10 Musical Left Turns NOBODY Saw Coming
Put your songs down, flip them, and reverse them.
Musicians typically spend years developing the perfect tone for their band. Once they found their niche, many acts begin to perfect that sound until they have honed their craft to a tee.
At the same time, it probably gets tiring to play the same styles over and over, and artists often start exploring in a variety of directions. Sometimes it's to try a different sound. Sometimes it's to broaden their musical horizons. Sometimes it's to just see if they can get away with it.
There is one consistency with these changes, too: They can be very polarizing to fans.
A change in sound is not typically what fans want to hear. They want their favorite band to put out their favorite kind of music. Still, many listeners are more than happy to go along for the ride with these artist, if only to see where their creative muse takes them.
In these cases, the following artists never skimped out on the quality of their music just to try something different.
It's not an easy choice to take that creative plunge, but the fortunes can be limitless when you gamble and win.
10. In Your Honor (Disc 2) - Foo Fighters
Fans loved the Foos' 5th record upon release. "No Way Back" and the earth-shaking "Best of You" was exactly what the doctor had ordered. Definitely looking forward to the next one.
Wait... there's a disc 2? Oh yes, and it sounds nothing like disc 1.
The Foos' first double album was hard-hitting on the front end but featured primarily acoustic cuts for its second half. Suddenly the Foo Fighters were writing tracks that sounded like they belonged on a Norah Jones record.
Not only were these songs much more stripped down, but Dave Grohl took the time to write emotionally revealing lyrics. These songs ranged from fatherhood ("Miracle") to mortality ("On the Mend"), to paying tribute to late Nirvana bandmate, Kurt Cobain ("Friend of a Friend.")
Seeing the band in this new setting helped them gain the respect of people more in tune with songwriting than moshing. This gave the Foos free reign to combine mellow and aggro on future songs like "The Pretender" and "Something from Nothing."
A great song doesn't necessarily need to blow out your eardrums to speak to your soul.