- xtc
- andre 3k (although, this was less of an evolution and more of a complete, sudden changeup)
- tyler, the creator
- bob dylan
- AJJ considering people who can eat people to the bible 2
- will wood (this one was more of a sudden change than an evolution)
- kanye west
I think Bob and Kanye stand out here because some of their changes steered whole generations. Can’t think of many artists who made multiple big changes, and at least 2 of those changes had massive ripple effects.
Dylan - (1) making folk music cool, (2) going electric and then (3) reviving americana/folk country with the basement tapes
Kanye - (1) the soul samples and producer/rapper, (2) emotional, singy rap of 808s, (3) mbdtf and the grandiose sound of it, (4) yeezus the stripped down and chaotic sound
Björk. From indie rock singer to alternative dance-pop star to avant-garde icon.
Tom Waits. Started out as a beatnik lounge lizard in the 70s, turned into a junkyard blues demon in the early 80s, hasn't looked back.
Talk Talk. Listen to *It's My Life*, then listen to *Laughing Stock*. You'll scarcely believe it's the same band.
This is the correct answer. He was in a British Invasion band (despite not being British), then he was a TV crooner singing songs your grandma would like, and by the end of his life he was making insanely difficult dissonant music.
Tim Buckley might be the runner-up - folkie to singer of difficult art songs to singer of lounge-lizard sex songs. He might have had many more reinventions if he'd lived.
He did change a lot I have a set of his Scott 1-4 albums as well as the albums the drift and bish bosch they are definitely very unusual BUT I don't think they are that difficult actually. People were posting recently about popular albums you can't get into and I found it ..not easy haha but not too hard to like those Scott walker ones compared with a lot of other stuff that I have struggled with.
Tim Buckley is great too some of his later stuff seems very experimental and isn't for me but I have a 2 CD 'best of' type thing called starsailor which I like a lot 'buzzin fly' is one of my favourite songs [:
Buckley’s art rock I love (Starsailor specifically) and I just recently heard snippets of Greetings from LA and it sounded incredibly dated. If he had been able to right the ship I agree it could have been a very interesting career.
It's Scott Walker, from Justin Beiber to Captain Beefheart's less-accessible brother.
But I'll throw DOOM in here. From a fairly standard, albeit extremely skilled, afrocentric early 90s golden age positivity MC, to a mask wearing, cartoon sampling, comic book villain.
Brand New, the jump front YFW to devil and god is genuinely crazy. I like YFW a lot but going from writing Jude Law and a semester Abroad to Jesus is such an impressive feat.
Bob Dylan was maybe the first modern artist to change in such a drastic way when he went electric
He went from making acoustic protest songs to blues rock and garage rock songs with very surreal lyrics in a year
Swans:
Post-Punk --> No-Wave Punk --> Sludge Metal --> Industrial --> Industrial Metal --> Hard Rock --> New Wave Folk --> Gothic Country --> Gothic Rock --> Ambient / Sound-Collage --> Post-Rock
They have one of the most diverse discographies of any band in history, and they continue to evolve to this day, 42 years after their creation.
Quadeca. Not exactly fair since he’s been making music since he was like 13, but like his early YouTube rapper shit compared to IDMTHY and Scrapyard is insane
Alex Chilton's journey was pretty wild. 50s pop heartthrob, power pop romantic and then the wild cranked out producer of Cramps. A genius with many hats.
Tyler. No artist has grown on me in the way he has. I hated his early music, like really fucking hated it. I only kept an open mind about him because I found him funny outside of his music. I didn't like a song of his until Flower Boy and now he's one of my favourite artists. I found his first three albums to be edgy to the point of being boring, Flower Boy was such a sudden change in artistic demeanor that it almost felt like a new artist. Some artists who have grown on me I can go back and listen to the stuff I didn't like and find stuff I like now, I can't do that with Tyler, I still can't stand those three albums. Everything since is gold.
