VEGANGELICA

What are some of your favorite examples of bands that morphed over time, changing their name, sound, and some of their members? And do you feel the changes were for the better or for the worse?

My example:

Seventeen --> The Alarm ( The Alarm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

The band Seventeen was a four-man power pop mod band that released two songs between 1978 - 1980. I feel those songs were very catchy, although lyrically repetitive and simple, but I still like them quite a bit.

Seventeen - "Bank Holiday" (1980)
Catchy with nice guitar work, this song is simple and straightforward and reminds me of songs by the early Beatles, but it is more punkish, which appeals to me. (I am currently addicted to this song.)



Seventeen - "Don't Let Go"
The band's other song was also catchy, simple, and energetic. Nice!



...but then in 1981 the band changed its name, first to Alarm Alarm, and then just to The Alarm, shifting some members as well, and went on to a fair amount of success as an alternative/new wave band, but I was very disappointed by their music and wish they'd just stayed like they were when they were Seventeen.

The Alarm - "Shout to The Devil" (1981)
Boring and screechy, this song reminds me of songs by Robert Plant that I don't like. It sounds like generic '80s rock music to me.



The Alarm - "Sixty-Eight Guns"
An okay song but it doesn't appeal to me much. It drags on and has a lot of emotional screechy shouting.

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Scarlett O'Hara

Good to see you around vege! There are definitely many groups that have changed over time. In fact, if they don't morph it would be a little odd.

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FRED HALE SR.

Angela!!! I love 68 guns but they certainly have morphed through the years. They took an even bigger turn in the later 80s and 90s to en even bigger degree. Electric Folklore live was certainly my favorite album by them, they morph even more live.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...71667212,d.cGE

I always liked Mike's poppy yet gravely voice. Rain in the Summertime is just so catchy.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...212,bs.1,d.cGE

Another good one is Presence of Love, the lyrics are solid gold. I can play this on repeat and enjoy it equally with time.

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" I slashed and burned thru my 15 minutes of fame."

DisaterX

Queen definitely. Queen went from songs about Jesus to Fat Bottomed Girls then to Miracles around the world.

VEGANGELICA

Hey! I haven't paid much attention to how groups change over time, until yesterday. Now I'm curious about the reasons bands change, especially when they change their sound or style very suddenly and drastically.

Do you have a particular band in mind that impressed you (or depressed you) because they changed quite drastically over time?

Thanks, Fred, for sharing two more songs by The Alarm. They definitely sound very different from the two they recorded when the band started as Seventeen!

I haven't heard songs by Queen sequentially in order to realize they changed their sound and content that much over time. (I also haven't heard *that* many of their songs in order to notice changes.)

But I kind of hoped the song "Fat Bottomed Girls" was an anomaly and not indicative of any musical period that Queen went through.

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I just learned about a band called Ministry that started out in the early 1980s as a synth-pop new wave group with lead singer Al Jourgensen, then in the late 1980s shifted their sound tremendously, becoming an industrial metal band.

Over time they added and lost an impressive number of members, which I assume must have also changed their sound quite a bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_(band)

The change in Ministry's style seems to have been inspired in the late 1980s when Jourgensen became re-enchanted with the electric guitar.

I wish they hadn't morphed into an industrial metal band, because I prefer their synth-pop early sound.

Ministry - "Revenge" (synth-pop) 1983 (better)


Ministry - Revenge (1983) [HQ] - YouTube

Ministry - "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" (industrial metal) 1991 (worse!)


Ministry - "Jesus Built My Hot Rod" - YouTube

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Screen13

After reading Al's book, and being around at the time, I could understand the morph, and I feel that it was seriously out of a strategy-driven survival as well as America's better reaction to Metal music which he took his sound to and seriously succeeded with as it was that kind of time. It looked like he was trying to keep one step ahead of the scene before he got ran over while still trying to stick to his aims and also shoving away argument-ridden chapters away in order to achieve higher goals.

Check out this early live version of what I feel is the best With Sympathy era song. I'm sure the original With Sympathy era had tougher sounds in mind than the well-produced outcome.


