10 Famous Albums You Didn't Know Were Almost Completely Different
Sometimes the only thing a musician can do is to start again...
To the general public, what goes on during the writing and recording process of an album is a total mystery. To most, musicians disappear for a while, enter the studio and then eventually new songs surface on the radio and a new album on the shelves.
The reality, of course, is way more dramatic. Before audiences got to see Star Wars, for example, it existed as a Western set in space focusing on a man named Luke Starkiller and green lizard-man best friend, Han. You see, a whole lot can change during the creative process.
Sometimes artists scrap projects and spit out their seminal masterpieces in a matter of weeks. Other times a band's sound is totally defined (or redefined) by a chance circumstance. Pouring through the footnotes, it's astounding how many genre and era-defining sounds were originally completely different.
You name the art form, and there are a liturgy of iconic examples that weren't supposed to be anything like how they turned out. Music is as ever no exception, and thus, there are a whole bunch of famous albums that were so nearly completely different.
10. Green Day – American Idiot
The difference in sound between 2000's Warning and 2004's American Idiot is quite vast. Despite the fact the band were clearly heading in a more radio-friendly, commercial direction, American Idiot manages to perfectly nail the pop punk sound, with every track part of a larger concept about the Jesus of Suburbia.
It's interesting to consider, then, how the band's career might have turned out if the original plan had happened. Cigarettes And Valentines was the original follow-up to Warning, recorded and almost finished a mere year before the release of American Idiot. Sadly, however, the master recordings of twenty tracks were stolen from the recording studio, forcing the band not to re-record the material but to scrap the album entirely.
According to lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, the songs on Cigarettes And Valentines were “quick-tempoed punk” in line with the likes of Kerplunk and Insomniac. It's entirely possible, then, that had the album released, the band's career trajectory might be entirely different.