Coheed & Cambria for me. They started as a weird shouldn’t-work-but-it-does mix of prog and pop-emo/punk. Just darn fun.
With IV, they started aiming much more in the prog/metal direction, and their work since has been…dreary.
I think it you listen to * The Dream of the Blue Turtles* and Nothing Like the Sun and maybe * The Soul Cages*, then listen to the more recent stuff, you’ll note a distinct style change. I may have the actual time and place of the change wrong, but his earlier stuff and his later stuff (solo) is really different. I like a few of the newer songs but not most. Liked almost all of the older stuff. It really is a different style.
ETA: talking about Sting. Forgot to mention that.
Yeah, but he switched TO the “Night Tripper” act as a not very successful, cash in on the hippies put-on. His career before and after was with the straightforward New Orleans funk-blues.
Exactly what I came in here to say. I like pop music, and often I like bands better after they sell out (Green Day, AFI, and the previously mentioned Sugar Ray are three that spring to mind). The problem with Gwen Stefani is that I do not think she’s well suited for pop music, and the fact that Tragic Kingdom sold more than three times as many copies as any of her follow-up efforts seem to indicate that many of her fans agree.
They lost me at the same point. Though I have to qualify that “lost me” by mentioning that I was only 14 when I first discovered the band in 1980, and 16 when the synths took over (Signals album in '82). They’d made me fall in love guitar-driven hard rock and pushed me into exploring more of the same and I was starting to get into heavy metal. Signals came out and I was convinced they’d suddenly “gone all new wave on me”. And being a young and learning guitarist, I loved playing guitar along with my favorite records, and suddenly there just wasn’t much guitar to play along with on this new Rush stuff. So I kind of lost interest as I got into stuff like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
They did win me back eventually, though. Around 1994 I stumbled upon their 1991 album, Roll the Bones on the jukebox in the bar I was working in. It had a lot more guitar and a lot less synth than the stuff I’d heard since '82, and that prompted me to check out their next couple of albums, and I discovered the synths were fading more and more to the background, and where they were present they didn’t completely dominate the songs. Of their last two albums, Vapor Trails is entirely synth-free; Snakes & Arrows has a mellotron on one or two tracks, but aside from those it’s all guitar-bass-drums. Geddy Lee has essentially replaced synths with layered vocal harmonies.
OTOH, being much older now than I was in 1982 has enabled me to go back and listen to all the Rush albums I skipped in the 80s and appreciate them as actually being some pretty good music. It probably helps that I’m primarily a bassist these days, too - while those songs are still as guitar-sparse as ever, they have some outstanding bass work on them that is a lot of fun to play.
Bowie lost me temporarily when he switched from being Ziggy Stardust to being the Thin White Duke. I didn’t get it at all and thought he had simply sold out. Later on I was able to grasp the concept.
Outkast stopped being good after Aquemini, and I can’t figure out what Cee Lo/Gnarles Barkley, or whatever his name is, is doing anymore. I used to like Goodie Mob. Damn it, they were the only Southerners who made rap I could listen to! Come back!
Heh, AFI would be on my list. I liked Sing the Sorrow quite a bit - it was the album that got me into them, but I think their high point was Art of Drowning/All Hallows EP, Decemberunderground was a disappointment, and anything they’ve done since then just doesn’t do a thing for me. Not to mention Blaqk Audio, what utterly insipid music. They’re the epitome of ‘not suited for pop’.
I think you’re kind of right about Gwen Stefani. She seems to be playing to her personal image of what a pop star should be, rather than being naturally suited for the genre.
As for Green Day, nothing they do will ever be as good as Dookie, largely on the principle that they had their entire lives to make that album (yeah, I know they had previous releases, but they’d been demoing those tracks for ages before Reprise picked them up) and only a few years apiece to make the next few. But they were all great, until 21st Century Breakdown, which just sounded like phoning it in to me.
And I actually like Sugar Ray but when I tell people that they seem to stop valuing my opinions on music…
Electric Warrior reminds me of one the biggest musical turnarounds: that of Tyranosaurus Rex to T Rex. I loved the former.
Radiohead. I enjoyed OK Computer in particular and several other tracks. I’d describe the style as personal/indie/whiny. The first time I listened to Kid A, I was put off. I’d describe the newer style as personal/electronic/whiny. Really not that big of a stylistic jump when you put it that way. Of course, they’ve probably moved on since then, Kid A was a long time ago.
I love both.
When Renaissance swapped orchestras for synthesizers. Granted, it was for economic reasons, but it really wasn’t the same after Novella. A few feeble tries at relevance, then fading away to whatever Annie and John are doing now.
Bruce Springsteen. His first two albums were original, endearing jazz-rock. After Born in the USA he went pop and never looked back.
Jeff Beck. The first two Jeff Beck solo albums (with Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, and John Paul Jones) were heavy metal before anyone knew what it was called. Then in the '70s he started playing something that sounded more like Muzak than anything else.
Katy Perry. I’m not even a Christian, but the gospel album she did as a teenager is a LOT better than any of the pop music she’s put out since she started kissing girls and banging Russell Brand.
Led Zeppelin. I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned them yet - Led Zeppelin I and Presence don’t even sound like they’re by the same band.
Ronnie Wood played bass and Mickey Waller played drums (with Nicky Hopkins on keys on some songs). No JPJ (except on Beck’s Bolero, which was not recorded for the album originally). While I prefer Truth and Beck-ola, to refer to Blow by Blow and Wired as “muzak” - hmm, I suspect you’ve never really listened to 'Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers or Freeway Jam or Blue Wind, or…