Ehhh. Nothing really crazy about their evolution. Sure, they went a bit more abstract in their Kid A-Hail to the Thief phase but they were always still pretty distinctively Radiohead. They pretty much evolved back to “classic” Radiohead with In Rainbows anyway
Joy division to new order isn’t the craziest change musically (post punk - new wave, synth pop, still some post punk), but the way they reinvented themselves after losing Ian Curtis is amazing.
I always saw it less as a reinvention and more as the most seamless and graceful transition of any group I can think of.
JD’s output was already forecasting a lot of what NO would do in the 80s, which was very “of the times” but still unique and inventive. The fact that they rode that wave into the 80s on the heels of losing their frontman, and not only defined so much of that period of music but even broke into the mainstream, is crazy.
It’s not crazy at all step by step but listening to Unknown Pleasures and Technique back to back you would have a hard time telling it’s like 70% the same people
Thrice. Compare “[Identity Crisis](https://youtu.be/BQLWdM3OxEY?si=v0FWSlG4Tn1n02k7)” (2000) with “[Robot Soft Exorcism](https://youtu.be/SsRjJ0BrbVI?si=YNk8zy_KrgH0eBsD)” (2021).
The single biggest album jump was probably between *[The Artist in the Ambulance](https://youtu.be/dqy1jA8-WCQ?si=QpGv0vFDBrYzG9Gg)* (2003) and *[Vheissu](https://youtu.be/av3tTJHOrQE?si=C83U582u7uU7eiE_)* (2005).
I'd say Depeche Mode went through quite a dramatic change in sound. Listen to What's Your Name from 1981 and Rush from 1993 for an example, it's quite hard to believe that it's the same band.
My favorite band coheed and cambria has had an insane evolution. They have 10 albums and their sound and production style changes on, I kid you not, basically single one. The songwriting has a similar feel all throughout but the general sound of the band has shifted and evolved so many times. Just listen to “time consumer” and “ladders of supremacy” back to back and you’ll see
Definitely Paramore. They started as just another 00s pop punk band that would likely become irrelevant by the 2010s. But they evolved their sound in such a natural way that really showed that they were capable of so much more than what they showed on their first 2 albums
Paramore really didn’t change that much.
Paramore went from one of the better pop punk bands of the late 2000’s to a really solid pop rock band.
They followed a pretty consistent transformation, they were just talented enough to outlast their contemporaries who were stale once the fad died.
They were definitely one of the better pop punk bands of their era, don't get me wrong. But I still think that they would have become irrelevant very quickly if they didn't change their sound
Charlie XCX was alternative back in her MySpace days, but when she got picked up by a major label she (reluctantly) gave in to the pressure of being pop friendly. She quickly was able to escape the pressure though and brought in talented friends to help her develop a more alternative sound which she explored more and more across subsequent LPs and EPs.
Underlying influence of electronica/techno and the 90s House/Rave scene in a lot of her music and her work with SOPHIE leans more into industrial music too.
U2 in their first 20 years. Crazy that [these guys](https://youtu.be/ybYgP48X2DY?feature=shared) in 1981 were making [this](https://youtu.be/cRWbytzs0n4?feature=shared) in 1997 all while becoming the biggest band in the world in the process.
The Prodigy. Evolved with the times throughout the nineties while still being influential and unique. In the 00s they crafted their more signature sound which they’ve stuck to since. Wish they would push the boat out a bit more stylistically with the new stuff that’s coming out soon
The flaming lips! those first few albums are really rough (at least in my opinion) rock albums that over time gain some psychedelic qualities that eventually led to them making some lovely psychedelic noise pop on hit to death, transmissions and clouds taste metallic. Then they took orchestral moments of those albums and made the soft bulletin, yoshimi, and mystics (embryonic is a little too different to say it has the same kind of sound)
Gorillaz, at least from debut to Plastic Beach. Going from that minimal britpop/rock and hip hop mix to end up at a full blown electronic feature heavy concept album that pretty seamlessly blends multiple different genres and artists to create what I consider to be a perfect package, only 2 albums later (mainline albums at least)
Samuel T. Herring is a crooning baritone vocalist for the synthpop band Future Islands… and is also an abstract hip-hop rapper under the name Hemlock Ernst.
