The group Ministry has plagued my mind off and on over the past few months. I never ‘got into’ them in the 80s and while I have always enjoyed most of their music, I am hardly a huge fan.
That said, it always baffled me how a group like them went from their sounds of the early-to-mid 80s with kind of a mellow dance club vibe, to a very heavy thrash sound. What spurned such a huge change in direction for them. It seems from what little I can tell that they have all but disowned/forgotten about their earliest years and now stick exclusively to their heavy music, so was it a corporate issue that did it?
Along those lines, what other groups went through such huge changes? I came up with the following so far:
Beatles went from happy pop band that made girls cry to a deeper, (IMHO) better music.
Metallica had gone from super metal rockers to a ‘meh’-corporatized vanilla band that has all but fallen from the face of the earth (did anyone actually LIKE their attempt to return to their old sound with St. Anger?).
Genesis, beginning as a cool Peter Gabriel psychedelic outfit, changed into the crappy “new” Genesis with Phil Collins as frontman.
REM, which has gradually metamorphosed from groovy jangly country-flavored rock to ironic pop to electronicish stuff to… whatever they are now (I haven’t listened for a while.), is another example.
Similiarly, Chicago: Classic Rock to Adult Contemporary.
I should just add that I find nothing wrong with these transformations. I like 70s Genesis, and I like 80s Genesis. I like 70s Chicago, and I like 80s Chicago. I do not, however, like 90s Chicago.
Their most recent album ditched most of the electronic stuff for a fairly mellow sound (with, oddly enough, drumming provided by former Ministry stalwart Bill Rieflin).
Ditto, arguably, for the Beach Boys: from two-minute pop songs about girls, cars, and surfing, to Brian Wilson’s ambitious “teenage symphonies to God,” to the largely post-Brian 70’s albums that were hit-or-miss but still contained some stunning music.
Perhaps even moreso than Fleetwood Mac with the introduction of Buckingham & Nicks, The Moody Blues experienced a major change in direction and became the group that most people think of as “The Moody Blues” with the addition of Justin Hayward and John Lodge. Before this, they were led by Denny Laine (later of Wings), were bluesier and far less orchestral, and their biggest hit was “Go Now.”
More seriously, **Bob Dylan ** has gone through all sorts of transformations: traditional folkie, electric folk, rock, spiritual, and many more in between.
**Rod Stewart ** went from blues to pop to disco and now is doing standards (pretty badly).
The Doobie Brothers really changed their sound once they started featuring Michael McDonald on vocals.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears was originally a heavily blue-oriented group led by Al Kooper. Kooper left and they turned to a more pop sound with David Clayton-Thomas.
Soft Machine started as a song-oriented progressive rock group, but switched over to long jazz-oriented instrumental jams.
Everlast used to be in House of Pain, a rap group. Now, he’s, uh, well, I don’t know what he’s doing now but he released a solo rock (sort of) CD in the late nineties.
Penelope Houston went from punk chanteuse with The Avengers to folk singer ( not a half bad one either - if you can find it and you probably can’t On Borrowed Time, live in Frisco is worth a listen, especially for the acoustic rendering of her old punk tune ‘Corpus Christi’ ).
