Queen was a popular hard/glam rock band for the first 3 albums, but by their fourth album, A Night at the Opera, they came out with Bohemian Rhapsody - more complex and ambitious than anything they had attempted previously - and they pulled it off. This put Queen into a whole 'nother category in terms of popularity, critical respect, etc.
I have heard the argument that Led Zeppelin had the same moment with Stairway to Heaven off of the Zoso album, which they then followed up with other hugely ambitious tracks like Kashmir, Achilles Last Stand, etc.
The Beatles had a few moments like this - Tomorrow Never Knows off of Revolver crossed an ambitious line, as did the whole of Sgt. Pepper, the whole of the White Album and the second-side song-cycle of Abbey Road.
The Who had Tommy, Quadrophenia and others - they weren’t short on ambition
Pink Floyd had Dark Side
Green Day had American Idiot, with its concept, multi-part song cycles, etc.
Who else has had a Bohemian Rhapsody moment that changed how people looked at them? Who were you expected to have one, but never did?
AC/DC certainly never had one, but I never expected them to
Van Halen - given Eddie’s musicianship - he’s an excellent keyboardist and violinist as well as guitarist and songwriter - I kind thought they would have one…
The Eagles’ Hotel California was something vastly different to anything they had done before it. Not really country rock at all, more real rock, as would be the hits following it.
Actually, Van Halen was the first band I thought of when I read the first sentences of your post. I’d say 1984, the synth-driven instrumental lead-in to *Jump *on the album 1984 (which, for those of you doing math at home, is more than a quarter-of-a-frickin’-century old), was unlike anything VH (or any other hard rock band) had really done before. *Jump *introduced VH to a huge audience that had never really given VH a listen – and for those who bought either the LP or the cassette (as was the style at the time) based on the sound of Jump, 1984, the leadoff track, set the tone for an incredibly influential album.
Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick. A full theme album dispensing with any single-track structure, and bringing keyboards/organs to a prominent part of their sound, a total leap from their previous dirty-blues styles.
edit–and I was composing a similar reply regarding Van Halen, 1984 was a powerful defining moment for them and still sounds amazingly fresh and modern.
Not sure this quite counts, but Savatage, a hard rock/heavy metal band, ended up forging a whole new path for themselves (as the Trans-Siberian Orchestra) following the release of “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo” from the *Dead Winter Dead *album.
Not one particular song, but Radiohead did this with OK Computer. Before that they were a guitar based pop-rock band (to a large degree), and had a “grunge” hit with “Creep”. They released another album after the one that had “Creep”, but it didn’t fair too well. Then came OK Computer and they were the critical and commercial darlings of the music world.
I went to see a band my first year at FSU in the campus club, the Downunder (the original location was in a basement at the old student union). It was free for students with ID.
This 3 piece band came out and after a couple of minutes, they piledrove me into the wall at the back of the club for like 10 minutes. The Flaming Lips made quite a first impression with One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond On A Sunday Morning.
I haven’t really cared for anything beyond their first 2 albums, but I still love this tune.
I think Clapton’s Leila fits. It’s long and complex and for me at least it shows that Clapton is (or was) capable of much more than his fans usually demanded of him.
It’s not one song, but I think the Beastie Boys had their moment with the release of Check Your Head. The guys took a huge chance including hardcore punk songs and long mellow stoner jams, and by actually playing instruments instead of just sampling everything and using a drum machine & synth.
Blondie maybe, with Rapture.
I love the band (I’ve actually traveled to see them), but I still think Clutch’s best song was Spacegrass. They stripped the sound bare, slowed everything down to a crawl and perfected the build-without-release. It was completely unlike anything on their previous 2 albums and got them TONS of college and indy radio airplay, not to mention exposure on late night Empty Vision™.
Combine released the stunning -presents- The History of American Rock And Roll back in 1996 and the whole thing is basically a long punk rock opera. It didn’t help their careers, but it’s one of my favorite albums of the 1990s; I think they pulled off what they were trying to do with aplomb.
I’ll skip ahead and cut right to one of my favorites for this type of thing tho: Talk Talk’s Happiness Is Easy. The band’s second album, It’s My Life had notably contained a huge leap forward in both musicianship and songwriting, but their 3rd album pretty much chucked all the rules about pop music out the window. Starting with Happiness, a sweeping six-and-a-half minute song with lush orchestration and dense choral backing, and continuing to build and explore from there, the album is a jungle of unusual sounds and instrumental voicings, all brought together by the plaintive and hypnotic vocals of Mark Hollis.
The next 2 albums, Spirit Of Eden and Laughing Stock are so far outside the purview of pop music that they stand as some sort mad genius concoction: a unique combination of dance music, jazz, orchestra, indiginous tribal funk soul that defies easy classification. The albums are a tribute to the bravery and vision of Mark Hollis, and show that taking chances is worth the risk.
I just thought of another: Dire Straits had released four studio albums prior to 1985, when they released Brothers in Arms. Money for Nothing was perhaps the band’s most-accessible single (if not, then Walk of Life on the same album certainly was); add in tremendous early airplay of the two videos on then-fledgling MTV, and the just-introduced CD format, and the band found an audience much, much larger than it had previously seen.
Radiohead has had a few of these. Prior to OK Computer, there was The Bends which was sort of transition from their earlier work to OKC. But after these, Kid A and Amnesiac were vastly different from anything they did before. Then I stopped listening to them, but I know that Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows were also significant departures.
I think the Clash’s London Calling would fit. Well, they had a fantastic first album (U.K. version) and a streak of classic singles, but this album blew that all away. A double, not one bad songs, in so many different styles, wonderfully produced, something no one else has ever done better IMHO. And very ambitious for a punk band with such a rough image.
(Don’t get me wrong, I almost love everything they’ve ever done, but this was their peak)
I’d have to say “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” did this for Wilco. Before that album they were mostly known as an alt-country band (even though their 3rd album, Summerteeth, was more pop), but YHF thrust them into being known as a band that liked to experiment w/ noise. Now when you mention Wilco to someone they’re more likely to say “That’s that ‘noise’ band” and not “They’re alt-country.”
Ok, that’s not written very clearly but I hope the point is in there somewhere.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was David Bowie’s fifth studio album. He’d had a couple of minor hits before, but it was this album and the accompanying stage shows that made him an instant legend (although it would be another decade before he had his really huge commercial success).
ETA: In terms of songwriting and musicianship, “Ziggy” isn’t really a big leap forward from “Hunk Dory,” but in terms of image-making it was a huge breakthrough, to the point that many years, albums, and personae later, Ziggy Stardust is still somewhat synonymous with David Bowie.
The Beastie boys first album license to Ill was considered a bit of an anomaly, ha ha three Jewish kids made a rap album that ain’t too bad. But Paul’s Boutique, their second album turned them in to rap bona fides and actually put them at the forefront of sampling and layering of tracks. It turned them from a potential novelty act into rap pioneers and heavyweights.
If we’re looking for a Boheman Rhapsody moment for Radiohead it’s hard not to pick Paranoid Android. Jackknifed Juggernaut is right about there were definitely intermediate steps from their roots to OK Computer - the My Iron Lung EP and then The Bends - but I can’t think of a song on there that points toward Paranoid Android. Of course the band says the song is a goof anyway, but… anyway I’m not sure there is one track on any album where they really tipped their hands about where they were going next.
An excellent example of this is the Moody Blues, who started out releasing typical pop songs like “Go Now” before reversing course and releasing “Days Of Future Passed”, one of the first concept albums and perhaps the first rock/symphony hybrid.