His adventures with Arista were not that happy, and on the Indie side his adventure with Situation Two Records for the "Cold Life" single was not that great either (the original cover gave them an image that was not what they were like). Synth Pop was never looked upon that seriously in the States, and it was easy to chuck the With Sympathy years out the window from a high building drop especially after the separation from Clive Davis' label which possibly wanted more Flock of Seagulls/Thompson Twins style pop out of him than what he seriously wanted (the two aforementioned groups were the only serious New Wave money makers for the label - they had Heaven 17, Icicle Works, The Members and a few others, but in the mind of a Suit, if it was not playing on MTV on heavy rotation, it's a fail and Arista's New Music division stopped around Mid '84).

After parting with Arista, the anger was rising, and you can hear the following video seriously shows it's age how it was being directed. The following video seriously shows it's age, but see at least a part of it and note the year.


The Wax Trax and Twitch years were great, more of what he seriously wanted to do with Synthesizer-dominated music.





Adding aggressive guitars was what did the trick to take Ministry out of Cult Land, which seriously is not a fun place to be when one's a musician of the aim is for a higher place, and by blending in his early music influences (FM Rock Radio was a complete 101 of Guitar music then) with that extra oomph, things finally clicked for his future. This was the decision which inspired Trent Reznor to go full on with Nine Inch Nails' move from being a Pop Wave wanna-be to Pretty Hate Machine to everything else he's done. It was The Late 80's, things were headed towards Metal as New Music turned into a John Hughes Soundtrack Nightmare in The US and those looking for alternatives were headed towards sounds from the Underground Metal scene and there was a major response with the fans, although that kind of move was far more better with Electronic based bands who blended their messages and than Punks (the attempts of Hardcore Punks to Crossover...many fails, many nightmares!) who fumbled around with the sound in an attempt to get better known.

Al formed other bands which kept to being Indie, and I felt that those kept his original music aims alive as Ministry kept on cranking up the amps for Warners at that time. While I felt that while still creating great music, the Metal music sounded more like trying to staying alive by the Late 90's after Filth Pig (although they could have been better...).

I think what I'm trying to say is that it was a natural move for American musicians to go that way at that time, and with Jourgensen, and even Reznor, it was not forced, but more strategic after finding out that it was going to be very difficult to keep the original blueprint as they moved through the music industry in The US. I don't think that playing New Wave Retro Shows with a couple of slightly familiar songs was the way they wanted to go.

Psy-Fi

^ Probably my all-time favorite tune by Ministry. It even features Gibby Haynes from Butthole Surfers on vocals! "Ding-a-ding-dang my dang-a-long-ling-long!"

Great stuff!

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She's a Brick House

Rexx Shredd

Electric Light Orchestra -- Continually morphs drastically from album to album through the first five albums. Then they plane out with three identical-sounding mid-period albums ( Face The Music, A New World Record, and Out of the Blue). Then they change (for worse, and went disco) with Discovery, then into early electronica with Time, then culminate into techno-pop with Secret Messages and Balance of Power...a strange romp from front to back

Queensryche - went from early hair band to prog

Iron Maiden - also went prog in the last 15 years

Soundgarden --- During their hey-dey, I thought they improved with each subsequent album.

Stone Temple Pilots -- Tried to break away from the angry over-done "Yeaaarh" 90s sound on their third album but went back to it on No. 4 because the previous album was poorly received...at least they tried

Most industrial bands morphed with technological improvements.......just follow Frontline Assembly's discography from MIDI/analog into 90s digital

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Look at Talk Talk, they went from average run of the mill 80's synth pop band that probably still get played in nostalgia bars to pioneers of post-rock.

Or Radiohead who went from Pablo Honey to In Rainbows, quite a transformation there.

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Pantera - for the better they changed from clumsy Hair Metal band to powerful in your face Metal band. Not too much of a change, but more of a fine tuning although those early years could have been a Mega Fail LOL footnote if it were not for what happened.

Two cases of starting off promising then went into the AM Radios of The US in The 70's...

I think that the California Pop band Ambrosia started off a little Prog and then went to their 1970's Top 40 line of hit making after their first couple of albums failed.

Journey - Started off more as a Jazz Fusion-sounding band, and then they brought in Steve Perry.


Then there were Fleetwood Mac, once a Blues based band with Guitarist Peter Green, and Genesis, one a great Prog band with Peter Gabriel on vocals - both bands that did not really have to change what they were doing but line-up changes dictated the more to more Adult Pop, and those have been already talked about before...and you know how I feel despite letting the odd tune here and there off for being reasonably good (damn them, in a good way!)