Musical transformations revisited
I’ve posted before about my fascination with public musical transformations….
..by which I don’t mean that crappy Beastie Boys style rap tape you made with your friends on a boom box in 7th grade or what have you. I’m talking bands or individuals that have a national or international profile, release albums, and then suddenly and drastically shift either their musical style or their image or whatever.
Think synth-pop Ministry versus aggro-industrial Ministry.
Think discordant, avant-indie noise White Zombie versus pedestrian metal White Zombie.
Think glam rock hair farmer Pantera versus faux redneck knuckle drag metal Pantera.
Think the dreadlocked dude from Skabba The Hut morphing into the gloomy 80’s retro dude from The Bravery.
That’s just limiting it to bands that actually released albums under their earlier iterations (You escape yet again Alyce N’ Chainz).
But although I’ve never actually heard either the Kills or The Dead Weather I’ve been visually aware of their female singer and her Junkie Chic attempt to be Jennifer Herrera’s (Royal Trux) kid sister and mine that whole fashion statement/aesthetic/musical vibe.
However I had no idea until recently that this was the same girl that sang for a pretty popular pop punk band in the 90’s. I saw them a couple of times, had a few records, etc. but I pretty much never would have put two and two together. Thus, this article kind of sums it up and intrigued me on this subject:
http://www.avclub.com/twincities/articles/the-curious-transformation-of-alison-mosshart,27724/
Comments
I have decided that while I think you are one of the most awesome human beings walking the planet at the moment, I also think that you know way too much about music for your own good.
And wow, Discount huh? I haven’t thought about that band in a decade or so. I remember their recordings being pretty good, that live performance is terrible.
This is an interesting topic you propose. The more I think about it, though, I’m not even sure why it’s so frowned upon for musicians to “transform”, not that you are implying that it’s bad. Are there examples from the visual art world of artists completely changing their styles? There have to be right? What’s the difference? Art comes from inspiration right? Can’t inspiration change?
That said, I think it is pretty clear that a lot of popular music is created to capitalize on a trend rather than from pure inspiration. Are musicians just inherently less principled than other kinds of artists?
I got one you’ll love, Kev: The Beatles! FIrst they were just a another 60’s pop rock band and then they went on to become psychadelic studio nerds. It wasn’t quite the overnight conversion a lot of the bands you described did (though Ministry took a few albums, no?), it went pretty much poppy guitar band stuff, Rubber Soul/Revolver, psychedelic hippie band.
Along the same vein, would you qualify Radiohead? I suppose you could make their argument that their “transformation” was really only one or two albums long, and that it really wasn’t even all that much of a transformation to begin with, but yeah. I really can’t stand Pablo Honey, so I think they qualify.
But more along the lines of what youer’ talking about, you had a ton in that whole Dance Rock/New New Wave explosion thing a few years back. Bands like The Bravery, who were apparently a Ska band, and the Kaiser Chiefs who, coincidentally, were sort of a Kid A-era Radiohead ripoff band.
Bullet point responses:
- No, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing for a band or artist to evolve. I do cast a raised eyebrow when it’s something that is hidden or tried to gloss over, which makes it seem less than genuine or more bandwagon jumping, which I do think is bad.
- I wouldn’t include the Beatles. And without taking an opportunity in this instance to bash them, I think theirs was much more what could be qualified as an evolution rather than a complete reinvention. I would say the same thing with Radiohead. The ones I’m talking about are much more (I think) drastic. I mean Radiohead may not play anything off of Pablo Honey or as much off of the Bends but they also don’t completely disavow or try to hide that era.
- I do think musicians are inherently less principled, but that’s only because it’s a medium where it is possible to make money and it is possible to make a career of it and to be successful, even with less than artistic intentions. Art…maybe not so much. Although who knows how many great artists are using their skill for less than fully artistic purposes because it pays the bills and there are fewer guarantees or paths to sucess in those mediums.
Inherently? I dunno… I suppose it’s probably true, but I can’t help thinking of Shepherd Fairy or however he spells his name:
The Beatles just copies whatever style the band next to them in the recordong studio.
Gerry and the Pacemakers et al for the early stuff, Pink Floyd for Sgt Peppers a big pile of dog crap for the rest.
Shephard Fairy has always done the same style and type of art. He just got successful. I’m not talking “selling out” or any of that. I’m talking wholesale “What I’m doing currently isn’t popular so now I’ve got to completely change that and do this other thing which is drastically different, and more likely to make me popular. And then I’ll try and gloss over this other period, deny it altogether, or blame it on someone else.”
The Manc said:The Beatles just copies whatever style the band next to them in the recordong studio.
Gerry and the Pacemakers et al for the early stuff, Pink Floyd for Sgt Peppers a big pile of dog crap for the rest.
The Manc said:The Beatles just copies whatever style the band next to them in the recordong studio.
Gerry and the Pacemakers et al for the early stuff, Pink Floyd for Sgt Peppers a big pile of dog crap for the rest.
Thank you for doing this so I didn’t have to. I knew I could count on you.
Interesting! I can think of a couple examples of bands that changed their sound and therefore ended up getting extremely popular (off the top of my head, Goo Goo Dolls and Sugar Ray. blech.) Ryan Adams did a totally different kinda style album that everyone loved, then went back to his old thing.
The article about this singer made me think of actors and actresses, and that singers are performers too…maybe she was tired of her persona and what she portrayed on stage and felt like making a change and portraying something else. It’s an odd thing in the music industry.
Transformations by bands and singers…at a certain point, coming up with the same style and sound over and over again must be tiring and boring for the band/singer, but you have to straddle the line between personal and musical satisfaction and keeping your fans happy if you want to continue being a successful, commercial band.
I always wonder how musicians can keep playing the same songs for years and years and still look like they are having an awesome time doing it. (I am so sick and tired of Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac and hearing the same damn songs on the radio…aren’t they sick of themselves??) It kinda goes along with the theory I just made up that musicians are in many ways the same as actors.
I love how much Manc Kevin hates the Beatles and the rest of Liverpool.
Oohh…Goo Goo Dolls and Sugar Ray are 2 really good examples. To be clear, I’m not referring to nor do I have any issue with artists who try a lot of different things (Bowie, Costello, Ryan Adams, that type of thing). I’m talking skeleton in the closet type reinventions that the band then sticks with and rides it to whatever end it takes them (long term success, fad obsolescence, etc.) in conjunction with a denial or disavowal of their previous stuff. I’m all for bands trying new things.
maybe mgmt? they were called the management and were sorta a low-fi emo-y band back in 2004 then they revamped it to the danciness that is mgmt.
edit: i dunno if they were an emo-y band. all i know is i saw them open for the weakerthans in 2003 or 2004 so i assumed. forgive me if i’m wrong.