10 Music Genre Switchups That Made Absolutely No Sense
Pulling a Musical Bait and Switch.
Every band has the freedom to switch up their sound every once in a while. When you're thinking of playing something new though, most bands try to ease their listeners into a new sound by slowly bringing in stuff that you've never heard before. Or you could just do what these bands did and pretty much swan dive into something new.
Without any prior warning, these bands decided to take on new styles overnight, making for some serious audio whiplash for anyone who was listening to their last few albums. While it's admirable for an artist to play the stuff they want to play, the changes between these two styles are like night and day, like some switch went off in their brain.
Does that mean that these albums are all terrible though? Not in the slightest. Sometimes when you're making these changes, you end up doing it so well that your audience comes along for the ride with you, being just as interested in where you're going as you far. Then again, there are some bands that switched things up and ended up leaving some of their fanbase in the dust as well. There are no rules in the world of popular music though, and you have to give these acts credit for sticking to their guns and making the kind of music that no one was expecting.
10. Risk - Megadeth
It had to be tough for Dave Mustaine to see Metallica going that one notch higher with each passing year. Even though Megadeth was formed with the intention of beating Metallica into the ground, they always seemed to be cut down by their musical big brother, with Countdown to Extinction getting blown out of the water by the Black Album in the early '90s. Since Metallica could go the more pop direction though, so could Dave, right?
Well, yes, it's just that it might not have been quite in this way. It's not like Dave doesn't know how to write a catchy hook though, with most of Megadeth's best songs having earworms in every single section. When he tried to actually dumb it down and make some more radio friendly singles though, it just doesn't fit well coming out of Dave's mouth. Mustaine was always great when it came to the kind of raw anger and aggression of metal, so when he has to make more accessible hooks like Breadline, his usual singing almost makes the whole thing sound sarcastic.
While Mustaine says that this record might have sold if it were made under a different name, there's no denying that most of the sales figures for this album came from fans wanting another Megadeth and coming back with Dave trying his hand at getting on the charts. Whereas Metallica's flirtation with the charts on Load and ReLoad are already a bit of a mixed bag, Risk is the kind of album that feels like it goes against everything that made Megadeth dangerous in the first place.