Music

Of Monsters and Men disappointed me with their second album.
As mentioned by another user, Mumford & Sons went a weird and unfortunate direction.

I’ll say that I am glad that The Postal Service dropped one perfect album and never released anything ever again.
Also, while Daft Punk did change over time (maybe hardcore house fans grew to hate them), I would argue that their albums only got better over time and their final album was absolute musical perfection.
Their breaking up was the most bittersweet decision I’ve seen in music.

I stopped bothering about it. I'm thankful for the albums that the band released when the style fit my taste and I keep listening to these albums. Let the musicians do what they want. Even if it seems bland, maybe it's what they really want to do.

Back in the mid 90s there was this band Radiohead that only had one album and I totally loved their music. I went to see them play live and there must have been less than 50 people there, it was really fun.

Later they changed their style and became really popular, but they and all their fans seem to hate that first album and it's the only one I really like.

Not really, no. I’ve already gone through all the Metallica stuff when I was younger, so I don’t have a lot of energy to be mad about that kind of stuff anymore. I tend to figure that bands will change overtime, and even if they change their style, they often go back to their older styles later on. And if they don’t, there are thousands of other great bands out there.

Also, one thing I love doing is getting into a band after they’ve already gone through their controversial changes, and I often find myself really liking their “bad” albums because I don’t have the expectations I would have had if I was already a fan before those albums came out. A lot of metal bands got really weird in the 90’s, and there is a lot of really interesting stuff there.

One of my favorite bands is Brand New, who had a different sound and feel to each album all while having a few threads that could tie between them. It was enjoyable to experience the arc of the phases the band went through in their lives. Likewise for The Beatles, or Queen, The Who, or more modern bands like the RxBandits (ska -> progrock) or Streetlight Manifesto (ska -> Roma jazz/Calypso/'other').

Then there's creative concept bands like The Decemberists who dig deep into a style for an album, and the dedication to that version of the art form is a cherry on top of the musicality. Maybe Panic! At the Disco falls into this category too for some.

(The above is not an exhaustive list)

Then there's, well, medio-core

Mumford and Sons did this and broke my heart when they did.

Sometimes I love it sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I hate it at first then grow to love it. Radiohead is a great example of change that I love. First album was mediocre rock, second was much better rock, third was one of the best albums of all time layered... space rock? Then the biggest shift of all to Kid A. Over and over again.

David Bowie is another example of successfully changing sound over and over.

Beastie Boys went from a hardcore band to hip hop.

I know there are examples of bands where I didn't like the change but I guess I remember the ones I like more. Weezer and Smashing Pumpkins are two bands that got worse over time, although they didn't change their sound up quite as much as the above mentioned.

For me, no. Because as an artist. They are inherently porous, they absorb everything around them, consciously or not. And by that, they can sometimes get inspired by things that differ from their original inspirations.

Thus I understand that they will inevitably change as time goes on. The only difference is how fast and drastic that change is.

Also creative people get energized by change.

My three favorite artists are Miles Davis, David Bowie, and Kanye West. Three artists that changed their sound every single album.

So no.

This can go a number of ways, I think.

You get bands who hold on to their original sound with a vice-like grip, and invariably get kinda stale (I'm thinking Green Day here), you get bands that adapt their sound to their current circumstances and current market trends, who end up getting kinda stale. Then you get bands who just do what they damn well please, and that one is interesting to me.

Ultimately, though, we mostly get the second of those. Bands like Coldplay, whose first few albums are interesting, in a middle-class-dinner-party kind of way, but by the fourth record had hit a point where they needed to keep making money, but maybe didn't have the inspiration they needed to make interesting music. U2, Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro, and sadly (from my personal view) the Foo Fighters. They churn out records, sell the merch, play the stadia around the world, but the music doesn't move me in any way, not like their earlier stuff does.

But I don't blame them; they're reacting to the world we live in, making music is their career, and they're under contract to bang out a new collection of tunes every couple of years, whether they're inspired to or not. Having said that about the Food though, their latest album is genuinely wonderful, so it's not all bad.

Pearl Jam. For me, Ten was the perfect album - riffs, hooks, emotive lyrics, powerful music, no filler. I stuck with them grudgingly until about the fourth album (Yield?) but haven't listened to a thing they've put out since. It seemed they just got more and more generic with every album, and had less and less of that spark that made Ten so special. I've often wondered why - was it a conscious decision to move from that heavily riff-based music, or did they just run out of original ideas?

Yeah, it really Toads the Wet Sproket!

The Lumineers said, in an interview, "if you like our sound now, you'll always like our sound" which just sounds like the death of creativity.

The Mountain Goats, my favorite band, are always evolving and exploring.
John started targeting the aspects of the process he relied on, all the things he always did just because that's the way he always did them. So he threw the guitar out for an entire album. Learned keyboard. Because of that, Goths is a totally unique entry in their discography. It might not be everyone's favorite, but I have a lot of respect for artists who never let themselves get complacent.

It used to bother me a lot more when I was younger, but honestly the older I've gotten the more I just look at myself and how much I've changed from top to bottom including in a lot of cases things like my tastes in music, and I realize that you can't just expect somebody to stay stationary in life. We're all moving, we're all changing, and you can't expect a musician to only want to do the one thing for their entire career.

