Michael Bolton started out doing rock, but of course he got huge in the 90’s when he started doing more, I guess you’d call it, soulful music, or adult contemporary.
The Go-Gos started out punk, but went pop to get a record deal and of course were fairly big in the 80’s.
So, what other groups or artists started out with one sound, then changed sounds either to get popular, or for other reasons but got popular anyway?
Garth Brooks started out doing KISS covers.
Sugar Ray started out as a metal band, and the Goo Goo Dolls were originally a punk act. They both became more popular when they started playing pop-rock.
Nelly Furtado had a hit with ‘I’m Like A Bird’ in her folky-pop style, but it wasn’t until six years later she had a huge album and hit single after hit single with the album Loose, which was produced by Timbaland and was mostly urban-pop.
British duo Everything But The Girl had middling-success with acoustic songs but got their big break with the full-on dance hit ‘Missing’, which then dictated a complete shift into house music for their remaining, popular albums.
Alanis Morissette was an unknown outside of Canada (and only mildly successful in Canada as a teen-pop singer) before she released Jagged Little Pill a did a genre switch to become… whatever genre you would call Alanis Morissette.
Tori Amos’ early projects like Y Kant Tori Read were more rock-oriented and were a complete disaster, her breakthrough came with the understated, confessional Little Earthquakes.
Janet Jackson made two albums of boring, bland teen-pop which put her on par with sister La Toya before she released the Prince-influenced, hard-hitting R&B album Control, which made her the second most successful Jackson.
Madonna started out in a rock band called The Breakfast Club before switching to club music.
Katy Perry used to be known as Katy Hudson and released one unsuccessful album of Christian pop.
Concerning critical success, Kelly Osbourne switched from watered down punk-pop to stylish electro and gained quite a few new fans with her second album Sleeping In The Nothing - it didn’t, however, translate to sales. (The album is good though - I swear)
Australian band Rogue Traders were a mostly unsuccessful dance act until they recruited singer Natalie Bassingthwaite and became a dance-rock group.
Some of those are arguable but I think all made a significant change in their genre/style and then became much more popular because of it.
Bob Dylan. Electric guitar.
Evanescence and Avril Lavigne also started out in the Christian pop genre before moving into more mainstream pop.
Bobby Darren moved through several genres. He started out in pop rock (“Splish Splash”) moved into vocal standards like “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea” and then tried out country and folk.
The Bee-Gees were originally a fairly successful pop-rock band, but they became huge when they switched to disco.
These are all pretty good examples.
And as for:
I knew that the Goo Goo Dolls could really rock before they mellowed out and became more successful, but I didn’t know Sugar Ray was metal first. I find that kind of interesting.
Spinal Tap was a flower child hippie-ish rock band(with some success) before they became heavy metal rock Gods.
:::glares suspiciously at Gangster Octopus::: “Spinal Tap … right!”
Kenny Rogers’ first hit was the heavy duty acid rock song: “I Just Stopped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In.” He did a little better when he went country.
I suppose that Fleetwood Mac would count, originally they were a blues band and then switched to more pop-rock. Though this was due to change of personnel. Their biggest hits came after Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined.
Brian Wilson: went from straightforward, easygoing, simple “sunshine pop” with the early Beach Boys. But with later records such as “Pet Sounds” and “Smile” he created some really complex, intricate material, pushing the boundaries of pop-music.
If this made the Beach Boys more commercially successful can be debated though
Scritti Politti (mostly singer/songwriter Green Gartside) started out as an experimental punk Marxist influenced avant garde band and ended up a smooth polished melodic music maker. whose work was covered by the likes of Miles Davis
“The Sweetest Girl” 1981 when the change really started is still one of my all time fave songs.
Yeah, but he didn’t then become popular. He was already popular.
You’re thinking of the New Originals.
The original Blood Sweat and Tears was a blues group with horns. Then they added David Clayton-Thomas and became massively popular jazz rock stars for awhile. This was partly due to the fact Al Kooper left, but many of the original musicians remained.
Pink Floyd watered down their music, becoming less spacey, less improvisational, and more accessible. The result – Dark Side of the Moon – worked out well for them.
The Steve Miller Band was strongly blues based. Miller changed to more middle of the road stuff and became superstars.
I was thinking of Genesis, and could probably make the same point about them. After Peter Gabriel left, I think they tried to gain a broader audience while still remaining true to their prog-rock roots, but once Steve Hackett left the band, they just started cranking out the pop tunes. Was there ever a moment in the 80s when Phil Collins wasn’t on the radio?
Dan Seals did something non-country before he had a lot of hits as a country singer.
John Denver started out in the folk music scene before becoming a mainstream pop star. Although his pop hits were still kind of folksy…
Seals and Crofts, they were fairly well known.