Transitional albums

Examples:

Whitesnake: Slide it in - usually considered the last album of the band's "classic" era, but I always thought it had some of the commercial elements that would become prominent on the band's 1987 follow-up. And then the s/t still didn't really go completely AOR, which was to be the case with Slip of the Tongue

Judas Priest: Ram it Down - on one hand it retains some of the pop/hair metal elements from Turbo, while OTOH it does get a lot faster and heavier, hinting at the sound that would come with Painkiller

Def Leppard: each of their '80s albums got somewhat lighter and more commercial than the previous one, going from the NWOBHM debut to the more hard rocking, but still quite metallic High n' Dry, whose follow-up was the still hard rocking, but much more radio friendly and arena oriented Pyromania, and the process would finish with Hysteria in 1987.

Any other examples you guys can think of?

This is an interesting idea for a thread.  I need to think about it.

One that comes to mind right away is Rush's "A Farewell To Kings".  To me that's when Rush went from a hard rock/metal band with some progressive tendencies to a full-on prog act.  The synths seemed to take much more prominence IMO and that was the beginning of one of my favorite bands losing me.

King Kobra - Ready to Strike: KILLER ALBUM!
King Kobra - Thrill of a Lifetime: AOR garbage
King Kobra - III: Best they ever did.

Hope that is somewhat sticking to topic.

Good call with Def Leppard BTW.  That would have been the first band I thought of for this topic. I love the first two and Pyromania is good. Hysteria is OK and then.....

UNCLE SAXON'S KICKASS CDS wrote:

King Kobra - Ready to Strike:  KILLER ALBUM!
King Kobra - Thrill of a Lifetime:  AOR garbage
King Kobra - III:  Best they ever did.

Hope that is somewhat sticking to topic.

Umm no, it's not.

Def Leppard is the poster child for this.

Tourniquet did this on Vanishing Lessons.

Kiss, Dynasty: "Disco is big right now! Let's do some of that!"

Kiss, Unmasked: "I Was Made For Lovin' You was a huge hit! Let's do more pop stuff like it ... hey, where'd everybody go?"

Kiss, Music From The Elder: "OK, that didn't work, let's try this. Hey, rock critics! We can be all deep 'n' serious and conceptual too! Check it out, we even wrote stuff for this record with Lou Reed. You guys LOVE Lou Reed! Come on, ANYBODY? HELLO? IS THIS THING ON? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY PLEASE PLEASE LIKE US!"

"Youthanasia" to"Cryptic Writings" to "Risk"

Saxon - Power & the Glory
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt1
Death - Spiritual Healing
DRI - Crossover
Sepultura - Chaos A.D
English Dogs - Metamorphosis

Bride-Kinetic Faith. Still had some straight-up metal stuff (ie, Kiss the Train), but also had a lot more of the hard rock sound that they would master on Snakes in the Playground.

Cinderella-Long Cold Winter. Heartbreak Station may have been a jarring change for some fans, but the seeds were planted in songs like the title track, coming home, the last mile, and bad seemstress blues.

Hadley wrote:

Bride-Kinetic Faith. Still had some straight-up metal stuff, but also had a lot more of the hard rock sound that they would master on Snakes in the Playground.

Cinderella-Long Cold Winter. Heartbreak Station may have been a jarring change for some fans, but the seeds were planted in songs like the title track, coming home, the last mile, and bad seemstress blues.

Good call. I never even owned the debut because it just sounded like another shrieking hair band to me. But I heard some stuff off of Long Cold Winter and I thought "Hey that sounds kinda bluesy" so I picked it up. So naturally I then picked up Heartbreak Station and loved it.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Kiss, Dynasty: "Disco is big right now! Let's do some of that!"

Kiss, Unmasked: "I Was Made For Lovin' You was a huge hit! Let's do more pop stuff like it ... hey, where'd everybody go?"

Kiss, Music From The Elder: "OK, that didn't work, let's try this. Hey, rock critics! We can be all deep 'n' serious and conceptual too! Check it out, we even wrote stuff for this record with Lou Reed. You guys LOVE Lou Reed! Come on, ANYBODY? HELLO? IS THIS THING ON? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY PLEASE PLEASE LIKE US!"

I wouldn't call those "transitional albums"; more like "Let's try to cash in on what's popular now albums".

On a side note, if there is one band that has never and will never put out a "transitional album" it's AC/DC. Can anybody imagine that band ever putting out an album that doesn't sound like every other album they've ever done? Like an AC/DC album with synthesizers. Or harmony vocals. Or symphonic touches; AC/DC with the National Australian Orchestra. The very concept cracks me up.

tohostudios wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Kiss, Dynasty: "Disco is big right now! Let's do some of that!"

Kiss, Unmasked: "I Was Made For Lovin' You was a huge hit! Let's do more pop stuff like it ... hey, where'd everybody go?"

Kiss, Music From The Elder: "OK, that didn't work, let's try this. Hey, rock critics! We can be all deep 'n' serious and conceptual too! Check it out, we even wrote stuff for this record with Lou Reed. You guys LOVE Lou Reed! Come on, ANYBODY? HELLO? IS THIS THING ON? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY PLEASE PLEASE LIKE US!"

I wouldn't call those "transitional albums"; more like "Let's try to cash in on what's popular now albums".

Well I think they were a bit late with The Elder for that. :p
Also, yeah, maybe a point could be made for Dynasty to Unmasked, but not really for Unmasked to Elder.

TheGreatDuck wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Kiss, Dynasty: "Disco is big right now! Let's do some of that!"

Kiss, Unmasked: "I Was Made For Lovin' You was a huge hit! Let's do more pop stuff like it ... hey, where'd everybody go?"

Kiss, Music From The Elder: "OK, that didn't work, let's try this. Hey, rock critics! We can be all deep 'n' serious and conceptual too! Check it out, we even wrote stuff for this record with Lou Reed. You guys LOVE Lou Reed! Come on, ANYBODY? HELLO? IS THIS THING ON? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY PLEASE PLEASE LIKE US!"

I wouldn't call those "transitional albums"; more like "Let's try to cash in on what's popular now albums".

Well I think they were a bit late with The Elder for that. :p
Also, yeah, maybe a point could be made for Dynasty to Unmasked, but not really for Unmasked to Elder.

Plus I've been thinking this thread referred to albums that marked a change in a band's sound permanently, not a one-off, try to capitalize on a trend album.

tohostudios wrote:

Good call with Def Leppard BTW.  That would have been the first band I thought of for this topic.  I love the first two and Pyromania is good.  Hysteria is OK and then.....

True.