Question about bands...

Why is it some artists can get away with sounding different from album to album (David Bowie, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen) and receive prasie while others can't (Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant) without pissing off fans?

The Beatles are considered genius for all the ground they explored...but it's often said about the Corabi Crue album (for example) that "it should not have been called Crue"...

Is it that enough time has passed for those older artists that hindsight is prevailing? Was "The White Album" derided in it's day as too much of a change and for not being another "Help!"? Are audiences just different now?

Just wondering why some bands can get away with it and some bands can't...

I've often wondered that too. Were fans of the poppier, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" Beatles era flipped out when they first heard "Rubber Soul" or "The White Album?" Did they go "What the HELL is this crap?"

Maybe music fans weren't as narrow minded in those days? Or maybe they were simply too stoned to care one way or the other?

I think back than bands were not marketed as metal, alternative etc, audiences were more opened minded and most importantly radio was run by people who loved music not program directors. Now adays musicial taste are spoon fed to listeners and playlist are strictly controlled and narrow.

In the case of the Beatles, I've seen some documentaries where they played "Strawberry Fields" for the crowd (I think it was on American Bandstand) and fans didn't like it. They didn't like the look (mustaches, hippy clothes) or the music. So yea, I think part of it is hindsight, and part is what Manny said about marketing.

I'd bet that at the time it came out, some fans didn't care for the folksy/acoustic sound Zeppelin adopted on LZ III.

This thread seems to be similar to the Sellout thread.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I've often wondered that too. Were fans of the poppier, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" Beatles era flipped out when they first heard "Rubber Soul" or "The White Album?" Did they go "What the HELL is this crap?"

That's exactly what some of them said at the time.

When Motorhead's "Another Perfect Day" was released in the mid 1980's fans screamed "sellout" and the album sold poorly. Twenty years later and people now list it among their favorite Motorhead albums and Motorhead have finally started playing some of the songs live again. What made it a sellout then, but now it's perfectly ok?

I do distinctly remember Queen fans being upset with the direction Queen took in the 80's. Songs like "Another One Bites the Dust" became popular with pop fans, and made Queen even more popular, but many longtime Queen fans were not happy with the "change in direction". Decades later and you don't hear about it much anymore and many list "The Game" as a classic Queen album.

Twisted Sister became hugely popular with "Stay Hungry", but I knew many fans that were upset with them "selling out". They were local heroes in my high school before "Stay Hungry". We wore our pink Twisted Sister muscle shirts proud with our patch clad denim vests in 1982. With "Stay Hungry" many of those kids I knew who loved TS dropped them like a hot potato. They were suddenly no longer cool, even though the album gave TS mega-success. I myself cried "foul" in '84 while secretly enjoying "Stay Hungry" and even seeing the band on that tour. Twenty years later and people see it as one of their best albums.

I think when a band experiments with their sound and tries something new, and doesn't seem to be purposely follow some popular trend in music, fans seem to be less concerned.

It's also seems to be more in metal circles that the fans concern themselves with bands "selling out".

Quote :

It's also seems to be more in metal circles that the fans concern themselves with bands "selling out".

Agreed.

In the case with the Beatles, I think they changed as their fans got older and those that didn't like the newer direction were the same as the Metallica fans that say the band died in 1991.

I think it also depends on how many albums a band has released that are in the same style before making the change. With Bowie, every freakin' album is different so he really was never pigeonholed.

In the Queen example, everything up until The Game traded in similar style then all of a sudden we got a disco song out of nowhere.

I think Queen was pretty diverse right out of the gate, though..."Killer Queen", "Keep Yourself Alive", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Bicycle Race" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are all pretty different...

With Revolver and Sgt. Peppers, The Beatles did stuff that was groundbreaking and that no one had ever done before. With Load and ReLoad, Metallica was doing stuff grunge bands did five years prior, nothing new.

I think in the case of Queen, The Game due to "Another One Bites the Dust" but in the States IMO what started a backlash was the followup album "Hot Space" where the album is overwhelmed with dance and disco influence and also I hate to say the change in Freddie Mercury's image,we were very homo phobic back than.

Quote :

With Load and ReLoad, Metallica was doing stuff grunge bands did five years prior, nothing new

But, there's nothing "grunge" about those albums. They are more blues based than anything else. The albums supposedly weren't metallic enough for Metallica fans, but I've never heard anyone refer to them as grunge.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Why is it some artists can get away with sounding different from album to album (David Bowie, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen) and receive prasie while others can't (Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant) without pissing off fans?

Well, using this example, I would have to say that artists like Bowie, The Beatles, etc are multi-talented groups with alot of musical variety to offer. Motley Crue, Poison & Warrant are lucky if they can tune their guitars....

spectrefate wrote:

Quote :

With Load and ReLoad, Metallica was doing stuff grunge bands did five years prior, nothing new

But, there's nothing "grunge" about those albums. They are more blues based than anything else. The albums supposedly weren't metallic enough for Metallica fans, but I've never heard anyone refer to them as grunge.

Agreed...not the slightest bit grunge or "Seattle" sounding...they were experimenting with shorter, blues-based riffs...

Show me a single Grunge band that sounds like Load or Re-Load...

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

I think Queen was pretty diverse right out of the gate, though..."Killer Queen", "Keep Yourself Alive", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Bicycle Race" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are all pretty different...

Diverse. Yes. However, they weren't really following any trends either. With "Another One Bites the Dust" many saw that as going in a pop or disco direction, as opposed to every album before it. I actually love The Game, but I remember how many people back then hated the direction the band took at the time.

ultmetal wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

I think Queen was pretty diverse right out of the gate, though..."Killer Queen", "Keep Yourself Alive", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Bicycle Race" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are all pretty different...

