Bands with a decent number of albums that all mostly sound somewhat like each other with ONE notorious exception that sticks out like a sore thumb and it wasn't the first or last album they made (and

Not looking for debut albums that came out before a band found it's identity or last-ditch attempts at success that failed, taking the band down with it, because those situations are relatively plentiful. I'm looking for bands with a bunch of records where after they got established, they took a hard left or right turn into something completely atypical for them, only to subsequently go on like that album never happened.

The most obvious one for me would be Bad Religion's infamous "Into The Unknown," which I cannot comment on because I never heard it. At least until I found this... So I will now listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK_vHFs-Tz0

Wow, it's horrible.

Another choice could be Motorhead's "Orgasmatron" which really sounds very dissimilar to the rest of their catalogue. It is actually my favorite album from them and that might be one reason.

Celtic Frost - Cold Lake

Would Smashing Pumpkins - Adore count?

White Chalk is a bit like this.

tusk?

nah scratch that

Not a band but Metal Machine Music is possibly the ne plus ultra here

or at least it was in the world before Lulu

Ramones - End of the Century

Not a band but Metal Machine Music is possibly the ne plus ultra here

Trans is another in this sort of vein

Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance For Silence

The Charlatans' Between 10th and 11th is one, and there must be loads of other examples of stodgy 90s bands putting out electronicky/dancey records. Or pop people putting out rock/guitar albums: e.g. Kylie's Impossible Princess.

TSOL's catalog is all decent-to-awful takes on SoCal rock of the moment- hardcore, roots, warped tour punk- except for the keyboard heavy Beneath the Shadows, where their arrangements are suddenly first-rate and it elevates everything else. Same impulses that Bad Religion had, but it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RCCKFrZXpc

Freak*on*ica

Not a band, but Nebraska?

Bowie's Earthling.

Beauty Stab

The Orb - Pomme Fritz
Beck - Sea Change
Ween - 12 Golden Country Greats

I'm really shocked that I can't think of more instances wherein an artist was more depressed or angry or elated than usual and released something completely out of character. You'd think this would be fairly common among mercurial musicians.

I'm thinking that maybe the most mercurial ones tend to do something a little differently with every album, making the real left-field turns harder to single out.

The Wildhearts - Endless, Nameless, obviously

I was sure that Gary Moore did a drum n'bass influenced album in the 90s, but looking it up he seems to have done about 3! I guess that's an official "phase" in his career then. Wishbone Ash had a techno / rave phase that lasted for longer than just one album too, what the fuck was going on back then? There must be loads of artists who had a one-album drum n'bass dalliance, can't think who though.

Kiss - Music From The Elder

Geir's favourite!

Many of the albums listed so far are the one stinker in an otherwise excellent catalog. I'm thinking of stuff like Grant Lee Phillips "Mobilize", a trip-hop album in his otherwise folky catalog. Or Lloyd Cole's "Bad Vibes", similarly danceable and odd in his indie rock ouvre. I happen to love both of those but they came as a shock initially.

I'm surprised Neil Young's Trans hasn't come up yet, though I'll argue that he was still synthing it up through Landing On water and Life.

Trans is another in this sort of vein

― dutch tl;drs (electricsound), Friday, January 18, 2013 4:34 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah sorry, just searched "neil"

while the keyboard was definitely still part of his arsenal through the 80s, trans is the only one with the robot voice so it's fair game

Everybody's Rockin' too, did he ever do rockabilly again?

not without grimacing

not really, though the shocking pinks sorta morphed into the international harvesters thing about 80s neil is that he didn't really make one weird album and then go back to ordinary neil - he went devo, then rockabilly, then country, then miami vice, then bar blues, etc

def disagree with suggestions for Smashing Pumpkins (you could easily cobble together an album-length comp of Adore-like songs from other albums) and Ween (often donned 'musical costumes,' country album just most extreme example thereof)

re*ac*tor through this note's is really almost 100% sore thumb xpost

really the artist's other albums "mostly sounding somewhat like each other" feels to me like the key criteria here that's often being overlooked, especially w/r/t Neil

Beauty Stab was a good suggestion.