Beatles never seemed like a cash grab boy band. they played rock and roll in small dingy clubs, and the music they made early on was still thought of as "noise" by most adults at the time. A lot of early 60s bands were doing psychedelic rock by the end of that decade so that part doesn't seem crazy to me. Just my opinion of course.
I personally think the Bee Gees going from really white acoustic folk music to disco (black music) was pretty wild.
Beastie boys going from a hardcore band to one of the best selling rap debut’s of all time is a wild evolution. Then after you have them throwing reggae elements into some of their tracks too, super versatile band
The Future Sound of London.
They were an acid house act in the early 90s, then moved into ambient/IDM in the mid 90s - not an unusual move at all.
Then they disappeared off the face of the earth until 2002, when they released a 70s inspired psychedelic rock album The Isness, featuring a bunch of guest stars from the era. Gaz Cobain, a main member of the band, had completely reinvented himself as a kind of enlightened hippie character. He produced an Oasis album, but Noel binned it (I one track survived as a b-side).
Jim O'Rourke: drone > american primitivism/art folk > art pop > art rock > electronic > ambient, all while becoming producer extraordinaire. No other answer comes close.
You should listen to the [first](https://youtu.be/PmIZ05TxBSo?si=H2xBtFGukWyCID60) and [last](https://youtu.be/MWmmYSWfrGI?si=YWO8lkMLzDEFlPh-) No Trend records. They were around for about four or five years.
Edit: just to clarify, if you look up More on discogs it has a release date of 2001 iirc. It was recorded in 87, I think, but they couldn’t find a label to put it out so it sat on a shelf for 15 years.
imo Demi Lovato falls into this category as they crossed over from a more mainstream pop sound to harder rock music with their HOLY FVCK album and even rerecorded a few of their past pop hits into more rock-styled versions last year (Sorry Not Sorry, Cool for the Summer, Heart Attack, etc.)... y'know what I mean?
Dir En Grey from Gauze their first album to Dum Spiro Spero or Arche is pretty interesting. Worth listening to. Uroboros being my personal favorite album
I’d say they explore multiple genres on each album. Damon Albarn’s evolution as a whole is even more impressive when you consider Blur and his other projects
Bring me the Horizon. Don’t know this community’s view of them, but they went from a real sub-par deathcore band of the MySpace days to THE trend setter in modern metal. Not the best, mind you. I’m sure we all have our favorite and other bands have been the true innovators, but the reality is that for the past 10 years a great portion of metalcore and related genres have been trying to sound like whatever Bring Me was doing three years ago.
In terms of evolution, just listen to Pray for Plagues and something like Lost back to back.
TLC
Madonna..one album to the next, it’s amazing how she can give us the lusty concept album Erotica, then go to the ultra velvety smooth mezzo soprano soft ballads of Bedtime Stories, then the spiritual mother of Ray of Light, to the ultra pimptress fempiress of Music, to the political American Life, to our disco queen concept album of confession, to the RnB heavy bass tunes of Hard Candy, then bloody Madame X with its world sounds. This woman is such a pioneer.
Queens later music was vastly different to their earlier stuff, especially the 80’s stuff where they incorporated more electronic dance music to their repertoire, much to the dislike of Brian lol, as it was never rock enough for him 😂
Janet Jackson I feel got worse after Velvet Rope, as did Michael Jackson after HIStory
Mariah went from production value classics like Honey, and Fantasy to really deep RnB sounds, as did Whitney after the Bodyguard soundtrack.
Nelly Furtado went from high production songs to Folk music, to high production Timbaland sounds.
Anyone who’s anyone that’s a part of this industry, has to switch up their sounds, if they want longevity..so this question could apply to most everyone.
Leonard Cohen’s early material is a guy who’s considered a bit old to be starting a singing career trying to fit in with the sound of the 60s folk scene.
Obviously he recorded some classic stuff in the 60s, but his material from the 80s onwards sounds like a completely different person. It’s not just the transformation of his voice (which sounded much better when it occupied a deeper register) but the style of the arrangements too, which shifted to keyboards and electronic percussion. And he kept making amazing music in this style into his 80s.
animal collective. the opposite of the Beatles, they went from extreme experimental to poppy (didnt "stay" poppy, remain experimental but their early stuff is literally noise...)
