Musicians that shifted radically in style/genre (for better or for worse)

[Lindy64]

One example I can think of would be the australian band Silverchair. Went from being a post-Grunge band in the mid-90s as teenagers to eventually turning into a Baroque pop/art rock band by their last few albums. Examples of the gradual transition:

 

[Breadbassket]

Billy Joel was once in a hard rock band.

Getting away from that probably worked out for the best for him.

 

[Foxymophandlemama]

A classic one is Pantera. Started out as a glam rock band. Shifted to the sound they are famous for after their third album.

 

[The Early 2000s]

Soulwax was an alternative rock band before they went electronic. I honestly consider their alt rock stuff better than their techno shit; they're pretty good at remixes but not much else IMO.
They redid their first rock album as techno music, so it's a good example of an artist going through a complete genre shift.

 

[Whatevermancer]

Lil Ugly Mane immediately comes to mind.
How do you go from rap:

...to alternative rock?

 

[HyperboreanRightsActivist]

Glamtera was ass

 

[Womble of Wimbledon]

Neil Young never made a permanent shift but he made some very unexpected turns during his career. I love his 1982 synth album Trans (no relation to transgenderism). People absolutely hated it at the time because it wasn't a folk rock or country rock record.

I would also consider Nick Cave's career to have taken a very sharp turn around 1990. His early band The Birthday Party made very hard-edged post-punk/goth rock with a lot of screaming and noisy guitars:

However his work has gotten more and more easygoing over the years as he has matured. You wouldn't think the above singer is the same guy as this:

 

[Beardless Lenin]

Ulver, going from black metal

to electronic and ambient.

Their album Perdition City is went into trip hop and jazz.

The one of the weirder genre changes was Discharge, going from hardcore punk / crust punk to glam rock between two album releases.
This.

To this.

Here's a good article detailing how it happened. (A)

 

[Nameless One]

Man I loved old Silverchair, their last good album was the neon* ball room.
tragic what happened to them.
I think Slipknot. They changed from MFKR and Anders Colsefini to Cory Taylor and much faster with less grooves. Bathory also comes to mind fron typical black metal to a viking orienter metal.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

Brian Eno went from Art Rock to Ambient

Tangerine Dream went from Experimental Krautrock to Berlin School/Progressive Electronic/New Age

Ministry went from New Wave to Industrial Metal

 

[VF-1S Valkyrie]

The Japanese band Loudness started as fairly middle-of-the-road 80s metal with clear NWOBHM influence, picked up an American singer, and then went through a groove/psychedelic phase before eventually coming back somewhat to their original sound.

 

[Generic Anime Girl]

Does Radiohead count? I feel like they've changed genres for every album since OK Computer.

 

[Lindy64]

their last good album was the silver ball room.

Neon Ballroom is pretty great.

 

[Idiotron]

I have 2 quite obvious ones.
1st one is Metallica.
Every decade, they seem to change their style and that really pisses off the old ass fans who still would like them to play the same shit they did 40 years ago.
Personally, I didn't even like the first 4 albums, they're fine on a technical level but stylistically, I like Load the most.
I'm not even a car person but Fuel is one of the best rock songs ever made.
That shit they did with Lou Reed though.... that's garbage, fuck that.

The other one is Linkin Park.
People only really know their first 2 albums, the ones that pretty much defined the nu metal era.
After that however, they started experimenting.
They have so much variety to their music, most people don't even know.
This...

... is different than this....

... is different than this...

... is different than this.

Sad that Chester was completely fucked in the head and did a flip but then again, he wouldn't make the music he did if he was normal.

 

[Womble of Wimbledon]

Does Radiohead count? I feel like they've changed genres for every album since OK Computer.

No because all their shit sounds the same

 

[Foxymophandlemama]

Neil Young never made a permanent shift but he made some very unexpected turns during his career. I love his 1982 synth album Trans (no relation to transgenderism). People absolutely hated it at the time because it wasn't a folk rock or country rock record.

I would also consider Nick Cave's career to have taken a very sharp turn around 1990. His early band The Birthday Party made very hard-edged post-punk/goth rock with a lot of screaming and noisy guitars:

However his work has gotten more and more easygoing over the years as he has matured. You wouldn't think the above singer is the same guy as this:

Funny thing, I was just reading The Red Hand Files. I like Nick's songs a lot, from TBP to Bad Seeds. He used to live in Brazil in the 90s and there are a few good stories about him. His work is quite interesting.

 

[Palm Tree Corpse]

Nick Cave was mentioned! Love him, huge genre shift.

Ministry went from New Wave to Industrial Metal

Nine Inch Nails also had multiple major genre shifts. Their demos/early work were more New Wave oriented, then Industrial Metal with Broken, and Industrial/Alternative Rock in the mid-90's. Sort of branched off into some more experimental sounds with The Fragile incorporating strings and the likes. Year Zero went full electronic/techno...etc.

 

[Nameless One]

Neon Ballroom is pretty great.

They had amazing live performances for Ana's Song and the others on the album, I recommend looking into them. Emotion Sickness is an excellent album opener and ending for the band. The whole album is a pretty alright sendoff to their best era as if they knew it would be seen as their final album. This is one of those albums that would sound so much better performed at a place like Royal Albert Hall due to the usage of strings. I miss them a lot, maybe I'll gather some Australians and make a Silverchair influenced band since their scene still has great bands (psychedelic porn crumpets, King Gizzard, and so on). I used to dislike Neon Ballroom for the way it sounded more whiny I guess but it grew on me. As a treat have an alternate cover thats more fitting of the album's atmosphere. My favorite part would have to be in the 4 minute mark onward. Just so fucking good, baffling they didn't try to expand on that sound.

Live Across The Great Divise 2007. I feel like their live performances are proof they could have kept their sound.

 

[VF-1S Valkyrie]

No because all their shit sounds the same

I was trying to find a funny way to say it that didn't just sound like 'stop liking what I dislike', but yeah, I always just assumed that Radiohead's real genre was always just alt-boring.

 

[I.B. Niggin]