• From: Texas
  • Registered: 2007-07-31
  • Posts: 950

Topic: Subsequent Album Switch-Around

So what's the deal with bands suddenly/randomly deciding to make an album that sounds completely unlike anything they've ever made before? I don't ask this a ranting sort of way, but more out of curiosity. I can understand a band evolving, and I don't resent anyone's right to experiment with and expand their musical vocabulary. Musicians should grow and learn over time, even change if thats how they want to express themselves.
What I don't understand is what makes an artist/band choose, just out of the blue, to completely abandon everything about the music they've made and make something so unrecognizable that it alienates their original fan base. Some bands by the second album have completely changed the line-up, vocal style, even style of music! At that point it doesn't seem to matter how "good" it is, when you picked up what you thought was smooth acoustic folk and it starts playing some weird electric pop (or maybe you're into heavy stuff and find your band's gone soft)  it just kind of takes you off guard. Not that they don't have a right to make whatever they want to, but its just hard for me to grasp the reasoning. When people support your music in a way that actually makes you successful, why make such a sudden change?
Some bands transition over time. Kings of Leon is the first example that comes to mind, because you really could hear the direction their sound was going from album to album. Whether you like the newer stuff or the older stuff better you could see it coming and understand where it came from.
Is it record companies pushing for such big changes? Are independant bands suddenly under creative censorship when they land a contract? What do you guys think? And has this happened to you recently?

All You Need is Love smile

HannahBeth's Website

2 Reply by dino48 (edited by dino48 2011-07-14 01:30:49)

  • dino48
  • Honoured Member
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  • From: los banos,california
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 6,801

Re: Subsequent Album Switch-Around

Hi hanna b,you really bring up some very good points and intersting one's. I will digest some of this and give it some thought.

my papy said son your going too drive me too drinking if you dont stop driving that   Hot  Rod  Lincoln!! Cmdr cody and his lost planet airman
  • From: Western Australia (born in NZ)
  • Registered: 2011-04-18
  • Posts: 322

Re: Subsequent Album Switch-Around

I really like bands/artists that just stick to what they do and don't change even when people tell them to. If you just be yourself and don't try to be someone else then somewhere out in the world you'll probably have fans. I think that's why successful artists have been so successful, because they been so genuine and real and not fake.

"Where you begin doesn't matter. Your willingness to start is what counts."
Without music life would be a mistake.
Country music is three chords and the truth.
cool cool cool cool cool cool
  • Registered: 2007-03-24
  • Posts: 1,108

Re: Subsequent Album Switch-Around

It's the business. I think it comes from the pressure put on  bands by the record companies. And remember an unsigned band has 10 years wotrh of material which they cherry pick for their first couple albums after that it's all new and fairly rushed. I write a hundred songs and only like one or two.....

After striving to get signed it's probably too hard to "push back" when your label asks you to try to be more like this or that. The great ones find a way around it but even great bands have bad albums.

You are absolutley right> I am very dissappointed in bands that have a great 1st couple albums and then just dissappear or turn into "pop" bands....sad state of affairs and the reason I no longer listen to mainstream radio

I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.
Elvis Costello
  • From: Western Oregon,US
  • Registered: 2008-07-22
  • Posts: 2,498

Re: Subsequent Album Switch-Around

It's not all "jumping the Shark"... or maybe it is.  I can easily see a label pushing to widen the fan base in effort to wring every dollar out of a band recently signed (before they screw up and get too wasted to work or kill themselves).

The only way to keep your favorite band "true to their music" is to listen to all the tracks (or samples of) before you invest in an album that you wouldn't normally waste money on.  Eventually the producers will get the message when they aren't flying off the racks in stores.

Doug

"what is this quintessence of dust?"  - Shakespeare