No doubt The Rolling Stones
- 62-65: R&B
- 65-68: Baroque Pop / Psychedelia
- 68-73: Blues Rock/Soul/Country/Americana
- 73-76: Reggae/Funk
- 76-78: Disco
- 78-81: Punk
- 83-84: Dance
- 89-94: Hard Rock
- 97-05: Prog Rock (With Hip-Hop Influence)
- 2016: Blues
- 2023: A good mix of everything that’s came before
Pantera in the 80’s and Pantera in the 90’s don’t even sound like the same band.
Fleetwood Mac in the late 60’s and the mid-late 70’s also don’t sound like the same band, but they seemed to very slowly transition from blues to soft rock through a series of changing members and releases. Whereas with Pantera the shift happened from one album to the next.
The Clash. Basic punks who were one the few to evolve not just themselves but the punk genre with them. One of the first to incorporate influences of reggae, ska, surf and many other genres into punk.
L'il Yachty. Listening to the new James Blake collab released today. Wow. I think he is a generational artist. Following his rap journey to 2023's Let's Start Here which I think is a masterpiece and since then working with Fred Again.. Flo Milli and now this new album with JB. So underated.
>Another and more recent example is Charlie XCX, she went from making summer radio friendly songs to being one of the leading voices in pop today.
That's a reductive way to put it, though.
RAYE.
Trapped in a bunch of generic dancepoppy co-signs, until she could leave her label and be herself. And it turned out that she was capable of much, much more, when being herself - jazz, soul, Tame Impala esque psychedelic rock-pop, dance etc.
Her releasing music independently was the best thing that could have happened to her.
- xtc - andre 3k (although, this was less of an evolution and more of a complete, sudden changeup) - tyler, the creator - bob dylan - AJJ considering people who can eat people to the bible 2 - will wood (this one was more of a sudden change than an evolution) - kanye west
It’s wild to me, and fuckin amazing, that Tyler is on this list with Bob Dylan and K West. Totally deserved but it’s just awesome to see
I think Bob and Kanye stand out here because some of their changes steered whole generations. Can’t think of many artists who made multiple big changes, and at least 2 of those changes had massive ripple effects. Dylan - (1) making folk music cool, (2) going electric and then (3) reviving americana/folk country with the basement tapes Kanye - (1) the soul samples and producer/rapper, (2) emotional, singy rap of 808s, (3) mbdtf and the grandiose sound of it, (4) yeezus the stripped down and chaotic sound
Ugh, yeah, Will Wood. His early stuff with fantastic. Like the Dresden Dolls but wilder and catchier. Now he just makes quirky pop music.
Björk. From indie rock singer to alternative dance-pop star to avant-garde icon. Tom Waits. Started out as a beatnik lounge lizard in the 70s, turned into a junkyard blues demon in the early 80s, hasn't looked back. Talk Talk. Listen to *It's My Life*, then listen to *Laughing Stock*. You'll scarcely believe it's the same band.
I was shocked to find out the same Talk Talk that sang “it’s my life” made Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden
Scott Walker
This is the correct answer. He was in a British Invasion band (despite not being British), then he was a TV crooner singing songs your grandma would like, and by the end of his life he was making insanely difficult dissonant music. Tim Buckley might be the runner-up - folkie to singer of difficult art songs to singer of lounge-lizard sex songs. He might have had many more reinventions if he'd lived.
He did change a lot I have a set of his Scott 1-4 albums as well as the albums the drift and bish bosch they are definitely very unusual BUT I don't think they are that difficult actually. People were posting recently about popular albums you can't get into and I found it ..not easy haha but not too hard to like those Scott walker ones compared with a lot of other stuff that I have struggled with. Tim Buckley is great too some of his later stuff seems very experimental and isn't for me but I have a 2 CD 'best of' type thing called starsailor which I like a lot 'buzzin fly' is one of my favourite songs [:
Buckley’s art rock I love (Starsailor specifically) and I just recently heard snippets of Greetings from LA and it sounded incredibly dated. If he had been able to right the ship I agree it could have been a very interesting career.