So ultimately, yeah it can bum me out when a band changes their sound in a way that I don't enjoy, but I'm just thankful that for the moments it did we had a special connection and leave open the door that maybe down the road I will appreciate the new stuff more than I initially did.

Saw Bob Dylan in concert 10-15 years ago...he was the opening act for the dead of I remember correctly. Hard rock.. Crowd was not happy, ended his set with Rainy Day Woman and crowd went nuts.

No... Usually not happy when they change. They are changing as an artist, good for them that it's not just about the money because they probably lose plenty in the process most of the time.

Yeah, a bit. In my case it was The Contortionist. Exoplanet was a game changer for me (still my fav album of the 2010’s) and Intrinsic was nearly just as good, but their subsequent albums drifted out of sync with my musical tastes. Honestly, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed….but if the are enjoying what they do then they should keep growing and evolving into what makes them happier!

Blonde Redhead basically evolved their musical taste at the same time as me, I love all their albums and they are quite different!

This hit hard with Hooverphonic. They went from essential trip-hop to generic pop music after a few albums. Three great first albums, as an even better force than Massive Attack, and then the magic stopped.

There are a few bands like Beck who I've been able to continue to enjoy throughout changing of styles in their albums, but for 95% of rock bands they have a "golden period" of a few albums which I like and then I don't like anything after that.

U2, Yes, Rush, Metallica, all have 3-6 albums which I like, usually at or near the beginning of their careers and often 10-20 more which I don't like at all. Usually the inflection point when I begin to dislike them is when they try to pivot to the new "hip and cool" musical style of the age and they just fail.

Metallica trying to go more grunge with their self titled Metallica, or Rush trying to go 80's pop with Signals or Yes doing the same with 90125. U2 didn't change that much but just started to suck after Zooropa (and it was probably only Brian Eno's work that saved that one).

This doesn't seem to be the same for Jazz though. While Jazz musicians do tend to have some bad albums, they don't seem to be grouped together in the same way as rock artists for the most part. Miles Davis or Bill Evans have shitloads of good albums.

Blunt take: Bands that stay real good til the end of their career break up or end with a drug problem.

Honest take: A lot of young bands have a passion, energy and sound because they like playing or have real struggles, people listen to it and they become famous. A record label buys them up and now they are trying to follow up on their success. They can ride on their same music making creativity but eventually it just becomes business for many of them. Touring is fun and profitable, recording is neat but often is like trying to forcibly draw blood from a stone.

For some bands their change in style becomes a trademark element. For example, you could probably guess the part of decade of a Beatles' song you've never heard before just from listening to it a couple times.

This is me so far with Arctic Monkeys. I didn't get into them until 2015, but everything through AM is fantastic. Then they dropped the lounge pop album Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, and I loved that too as a funky side project. Except then they released The Car, their second lounge pop album. I've given it a couple listens, and I just can't seem to get over the idea that we may never get another Humbug or Favorite Worst Nightmare. But, that's the way they've chosen to evolve.

Marillion. - Edited The Fish era was magnificent. But losing such a dynamic and powerful front man means a band will have to change. But Steve Hogarth took them to a new levels, which for me ended with Brave. After that? I kept with them for a while - fronting the money for albums and with a couple of thousand others have my name in the Marble sleeve notes etc. I buy the albums but they don't get more than one or two listens - they've become a sort of Crowded House tribute band.

Fish on his own? Cracking when doing Marillion stuff (still think he's one of the best frontmen going) but his own material is just meh. Vigil was a good album. He needs Rothery and Kelly.

On the other hand, Genesis lost a lot of die hard prog fans when Peter Gabriel left - but gained a hell of a lot more MOR/US fans. Unfortunately Ray Wilson couldn't fit into some very large frontman shoes. And Peter went from strength to strength.

I remember when Spinal Tap became “Spinal Tap mark 2” and went on a Jazz Odyssey

deafheaven broke my heart. roads to judah and sunbather are two of my favorite albums of all time, but after sunbather they just started slowly losing their edge like a folding knife you got at the mall. The next three albums were okay, and had flashes of the brilliance of sunbather, but I could see that the band was trying to move away from extreme metal and more toward becoming another shoegaze band. I'm all for artists growing and expanding but I just didn't care for the direction they were headed. Then infinite granite came out. The thing about infinite granite that stings the most is the song Mombasa, wherein they demonstrate that they're still perfectly capable of the high flying guitar, low-in-the-mix extreme metal vocals and dynamic rhythm section that I fell ass over ankles for, and that they're just choosing not to do it for the rest of the album. I even got to see them on a recent tour with Coheed and Cambria (who, it must be said, remain gods astride the earth). I was super hype because the last couple times I had seen deafheaven had been beautiful, intense, Battaile-esque ordeals that shook me to my core. Unfortunately at this show we were about halfway through their third chill, downtempo jazz exploration when I realized that I kinda just don't care about them anymore. I'm glad they're doing what they want to do and if this music is the product of George getting sober and growing up, then that's a fair trade for him and the best of what could possibly happen. But when I saw them on the Sunbather tour I literally rent my clothes with intensity and felt like I was happily under water for like 3 days afterward. I miss it.

I think I’m ambivalent about it. Some evolution to a bands sound is a good thing as tastes in music change over time. Otherwise you’re stuck with a artist’s discography that sounds all the same. Obviously there can be missteps, but I can usually find something to appreciate from new music. There’s also nothing stopping me from just listening to their older songs anyway.