# What musician (or band) changed styles midstream and lost you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 3, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913 "2011-12-03T01:47:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/21 "2011-12-03T07:03:59Z")
Red Hot Chili Peppers. I haven’t liked their last four albums at all. They’ve gone way soft and their music just lacks any kind of punch. _One Hot Minute_ was their last good album, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/22 "2011-12-03T07:08:57Z")
Genesis??! Genesis band that became awful is! Well, at least, IMO. I loved the music with Peter Gabriel still fronting the band, with the notable exception of _Lamb Lies Down_. After Gabriel left the band, _Trick Of The Tail_ was still pretty damn good. Shortly thereafter came _Duke_, which if memory serves included “Grab A Cab”\* and “Paper Late” and suchlike pop bilge, and that was the end of it for me. Yes I know the early albums strike most people as a prog slog for stoners, but I liked it anyway, dammit. \*(OK, really, it was “ABACAB”, named for the chord progression of the chorus.) ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/23 "2011-12-03T08:28:11Z")
Iron And Wine. WTF? ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/24 "2011-12-03T08:35:32Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Tom Waits. > > After 12 years and nine albums, Rain Dogs was the last I could tolerate. I’ve found a song or two of his since then that I like, but every time I’ve tried to listen to a full album, I just can’t take it. > > I loved his bluesy, boozy, lounge singer style, but just can’t take the frenetic and cacophonous style he’s moved into since the mid-80’s. I had no chance to get the first word in on this thread since I thought “Tom Waits” before reading your own answer. Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs are good, but Waits was starting his midstream change around that time. I like some of his newer songs such as “Cold Water”. Billy Joel and Elton John aren’t my favorites, but they had some good albums up to Glass Houses and Yellow Brick Road. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/25 "2011-12-03T09:21:37Z")
No Doubt. They used to be a really fun ska/punk-inspired outfit, with a couple of more mainstream but still good songs (Just A Girl, Don’t Speak), and then suddenly Gwen Stefani decided she wanted to be a pop star. I have a feeling she knows exactly what she’s doing but she’s alienated the band’s fanbase in the process. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/26 "2011-12-03T12:34:32Z")
I agree about Dr John, Steve Miller and the Incredible String Band. I loved Leonard Cohen’s first few albums, but then he went all funky, and lost me. Though I suspect for a lot of people it would be the other way round. Another one is Donovan. I loved him in the '60s when he was all fey, whimsical and psychedelic. Then from the 70s onwards he lost all that, and, again, lost me. I suppose the classic example is Neil Young, who constantly changed his style, so whether you liked him depended on what he was doing at any particular time. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/27 "2011-12-03T12:51:20Z")
Black Sabbath was so wonderful right out of the gate. The first few albums were gold standards of heavy metal, and then about Vol 4 began the suckage. Ozzie left and those magical thundering songs faded away. The rest of their output to me seemed like bar band music. Or, like the Pearl Jam mentions above, maybe I just moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/28 "2011-12-03T14:28:37Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > And, of course, Metallica. The thing they have just done with Lou Reed is an embarrassment for them all. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/29 "2011-12-03T15:46:05Z")
I’ve got two - Artist - **Jennifer Nettles.** I hate country music with a passion that is nearly unmatched by anything else in my life. When she started fronting for Sugarland, it broke my heart. I sooo want for her to just do some old-fashioned funky stuff like she used to - just on the side, just for kicks. I know it isn’t popular, and I know she loves making money and having lots of people love her, but damn. Country? Band - **Linkin Park**. Popularity killed their art. I know they say that they wanted to go different directions musically anyway, and I know they claim they are maturing as artists, but it’s funny that they are maturing into a pop-style boy band with a soft-edged emo frontman just like every other damn band on the radio now. I have serious doubts about their sincerity. Again, I understand - money is a nice thing. Popularity is a nice thing. Getting to put your songs on blockbuster movies like Transformers is a nice thing. If you’re selling out for the cash, just fucking admit it like grownups! If not, then seriously consider going back to your roots. You were interesting then, but your “maturing process” has made you just like everybody else, and that’s depressing. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/30 "2011-12-03T15:51:23Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > The correct answer to the OP is Sting. Sorry; Sting’s erudite songwriter songs and smooth-jazz leanings were well-tempered by Copeland’s talking, breathing drums and Summer’s groove-driven ambient textures. Without those edges to hang onto, his leanings fell into mush. And he plays the fucking lute. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/31 "2011-12-03T16:19:07Z")
U2 once they went Hollywood after _Joshua Tree_. ---