Diverse. Yes. However, they weren't really following any trends either. With "Another One Bites the Dust" many saw that as going in a pop or disco direction, as opposed to every album before it. I actually love The Game, but I remember how many people back then hated the direction the band took at the time.

Gotcha...

spectrefate wrote:

Quote :

With Load and ReLoad, Metallica was doing stuff grunge bands did five years prior, nothing new

But, there's nothing "grunge" about those albums. They are more blues based than anything else. The albums supposedly weren't metallic enough for Metallica fans, but I've never heard anyone refer to them as grunge.

Grunge was a bad word. Alternative was what I should have said.

xyz wrote:

spectrefate wrote:

Quote :

With Load and ReLoad, Metallica was doing stuff grunge bands did five years prior, nothing new

But, there's nothing "grunge" about those albums. They are more blues based than anything else. The albums supposedly weren't metallic enough for Metallica fans, but I've never heard anyone refer to them as grunge.

Grunge was a bad word. Alternative was what I should have said.

Indeed. I remember them being referred to as Alternica at the time.

Motley Crue:

My friends and I were pretty big fans of Shout At The Devil and Too Fast For Love at the time, but when they all of a sudden went "glam" with their image and music we wrote them off. But I think that was more a reaction of our age than anything, 14 year olds are SO superior.

detuned your 14 year old self was correct because Theatre of Pain is a terrible album.

I loved Theatre of Pain when it came out and I was 11. But anything they released past Shout At The Devil just sounds bland and uninspired to my 34 year old ears.

manny wrote:

detuned your 14 year old self was correct because Theatre of Pain is a terrible album.

Ditto. I was a HUGE fan of the Crue prior to THEATRE OF PAIN. I remember being so stoked to buy that stinkin' album, running to the store (Crazy Eddie's) after school one day with allowance $ in my fist, and after one listen saying "WTF is this crap??" I honestly haven't given the Crue a fair shake since. It was my first lesson in a favorite band "selling out" so to speak.

Back to the original question regarding some of the bands such as The Beatles, Queen, David Bowie and you can add Rush to that list, their audience expects them to change and experiment.

As a matter of fact their audience encourages to make each album diverse, where a band like Metallica can't even go out and get a haircut without someone screaming sell out.

A pefect example of a band that you expect to sound the same album after album is AC/DC and it works for them.

The bands that change from album to album have had TIME on their side and we, as fans, have been able to go back and say what was great and worked and what didn't. For example, Theater Of Pain has not stood the test of time. Shout At The Devil has.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Why is it some artists can get away with sounding different from album to album (David Bowie, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen) and receive prasie while others can't (Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant) without pissing off fans?

The Beatles are considered genius for all the ground they explored...but it's often said about the Corabi Crue album (for example) that "it should not have been called Crue"...

Is it that enough time has passed for those older artists that hindsight is prevailing? Was "The White Album" derided in it's day as too much of a change and for not being another "Help!"? Are audiences just different now?

Just wondering why some bands can get away with it and some bands can't...

I'm a firm believer that what is going on in the world dictates much of what is popular music in the United States. The Beatles were influenced by the likes of Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, etc... These type of artists pre 1964 dominated the airwaves. Then came the assasination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the assasination of men like Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, & Bobby Kennedy, Race Riots in major urban areas, the protest/hippie movement, etc....

I think based on social issues alone, music did an about face in 1964/1965. Gone were the Doo Wop groups like Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, The Diamonds, The Del Vikings, The Monotones, The Elegants, The Danleers, Frankie Avalon, The Skyliners, The Flamingos, & Dion & The Belmonts.

In were groups like Jefferson Airplane, Simon & Garfunkel, The Mamas & The Papas, The Byrds, The Rascals, The Turtles, Cream, The Seeds, The Moody Blues, Canned Heat, etc... And then you had the artists that transitioned over like that of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, etc... The Beatles "Revolver" , The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" & the Rolling Stones "Between The Buttons" all were examples of these bands moving away from an R&B sound. Take Dion DiMucci (from Dion & The Belmonts) he totally stripped his sound down when he came out with the song "Abraham, Martin, & John", so much that you would swear it wasn't the same guy from the decade before.

I think most artists/bands tend to get lost in the shuffle, because either their record company doesn't see them as viable anymore in the changing market, or because that artist refuses to change their sound with what is going on. I also believe that many of these artists years ago were so naive when they signed their record deals that they really were for all intents and purposes "Slaves". Were the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen or David Bowie subjected to tyrannical A&R guys? Who knows? Maybe they had carte blanche as it pertained to the direction they wanted to go in.

I tend to think in most cases there's more free will among artists in the heavy metal community, so when they choose a stylistic change, it for the most part is not met with open arms. Their core audience (who are usually small) simply doesn't understand why someone who they've been following since day one (when nobody cared about them), is going after a bigger audience. I totally understand why someone would feel that way, though it doesn't mean I agree with their position. I think it's easy to be a fan of pop music, if one grows up on that exclusively, because you accept wholesale change. Artists in that genre are treated like cattle. With heavy metal it's always about going against the grain, fighting the establishment, and staying true to a cause. When those ideals change, and those groups become friends with the establishment, those who have been faithful from the beginning are let down. I think this is what makes metal heads so special, because of the passion/gumption we exhibit. If we didn't have those intense feelings regarding this genre known as heavy metal, then we would all simply be pop fans.

metalinmyveins...that was a GREAT post!