John prine's Pink Cadillac - super consistent singer/songwriter goes to Sun Records to mumble out some old school rock'n'roll!

Bad Religion was the first thing I thought of... Metheny is a good answer too

I nominate Rickie Lee Jones' Ghostyhead (weird trip-hop record that I love)

while in one sense southpaw grammar is surrounded by arena rock moves in the mozz discography, did he ever play around with epic song-lengths and minutes-long drum solos again?

I would argue it's the Your Arsenal sound taken to exhaustive lengths – the last of that phase of his career.

yeah there are a lot of albums that are either the culmination of a fascination (that), or something like bob mould's modulate - the proud introduction of a new color to the palette that was later submerged into the familiar but not abandoned entirely

so far it looks like weezer's red album is the only one where everybody gets a turn at the mic

whereas I wouldn't know how to classify Maladjusted except as a realization of its title.

Kanye's 808 maybe ?

that may wind up a "modulate" - the next album had "runaway" on it so it's not like he's all "autotune ballad? what's an autotune ballad?"

I've felt this way about Paris 1919-- although it has its own Blueshammer moment with "Macbeth"-- and there's "Ship of Fools" on the album after and "Big White Cloud" on the one before-- but iirc it's the one album that Cale wrote completely before going into the studio

xpost
yeah, true. "runaway" would have been perfect on 808 !

xpost yeah it's a weird thing when your first Cale album is Paris 1919 and you go dowsing for more.

Agreed. It took me a long time to fully accept that that wasn't his default sound.

I guess There's A Riot Goin' On would apply here.

Mmmmaybe...except they didn't continue like it never happened. The arrangements on Fresh are very similar, though with a markedly sunnier outlook.

Hot Space?

Nashville Skyline, maybe

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Rock-n-Roll/satanic_majesties_request.jpg

haha. Poor Bill.

Probably my favourite record sleeve ever, that. It is so ridiculous.

Squeeze's 'Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti' is a dive into Scritti-esque pop which sticks out like a sore thumb

Roy Wood's 'Wizzo Band' jazz-rock album, though this may not count as it's under a different moniker

Pet Shop Boys - 'Release' - their 'rock' album (it isn't really though)

Daniel Johnston - 'Artistic Vice' - he's extremely happy

Chris Gaines? The Beach Boys 'Love You'?

that Boris j-pop album..

Pink Floyd's 'Ummagumma' studio album... a couple of songs could fit on other albums, the rest: no chance

Chris Gaines?

ohh otm I was just revisiting this!

Yeah, I wanted to say Love You but 15 Big Ones has a similar sound (if not quite the same lyrical content).

ot Space, mentioned upthread, is a pretty good call...

...now what was the title of that early-or-mid-90s Emmylou Harris album that even The Wire paid mind to? Wrecking Ball?

*Hot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Having_Fun_With_Elvis_On_Stage

Oh of course, Felt's 'Train Across The City'. Can't think of a better one than that

It's Train Above the City, no? But you're right, that is a good one.

Trans is the best Neil Young album, of course.

I'm just out of bed, correct

coming after an album with a whole side of piano instrumental train above the city isnt such a sore thumb.

and theyd already put out another whole album of instrumentals.

Robert Pollard - Relaxation of the Asshole

Sonic Youth - Ciccone Youth

What's the Andrew WK solo piano album called again? Cadillac 55 or something.

coming after an album with a whole side of piano instrumental train above the city isnt such a sore thumb.

― sleepingsignal, Friday, January 18, 2013 6:35 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agh, I'd forgotten about that. Don't think I know the other instrumental album, though.

Anal Cunt - Picnic of Love

^^^yes

Sonic Youth - Ciccone Youth

― nostormo, Friday, January 18, 2013 12:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you want to be technical, this is not a sonic youth album, it's a ciccone youth album called "the whitey album"

xxp
its an oddity for sure, but such is felts discography.