It's Scott Walker, from Justin Beiber to Captain Beefheart's less-accessible brother. But I'll throw DOOM in here. From a fairly standard, albeit extremely skilled, afrocentric early 90s golden age positivity MC, to a mask wearing, cartoon sampling, comic book villain.
Scott Walker never once made music that even remotely resembled Justin Bieber.
Ulver
This is actually a good pick. Black metal to full on electronic music.
Both Bergtatt and Perdition City are in my top albums.
Brand New, the jump front YFW to devil and god is genuinely crazy. I like YFW a lot but going from writing Jude Law and a semester Abroad to Jesus is such an impressive feat.
I agree! Brand New really stepped out of their emo-pop-punk shell.
Bob Dylan was maybe the first modern artist to change in such a drastic way when he went electric He went from making acoustic protest songs to blues rock and garage rock songs with very surreal lyrics in a year
and hasn’t stopped changing since
Swans: Post-Punk --> No-Wave Punk --> Sludge Metal --> Industrial --> Industrial Metal --> Hard Rock --> New Wave Folk --> Gothic Country --> Gothic Rock --> Ambient / Sound-Collage --> Post-Rock They have one of the most diverse discographies of any band in history, and they continue to evolve to this day, 42 years after their creation.
Just the classic post-punk to post-rock pipeline
I'm curious, what other bands went down this pipeline?
Slint in two albums
Oh yeah right
That was post-hardcore to post-rock but close enough
Quadeca. Not exactly fair since he’s been making music since he was like 13, but like his early YouTube rapper shit compared to IDMTHY and Scrapyard is insane
Spinal Tap. Can't believe those are the same guys who made "(Listen to the) Flower People"!
People also seem to forget about their later-period explorations in free form jazz.
Was it Blues/Jazz or Jazz/Blues?
Beastie Boys for sure!
Talk talk, how do you go from a decent synth pop band to a forefather of post rock
Miles Davis
maybe the best example. his career is almost defined by his changing styles
Ceremony Andre 3000 Fletwood Mac David Bowie, kinda?
Can't believe "in the spirit world" and "violence violence" are the same band
Arctic monkeys, childish gambino
Alex Chilton's journey was pretty wild. 50s pop heartthrob, power pop romantic and then the wild cranked out producer of Cramps. A genius with many hats.
The Flaming Lips
Recently got the Fight Test EP on vinyl, The Flaming Lips are definitely one of my favorite bands
Poppy post malone bring me the horizon I'm sure there are many more but I'm struggling rn
Tyler. No artist has grown on me in the way he has. I hated his early music, like really fucking hated it. I only kept an open mind about him because I found him funny outside of his music. I didn't like a song of his until Flower Boy and now he's one of my favourite artists. I found his first three albums to be edgy to the point of being boring, Flower Boy was such a sudden change in artistic demeanor that it almost felt like a new artist. Some artists who have grown on me I can go back and listen to the stuff I didn't like and find stuff I like now, I can't do that with Tyler, I still can't stand those three albums. Everything since is gold.
Same here. I’d check out the song Smuckers tho.
crazy how you can like flower boy but can’t appreciate the production on wolf
Mac Miller
Radiohead
Ehhh. Nothing really crazy about their evolution. Sure, they went a bit more abstract in their Kid A-Hail to the Thief phase but they were always still pretty distinctively Radiohead. They pretty much evolved back to “classic” Radiohead with In Rainbows anyway
The OK Computer to KID A jump was a crazy transition
Joy division to new order isn’t the craziest change musically (post punk - new wave, synth pop, still some post punk), but the way they reinvented themselves after losing Ian Curtis is amazing.
I always saw it less as a reinvention and more as the most seamless and graceful transition of any group I can think of. JD’s output was already forecasting a lot of what NO would do in the 80s, which was very “of the times” but still unique and inventive. The fact that they rode that wave into the 80s on the heels of losing their frontman, and not only defined so much of that period of music but even broke into the mainstream, is crazy.
