I’m a big Todd Rundgren fan, and we’ve had to be very nimble. Started in a blues band, Woody’s Truck Stop, then formed the American “English Invasion” pop band pop band The Nazz, then Laura Nyro-ish balladeer, psychedelic rock, prog rock, pretty much invented glam rock and has had excursions into rap and re-recorded an album of his hits in bossa nova style and toured the album with a tiki bar. His most recent album is arena rock and called “Arena”.
Apparently, he gets bored easily.
Which made me think of this little video clip.
How about Miles Davis? Sure, he was always “jazz,” but he was consistently on the ground floor of each major development in jazz from the mid-1940s on. I would say the difference between, say, Birth of the Cool and Bitches Brew is by order of magnitude greater than genre changes of most rock or pop bands that simply switched to a different flavor of rock or pop.
Aretha Franklin went from singing gospel at her church to Queen of Soul, to a short attempt at disco to being, well, Aretha Franklin.
Cat Stevens?
**Billy Joel **has to be the ultimate example of this. From a piano-driven pop rocker to a classical music composer is about as drastic a change as you can get.
Well, you can also add Paul McCartney and Joe Jackson to the list, too, for the pop-to-classical switch.
edit: Oh, and David Byrne and Stewart Copeland (drummer for the Police) also have written classical pieces.
edit2: And, of course, Frank Zappa.
**AC/DC **started off as a glam rock outfit (hence the name).
Ultravox! went from fairly edgy rock to synth-pop (with a substantial change in personnel at the time of course).
And I consider King Crimson’s sound of the *Red/Lark’s Tongues in Aspic *era to be a quite different genre from the later Discipline/Three of a Perfect Pair era, although I’d find it hard to put the difference in words.
I think you think wrongly. Jazz? Jeez.
Ah, Elvis Costello is another one who ventured into the realm of classical music with his orchestral Il Sogno.
It wasn’t a total switch, or even for an album…but Metallica released a cover of “Tuesday’s Gone” and another song “Mama Says” that are very country.
So for two songs Metallica went from metal to country (and succeeded IMO).
Dennis has always been a huge fan of Broadway show tunes. He released an album of show tunes, and actually played Pontius Pilate in a touring company of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the Nineties.
Michael Bolton - yes, that Michael Bolton - used to sing in a heavy metal band.
Nik Turner went from spacerock to jazz.
Robert Calvert issued several concept albums in various genres (folk-rock, proto-punk, and deliberately-cheesy pop)
Not really switching genres, but Jesse Sykes (country noir) has collaborated with Boris and Earth.
The Supersuckers and Hank III alternate between country and punk.
Many opera singers have done pop albums . . . and I sincerely wish they would stop. And the Vienna Boys’ Choir have done pop, with equal success. And of course there’s Leonard Bernstein, with one foot in classical and the other on Broadway. And Yo-Yo Ma has done lots of non-classical.
And oh yeah, Ethel Merman did a disco album.
Who in particular are you referencing? I don’t mind Andrea Bocelli’s and Sarah Brightman’s pop efforts, but those are the only two that come to mind.
Queen started out as a seventies (hard) rock band and changes in the eighties to, well…something different. Also in the song Bohemian Rhapsody alone they change genres about three times.
Almost any non-American artist / group with a succesful career spanning several decades would qualify here, it seems (save for AC/DC).
Compare Queen of '74 to Queen of '84, for instance. From piano-driven, falsetto-sung, multi-layered art rock to straight-ahead guitar rock with standard rock vocalization. Take Rush songs from the same years - nothing similar between 'em. Genre-switching abounds where careers last long enough.
Michael Nesmith went from teen idol with the Monkees to become one of the fathers of what is often called “Americana” music with his First National Band.
Mike Patton is a living, breathing genre switch in progress.
I may get myself accused of snobbery, but neither Andrea Bocelli nor Sarah Brightman are opera singers, any more that Celine Dion is.
