Awwww…'Cmon Stiff Little Fingers were always pretty good…have you heard any of their newer stuff? Pretty good IMHO.
Elvis Costello went from sharp, snappy, and intelligent to Burt Bacharach.
Stevie Wonder went from young Motown R&B hitmaker, through funk, harmonica driven music, into what I guess could be considered adult-contemporary. As he aged he began to write more and more of his own songs (he started his pro career at 12 so you can’t really blame him for not writing his own songs in the beginning) and also he put more and more depth and social commentary into him as he grew up.
Wilco has gone from country to smart pop to experimental pop to Niel Young-esque roots rock.
Have you heard his latest? It’s quite good. (Great username, btw).
Brian Setzer started out as a Stray Cat, and wound up a big band leader.
[QUOTE=iggy popov]
Their third album was also sort of a change before Loaded.
Lou Reed also reinvented himself a few times during his solo career.
Didn’t The Who, like Journey, start out completely different, then got a new front man and ended up as the band we know today?
Pearl Jam has certainly come a long way from the balls to the wall grunge rock of Ten. I’m not really even sure what to call them now.
Oops, forgot to mention Jewel her new album is horrendous, Britney Spears/Destiny’s Child type stuff. Did she lose her guitar in a bet?
A wee bit of trivia that most people don’t know as the songs are so different, but several years before Rafferty had his hit with Baker Street, he was the lead singer of Stealers Wheel, which had a hit with Stuck In The Middle With You.
The other day a friend and I were in a restaurant. “I Wanna Know What Love Is” by Foreigner was playing on the piped-in music. I had a hard time convincing my friend that the song was really by Foreigner. Had I not already known myself, I would have had a hard time believing someone who told me this. When you compare their latter love-ballad dreck to their harder-rocking hits of the 70s, such as “Hot-Blooded”, “Cold As Ice”, “Jukebox Hero”, etc., the band made a big change. I realize they put out “Waiting for a Girl Like You” during their “rock” era, but this song was still an exception to their style at the time.
Another song that comes to mind is “Second Chance” by .38 Special, which is now a staple on the (yawn) adult comtemporary station. This sounds nothing like “Rockin’ Through the Night” and other songs of their past.
Pulp started out life as an unsuccessful folky-pop band in the 1980s. In the 1990s and several lineup changes later, they became a sex-obsessed, synth-drenched, highly successful dance-pop band.
I haven’t heard the new new stuff (I’ll give it a listen)… but ya gotta agree that it’s a pretty sharp downhill slope from Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster to Price of Admission and That’s When You Blood Bumps.
You missed the biggest transformation of recent British music - The Verve. They started as a cult psychadelic band and ended up releasing Urban Hymns.
The British Columbia band Spirit Of The West went, from one album to the next, from a folky Celtic sound to some kind of pop/rock sound. Confused the heck out of their fans.
One of them later joined a Vancouver Celtic-rock band, The Paperboys, which subsequently mutated into a country band.
Kim Mitchell did an amazing metamorphosis, from crazy, wild front man and killer guitarist with Max Webster, which continued for several solo albums and won him several Juno Awards, to a singer of nondescript ballads, completely devoid of life. Of course, getting fucked around by The Men In Suits and losing your recording contract on two different labels because of corporate indifference, and being in his fifties may have had something to do with his mellowing.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith yet.
Hey, he’s back! And so soon!
Ian Thomas, another Canadian artist, started in the late '60s as a folkie playing coffee houses in Toronto, then founded a group called Tranquility Base, which was the resident rock group with a big orchestra in either Hamilton or Toronto, I forget which. Then he went solo and made a long string of excellent pop records, each more sophisticated than the last, as far as instrumentation, execution, arrangement and production go. He reached a pinnacle of perfection in 1979. Soon afterward, he dumped his wonderful group of local musicians and went with crack US session players and different producers and acquired that totally plastic synth-rock production sheen that was so wrong with so many '80s records. Last I heard, he had a group called The Boomers, but I’ve never heard anything by them, and I don’t know if they’re still together. I really hope Ian has a job. He’s a legend in Canada, but his best material was recorded for GRT, which went tits up. Then it went to Anthem, which never put out his whole catalogue, just a greatest hits and several new works. Now, I think that even Anthem has gone tits up. The guy should never have to be broke, he’s so good at what he does… but he overdid what he does there for quite awhile.
You’ll really like the newest one Guitar and Drum It’s easily their best one since (my favorite) Go For It Still, ya gotta admit. They’ve managed to put out more quality music than most other punk bands that have been around as long as them like The Addicts or UK Subs. Although, I saw the Subs a few years ago and they put on a hell of a show. Charlie Harper and Nicky Garret are like 80 and they fucking rocked!
It’s not a band Transformation, but Dave King went from belting out hair metal anthems in the early 80s in Fastway, to the Irish folk punk stylings of Flogging Molly. It surprised the heck out of me when I discovered they were the same guy.