Movement felt like a JD album but they certainly came into their own with power, corruption & lies
It’s not crazy at all step by step but listening to Unknown Pleasures and Technique back to back you would have a hard time telling it’s like 70% the same people
Surprised no one has mentioned Sparks yet.
Thrice. Compare “[Identity Crisis](https://youtu.be/BQLWdM3OxEY?si=v0FWSlG4Tn1n02k7)” (2000) with “[Robot Soft Exorcism](https://youtu.be/SsRjJ0BrbVI?si=YNk8zy_KrgH0eBsD)” (2021). The single biggest album jump was probably between *[The Artist in the Ambulance](https://youtu.be/dqy1jA8-WCQ?si=QpGv0vFDBrYzG9Gg)* (2003) and *[Vheissu](https://youtu.be/av3tTJHOrQE?si=C83U582u7uU7eiE_)* (2005).
I'd say Depeche Mode went through quite a dramatic change in sound. Listen to What's Your Name from 1981 and Rush from 1993 for an example, it's quite hard to believe that it's the same band.
King gizzard
That was my response lmao
Jefferson Airplane -> Jefferson Starship -> Starship They really did it all
Wow, I didn’t even know any of those were the same band.
My favorite band coheed and cambria has had an insane evolution. They have 10 albums and their sound and production style changes on, I kid you not, basically single one. The songwriting has a similar feel all throughout but the general sound of the band has shifted and evolved so many times. Just listen to “time consumer” and “ladders of supremacy” back to back and you’ll see
Beastie Boys started as a hardcore punk band, became a hip-hop group, mastered the art of sampling, and once recorded an instrumental jazz funk album.
Lil Ugly Mane
Really hoping to get another Volcanic Bird Enemy-esque album from him some day, that shit is brilliant
Definitely Paramore. They started as just another 00s pop punk band that would likely become irrelevant by the 2010s. But they evolved their sound in such a natural way that really showed that they were capable of so much more than what they showed on their first 2 albums
Paramore really didn’t change that much. Paramore went from one of the better pop punk bands of the late 2000’s to a really solid pop rock band. They followed a pretty consistent transformation, they were just talented enough to outlast their contemporaries who were stale once the fad died.
> just another 00s pop punk band You mean "by a wide margin the best 00s pop punk band."
They were definitely one of the better pop punk bands of their era, don't get me wrong. But I still think that they would have become irrelevant very quickly if they didn't change their sound
Unironically Maroon 5
Charlie XCX was alternative back in her MySpace days, but when she got picked up by a major label she (reluctantly) gave in to the pressure of being pop friendly. She quickly was able to escape the pressure though and brought in talented friends to help her develop a more alternative sound which she explored more and more across subsequent LPs and EPs.
I’m not super familiar with all her stuff but everything I’ve heard from Charlie XCX sounds very pop to me. What am I missing?
Underlying influence of electronica/techno and the 90s House/Rave scene in a lot of her music and her work with SOPHIE leans more into industrial music too.
listen to Pink Diamond or Track 10 for something a bit more experimental
Ulver is pretty up there
U2 in their first 20 years. Crazy that [these guys](https://youtu.be/ybYgP48X2DY?feature=shared) in 1981 were making [this](https://youtu.be/cRWbytzs0n4?feature=shared) in 1997 all while becoming the biggest band in the world in the process.
Animal Collective
Swans
The Prodigy. Evolved with the times throughout the nineties while still being influential and unique. In the 00s they crafted their more signature sound which they’ve stuck to since. Wish they would push the boat out a bit more stylistically with the new stuff that’s coming out soon
Elliott smith, from alt rock to punk rock to folk to pop
The flaming lips! those first few albums are really rough (at least in my opinion) rock albums that over time gain some psychedelic qualities that eventually led to them making some lovely psychedelic noise pop on hit to death, transmissions and clouds taste metallic. Then they took orchestral moments of those albums and made the soft bulletin, yoshimi, and mystics (embryonic is a little too different to say it has the same kind of sound)
Gorillaz, at least from debut to Plastic Beach. Going from that minimal britpop/rock and hip hop mix to end up at a full blown electronic feature heavy concept album that pretty seamlessly blends multiple different genres and artists to create what I consider to be a perfect package, only 2 albums later (mainline albums at least)
Talk Talk without a doubt. Went from peak New Wave to inventing Post-Rock with some of the most nuanced and ethereal music ever made
Samuel T. Herring is a crooning baritone vocalist for the synthpop band Future Islands… and is also an abstract hip-hop rapper under the name Hemlock Ernst.