**Author:** ![Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Sunshine\_and\_Smiles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunshine_and_Smiles)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/32 "2011-12-03T16:19:59Z")
**Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s** -I absolutely loved their first album, _The Dust of Retreat_. It was indie chamber-pop with a sort of eerie, haunted aesthetic. Their world was a swirling shadowland of lost love, vampire women and ghosts that haunt hallways. Their most recent album, _Buzzard_, sounds like a middle-aged man wanted to make a boring rock album. One of those cases where you wish the guy had just changed the project name and preserved the memory of Margot. Second the **Red Hot Chili Peppers**. I think it’s pretty universally accepted that these guys were once funky, fresh, and fun. And then apparently they realized by phoning in the same pseudo-hippie-meets-frat rock sound with the same stream of conscious babbling of Anthony Keidis atop, they could make the big bucks. Between his lip-spat annunciations of drivel and the everpresent trite images of California, even John Frusciante’s (still superb) guitar playing can’t save these guys. I also think that the **Lou Reed** / **Metallica** thing must be the kind of joke that supremely rich rockstars who have seemingly conquered the world already would pull on the public, knowing they can. If you read some of their quotes (which is easier than listening to the music) - it just has to be a joke, it just has to… ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/33 "2011-12-03T16:24:13Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Sorry; Sting’s erudite songwriter songs and smooth-jazz leanings were well-tempered by Copeland’s talking, breathing drums and Summer’s groove-driven ambient textures. > > Without those edges to hang onto, his leanings fell into mush. > And he plays the fucking lute. I will totally agree with you about everything else, but knock off the lute. That’s actually awesome. It takes real balls to play a medieval acoustic guitar in public. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/34 "2011-12-03T16:28:20Z")
Five hard rocking albums with Steve Marriott and Humble Pie then “Baby, I Love Your Way”, “Show Me the Way” and the talk-boxed “Do You Feel Like We Do”. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/35 "2011-12-03T16:43:08Z")
Chicago. A great blues-y, R&B band that rocked hard. And then they turned into Air Supply. WTF, man? Why did Peter Cetera have to ruin Chicago _before_ he left? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/36 "2011-12-03T16:49:08Z")
> [@Lasciel](#): > > I will totally agree with you about everything else, but knock off the lute. That’s actually awesome. It takes real balls to play a medieval acoustic guitar in public. 😃 Yeah, I was afraid of that. No dis to the lute as an instrument. I love the lute and own some lute CDs. It’s specifiically Mr. Sumner playing the lute. Just too obvious a douchebag move for him. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/37 "2011-12-03T16:56:54Z")
**R.E.M.** Their early stuff had a dreamy, atmospheric quality. Part of this was the production of Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. Part was Michael Stipe’s esoteric lyrical references and his tendency not to enunciate all that well, which led to a lot of misheard lyrics and very personal interpretation of songs by listeners. Which was a GOOD thing. Unfortunately, some smart-ass reviewer made the mistake of referring to the album _Murmur_ as _“Mumble,”_ and Michael Stipe took the criticism to heart. (I saw him reference that review in an early interview. It was obvious he had been wounded by it.) He began enunciating his lyrics very carefully, which paradoxically often made them less interesting. I saw a recent interview with Michael Stipe in which he (maddeningly, for fans of his early stuff) still seems embarrassed by the murky, mystifying vocals of R.E.M.'s first few albums. Simultaneously, R.E.M. changed their production values and drifted away from the jangle-pop sound of their early recordings. I wouldn’t quite say they “lost” me, but their early stuff is far superior to their later work, in my view. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/38 "2011-12-03T16:58:31Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Tom Waits. I really like old Tom Waits stuff. I like it so much that I work at listening to his newer/newest stuff. It takes some work, but I enjoy everything in his catalog. But I can understand your POV. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/39 "2011-12-03T17:00:25Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > U2 once they went Hollywood after _Joshua Tree_. Good one. Even _Joshua Tree_ itself didn’t live up to the promise of _Boy_ and _War_ in my estimation. > [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > No Doubt. > > They used to be a really fun ska/punk-inspired outfit, with a couple of more mainstream but still good songs (Just A Girl, Don’t Speak), and then suddenly Gwen Stefani decided she wanted to be a pop star. I have a feeling she knows exactly what she’s doing but she’s alienated the band’s fanbase in the process. Agree. Sadly the storyline in the video for [Don’t Speak](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR3Vdo5etCQ&ob=av2e) foreshadowed exactly how the band would actually develop. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913/40 "2011-12-03T17:35:28Z")
I sort of agree with Leonard Cohen. Not a fan of Death of a Ladies’ Man, and (with one exception) he never regained the heights of his first albums. Strangely, though, I’m Your Man is possibly my favorite Leonard Cohen album (that or Songs of Love and Hate). The “modern” synthpop production seems like it should be embarrassing… and maybe it is sometimes… but the songs are just too damn good. > [@Frank](#): > > After 12 years and nine albums, Rain Dogs was the last I could tolerate. I’ve found a song or two of his since then that I like, but every time I’ve tried to listen to a full album, I just can’t take it. > > I loved his bluesy, boozy, lounge singer style, but just can’t take the frenetic and cacophonous style he’s moved into since the mid-80’s. My favorite Tom Waits is the one writing songs for plays (The Black Rider, Alice, Blood Money, Frank’s Wild Years). If his discography had come out in reverse, he would have “lost me” (not really but you get the point) when he went to the lounge singer style. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-musician-or-band-changed-styles-midstream-and-lost-you/604913.md?page=3)