I was just reading about someone seeing Pip Blom and how much they’ve changed (not quite a full Joy Division to New Order transition, but I can see what they mean). And I was just listening to the new El Perro Del Mar record and it’s wonderfully gothy monochrome winter record compared to her technicolor cocktails at sunset records I’m more familiar with.
I love when artists evolve and change. And always find it a bit sad when artists stick to the same sound or formulaic approach.
For instance. Low’s most recent albums being so intense but still keeping their melodic wonder with a totally different texture and intensity. Or Deftones change from their heavy af claustrophobic first record to their widescreen recent records.
Curious of some other examples that come to mind
And it’s got me wondering whether acts do this more or less now, given the challenges of reaching existing audiences vs in the past the pressure of labels to keep things safe.
The Innocence Mission have almost had their career in reverse going from the big major label commercial production of their first record to their now initimate stripped down indie releases.
A predictable response from me, but The Smashing Pumpkins have perpetually reinvented themselves, and even throughout the original run released albums that no one could have predicted based on the contents of Gish. The contrast is most dramatic with Mellon Collie and Adore, so I’ll just quickly highlight those.
Gish was pretty much four Illinois hippies making a psychedelic guitar album.
Whereas in the Mellon Collie era you had vicious metal and magical dreamlike ballads and everything in between, and Corgan incorporated a whole new range of sounds. The songwriting (both musically and lyrically) and the approach to the vocal performance were completely different.
And then with Adore of course you lose Jimmy’s incredible drumming and Billy’s guitar heroics, but you get beautiful material like this:
(Also just want to note the more recent examples of the synth driven stuff of the past two albums. It has essentially nothing to do with Gish at all and feels like a completely different band.)
Nothing to back this up, but I reckon it’s more easy/expected for bands to evolve/change these days. Part of living in a post-modern, less tribal era when it comes to music consumption. Reckon labels and the power they have (or, don’t have, these days) plays into that too.
Pretty sure the first album from The Notwist was post-hardcore, a million miles away from the more familiar Stereolab-ish sound they eventually settled upon.