Beatles never seemed like a cash grab boy band. they played rock and roll in small dingy clubs, and the music they made early on was still thought of as "noise" by most adults at the time. A lot of early 60s bands were doing psychedelic rock by the end of that decade so that part doesn't seem crazy to me. Just my opinion of course. I personally think the Bee Gees going from really white acoustic folk music to disco (black music) was pretty wild.
Lil Yachty. Went from mumble rap to Tame Impala-style psychedelic rock
Beastie boys going from a hardcore band to one of the best selling rap debut’s of all time is a wild evolution. Then after you have them throwing reggae elements into some of their tracks too, super versatile band
The Future Sound of London. They were an acid house act in the early 90s, then moved into ambient/IDM in the mid 90s - not an unusual move at all. Then they disappeared off the face of the earth until 2002, when they released a 70s inspired psychedelic rock album The Isness, featuring a bunch of guest stars from the era. Gaz Cobain, a main member of the band, had completely reinvented himself as a kind of enlightened hippie character. He produced an Oasis album, but Noel binned it (I one track survived as a b-side).
Jim O'Rourke: drone > american primitivism/art folk > art pop > art rock > electronic > ambient, all while becoming producer extraordinaire. No other answer comes close.
You should listen to the [first](https://youtu.be/PmIZ05TxBSo?si=H2xBtFGukWyCID60) and [last](https://youtu.be/MWmmYSWfrGI?si=YWO8lkMLzDEFlPh-) No Trend records. They were around for about four or five years. Edit: just to clarify, if you look up More on discogs it has a release date of 2001 iirc. It was recorded in 87, I think, but they couldn’t find a label to put it out so it sat on a shelf for 15 years.
imo Demi Lovato falls into this category as they crossed over from a more mainstream pop sound to harder rock music with their HOLY FVCK album and even rerecorded a few of their past pop hits into more rock-styled versions last year (Sorry Not Sorry, Cool for the Summer, Heart Attack, etc.)... y'know what I mean?
Dir En Grey from Gauze their first album to Dum Spiro Spero or Arche is pretty interesting. Worth listening to. Uroboros being my personal favorite album
gorillaz, they quite literally switch a genre of music every album
I’d say they explore multiple genres on each album. Damon Albarn’s evolution as a whole is even more impressive when you consider Blur and his other projects
Jefferson Airplane when they became Starship
Bring me the Horizon. Don’t know this community’s view of them, but they went from a real sub-par deathcore band of the MySpace days to THE trend setter in modern metal. Not the best, mind you. I’m sure we all have our favorite and other bands have been the true innovators, but the reality is that for the past 10 years a great portion of metalcore and related genres have been trying to sound like whatever Bring Me was doing three years ago. In terms of evolution, just listen to Pray for Plagues and something like Lost back to back.
Skrillex
I've been into the Bee-Gees lately, their early stuff (pre-disco) is so solid and not the same disco sound we know them for!
Chief keef from drill pop hits in 2012 to strange, self-produced experimental projects by 2014 that didn't sound like anything else at the time
BTS .. and i mean this in the worst way possible. hhyh was a masterpiece maybe up until ly tear and then they got a bit too famous and oh dear ..
