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Ah, when I was a teenager, this was (and still is) one of my favorite albums. A band changes direction completely, creates something totally new and loses the i
by pimeys 5y ago
Ah, when I was a teenager, this was (and still is) one of my favorite albums. A band changes direction completely, creates something totally new and loses the interest of their old fans. There are three albums that somewhat relate to each other, where an artist or a band changed their direction completely and created something the fans hated first, finding their audience much later.
King Crimson: Discipline. A mixture of quirky pop which at the first listen sounds simple, but when you dig into it turns into something completely different. Nice tight package of brilliant tracks, played by extremely talented musicians. Math music you can hum in the shower. The band kind of disappointed their old fans coming from the album Red to this one. I like both albums a lot.
Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden. Pop megastars got all the studio time they wanted. Instead of creating another mega hit after The Colour of Spring, they hired tens of musicians, turned off all lights from the studio and sampled the mistakes and off-takes together creating a new genre, which was later known as post rock. You kind of sink into their world when listening to this, finding new things even after decades of listening. 20 years later Radiohead did a similar change of direction and got really popular. The record company sued Talk Talk for their album in the 80's.
Miles Davis: On the Corner. Oh how the jazz audience hated this album. Miles wanted to get the young black audience, and created a funky kraut masterpiece of an album. Cut from tape by the mighty Teo Macero, it sets a standard of sampling used by the hip hop artists a decade later. As all the other albums I mentioned here, put some good headphones on and it's crazy how you can sink into the music. Repetitive in a similar way as Discipline, but instead of looking into pop and post punk, this one takes its influence from funk, krautrock and jazz.
If you have a mind that can appreciate any of these albums, the others will tickle the same cells in your brain.
- lightlyused 5y agoI hadn't listened to On the Corner before. Yea, I'm a sad Miles fine. Thank you so much, what a great album.
- Invictus0 5y agoI'll add MGMT to the mix. Their first album Oracular Spectacular gave us a few well-known pop hits, but their next albums Congratulations and Little Dark Age veered deep into psych rock and totally alienated the pop fans. The new albums are totally unsuited for casual listening and are probably best enjoyed with some scheduled substances.
- rozab 5y agoI find it so interesting how their self titled album has just been zapped from everyone's minds. The other day somebody said to me that every single album they've made has been fantastic, so I brought up the self titled and they'd never heard of it! Same with you I assume. I think most people who are really into the band prefer the B side of OS and consider Congratulations their magnum opus.
- pram 5y agolol I had the exact same thought, MGMT is the truly alienating album.
- borispavlovic 5y agoU2 "Achtung Baby" is a pretty big redefinition of their musical expression compared to albums released in the 2nd half of 80's
- butterisgood 5y agoOpeth: Heritage. I didn't start listening to Opeth until long after this album was released, so I was extremely happy to hear the diversity of their catalog (which to me, isn't as drastic as others seem to feel about it). Opeth made metal interesting for me again and definitely stretches what many folks would generally thing about it.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI had already had, and mostly lost, interest in metal. Then I discovered Fredrik Thordendal’s Special Defects. Sounds like Opeth is a band I should check out!
- rkok 5y agoNice, sounds a bit like 'djent'. Ever heard of Animals as Leaders? You might enjoy that, too.
- eyelidlessness 5y agoI’ve heard of but haven’t listened. Thank you for the recommendation!
- keb_ 5y agoDiscipline was the KC album that first "clicked" with me. Listened the hell out of that in high school, as well as Thrak and of course, ITCOTCK. Didn't deep dive into Talk Talk until a few years ago, but so happy I have. Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock are both stunningly beautiful albums.
- pimeys 5y agoI recommend reading the book from the studio engineer (Phill Brown) who worked on The Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock and Mark Hollis' solo album: Are We Still Rolling?: Studios, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll - One Man's Journey Recording Classic Albums There are three chapters only for these three albums, that open up the process and how crazy it all was to make. The whole group suffered from depression and PTSD when the sessions of Laughing Stock were over. And yes, Laughing Stock might be my all time favorite album. Edit: There's also a great talk with the engineer of Laughihg Stock on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tqGekATrWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tqGekATrWg
- moomin 5y agoThose three are some of my absolute favourites. I feel like I listen more to Laughing Stock these days than Spirit of Eden simply because I think I know every last nuance of SoE from repeated listening. I love the solo album but weirdly never listen to it that often. Possibly because I always end up listening to Laughing Stock first. It is most definitely the weirdest of the three. I feel like the others demand your full attention to appreciate, but Laughing Stock makes me want out to get out a corkboard to fully understand it. So sad that Hollis quit the business. I understand that he was completely fine with doing so, but I feel like we missed out on a lot.
- pimeys 5y agoI recommend reading the book. The hard fights with the record company, mad and rough studio sessions that went on for months, big financial losses and law suites that followed all the albums were not fun. The record company tried to destroy Laughing Stock from their lists completely, and they almost buried his solo album too. R.I.P. Mark Hollis. P.S. Check out a band called 'O'Rang. It's from ex. Talk Talk members Lee Harris and Paul Webb. Or Bark Psychosis, that has Harris on drums in their second album, if you're up for more music in the style of Laughing Stock.
- dylan604 5y agoI'd suggest Ministry's first album With Sympathy full of 80s synth-pop followed by everything else. I found Ministry with Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, and then dutifully went searching for the previous albums. When I found Sympathy, I thought something surely must have gone wrong at the plant making the CDs.
- cannabis_sam 5y agoThanks! Both Spirit of Eden and On the Corner are among my favorite albums for basically the reasons you outlined, so now I’m intrigued by the shift between Red and Discipline!
- pimeys 5y agoThe interesting thing here is that Red is a brilliant brilliant album. An absolute banger. And so is Discipline, but people realized that only later and hated it at first. It is totally different from Red.