY dance/rock, country-ish rock, world music and R&B-inflected pop. Heads side and solo projects too… rap, dance, world music-inflected electronica/rock, and various Latin/art rock fusion styles.