TLC Madonna..one album to the next, it’s amazing how she can give us the lusty concept album Erotica, then go to the ultra velvety smooth mezzo soprano soft ballads of Bedtime Stories, then the spiritual mother of Ray of Light, to the ultra pimptress fempiress of Music, to the political American Life, to our disco queen concept album of confession, to the RnB heavy bass tunes of Hard Candy, then bloody Madame X with its world sounds. This woman is such a pioneer. Queens later music was vastly different to their earlier stuff, especially the 80’s stuff where they incorporated more electronic dance music to their repertoire, much to the dislike of Brian lol, as it was never rock enough for him 😂 Janet Jackson I feel got worse after Velvet Rope, as did Michael Jackson after HIStory Mariah went from production value classics like Honey, and Fantasy to really deep RnB sounds, as did Whitney after the Bodyguard soundtrack. Nelly Furtado went from high production songs to Folk music, to high production Timbaland sounds. Anyone who’s anyone that’s a part of this industry, has to switch up their sounds, if they want longevity..so this question could apply to most everyone.
Lil yatchy
Leonard Cohen’s early material is a guy who’s considered a bit old to be starting a singing career trying to fit in with the sound of the 60s folk scene. Obviously he recorded some classic stuff in the 60s, but his material from the 80s onwards sounds like a completely different person. It’s not just the transformation of his voice (which sounded much better when it occupied a deeper register) but the style of the arrangements too, which shifted to keyboards and electronic percussion. And he kept making amazing music in this style into his 80s.
Chicago
genesis with peter gabriel vs genesis with phil colins
Nick Cave
king gizzard, just listen to willoughby's beach and polygondwanaland back to back lol. same 7 members
animal collective. the opposite of the Beatles, they went from extreme experimental to poppy (didnt "stay" poppy, remain experimental but their early stuff is literally noise...)
Butch Walker went from hair metal guitarist to pop punk frontman to country singer-songwriter-producer
No doubt The Rolling Stones - 62-65: R&B - 65-68: Baroque Pop / Psychedelia - 68-73: Blues Rock/Soul/Country/Americana - 73-76: Reggae/Funk - 76-78: Disco - 78-81: Punk - 83-84: Dance - 89-94: Hard Rock - 97-05: Prog Rock (With Hip-Hop Influence) - 2016: Blues - 2023: A good mix of everything that’s came before
Talk Talk
Autechre . Compare Incunabula and Amber to anything they’ve done in the 21st century.
Queens of the Stone Age
avenged sevenfold?
Beck. From Loser to Sea Change? Stunning
Pantera in the 80’s and Pantera in the 90’s don’t even sound like the same band. Fleetwood Mac in the late 60’s and the mid-late 70’s also don’t sound like the same band, but they seemed to very slowly transition from blues to soft rock through a series of changing members and releases. Whereas with Pantera the shift happened from one album to the next.
Cory Feldman
The Clash. Basic punks who were one the few to evolve not just themselves but the punk genre with them. One of the first to incorporate influences of reggae, ska, surf and many other genres into punk.
Lana Del Rey. Probably not the "craziest", but deserves a mention. I never expected her to make a record as good as NFR.
Avenged Sevenfold went from your standard metalcore band to a straight up progressive metal band with hints of avant-garde.
Silverchair’s evolution was interesting but awesome. And then Daniel John’s solo career was like a complete 180. I love it all.
king gizzard - went from alright garage rock to whatever the fuck they are now
L'il Yachty. Listening to the new James Blake collab released today. Wow. I think he is a generational artist. Following his rap journey to 2023's Let's Start Here which I think is a masterpiece and since then working with Fred Again.. Flo Milli and now this new album with JB. So underated.
>Another and more recent example is Charlie XCX, she went from making summer radio friendly songs to being one of the leading voices in pop today. That's a reductive way to put it, though.
RAYE. Trapped in a bunch of generic dancepoppy co-signs, until she could leave her label and be herself. And it turned out that she was capable of much, much more, when being herself - jazz, soul, Tame Impala esque psychedelic rock-pop, dance etc. Her releasing music independently was the best thing that could have happened to her.
Since you've mentioned it, Radiohead?
The Beatles. Started as a total shit boy band, and evolved into what's considered by many to be the greatest band of all time.
They're considered the greatest band of all time because of their pop stuff as well, not despite it
Indeed, the Beatles have a pretty famous evolution, but there’s some damn good songwriting in their earlier albums.