REM - Monster

The other Felt instrumental album just sounds like regular Felt with the vocal track removed, the big ambient instrumental side of The Pictoral Jackson Review still doesn't bear any resemblance to the cocktail jazz of 'Train...'

'Up' sticks out more strangely in REM's discography than 'Monster' IMO.

i dont think its such a "hard turn into something atypical" for them

xp re felt

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3lTGKf9LfT8/TPAOfsgynnI/AAAAAAAATHM/KEzZn1RrNxk/s1600/0satu.jpg

Pretty good, except that they'd been doing disco for at least one album prior...

Main Course was their first disco record, and definitely a hard left turn, but it's not like they carried on pretending like those records never happened.

Magma - Merci
King Crimson - Lizard
Frank Zappa - Cruising with Ruben and the Jets (in that it's the only completely predictable album he ever did)
Squarepusher - Music is One Rotted Note

Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance For Silence

I REALLY disagree that most of his albums sound similar to each other. Also, The Sign of Four is every bit as noisy as this, although I suppose it's a collaboration with Derek Bailey, Gregg Bendian, and Paul Wertico.

angry samoans - STP not LSD

I feel like this is one of the rare list-threads where it is acceptable to use John Cage 4'33" as a pertinent example.

I feel like disco was surely a common catalyst for this phenomenon. I feel like I've heard a lot of ill-advised disco tunes from otherwise unassociated artists but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtFdlFA6Yy0

did Johnny Mathis have a full disco album or just a couple of songs? (Or a couple of albums?)

even though I agree with some dude's comment that Ween shouldn't really count because they are always shifting around, I must say that the EP mix of "Friends" is really about the only thing I never imagined Ween doing

Chubby Checker's 1971 psychedelic record Chequered.

Dexter Romweber's decades of scrappy rockabilly on a Silvertone guitar are interrupted by a 2006 album called Piano of sorta-classical piano solos that sound ready for accompanying a silent movie. A truly odd record.

Oh, can someone confirm or deny whether Amon Düül II's Made in Germany counts for this? I was very surprised to find a great pop album coming from them after only knowing them for their freaky kraut, but it could've been signposted on one of the other albums I've not heard.

http://exclaim.ca/images/ferry.jpg

assuming it's not his last, of course

Almost Blue - Elvis Costello. To date, his only country album

Crash Test Dummies - Give Yourself a Hand
Their hip hop/trip hop/electronica inspired album.

Pyragony-X (album that came after Made in Germany) was definitely closer to that latter album than classic-era Duul. And not nearly as enjoyable as "Germany" either, from what I can recall (only played it about 3-4 times, 25+ years ago).

xxpost

(IOW, "Germany" was more of a transitional album than an outright anomaly, apparently.)

Hahaha, I just had a PERFECT thought for a single track that counts for this - 'Everybody's Slimmin'' by Slapp Happy. Such an odd track.

I thought about Almost Blue as well but it seems like the last 20+ years have been like this for him

xp - by the same token "It's Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" by Faust

Single tracks are too prevalent, I suppose. Most bands have a silly b-side or something tucked away somewhere.

even though I agree with some dude's comment that Ween shouldn't really count because they are always shifting around

That's largely why I think 12 Golden Country Greats counts. It was pretty much a "straight" country album with little of the genre/style hopping they usually engage in.

'King Of America' has it's fair share of country

Speaking of Faust, I was considering "Outside the Dream Syndicate", but figured collaborations kinda don't count.

Dylan - Nashville Skyline
Willie Nelson - Countryman
Snoop Lion
Jerry Lee Lewis - Soul My Way
Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country & Western

and not sticking strictly to "bands", there's also Mingus Plays Piano, of course

and then, on the other hand, there are those records on which Keith Jarrett does not play piano at all, and even hardly any keyboards:)

Michael Nesmith, The Wichita Train Whistle Sings! - hasn't been mentioned, has it?

yeah 2 of the 6 Bee Gees tracks on Saturday Night Fever were actually on the 2 previous albums while Wind Of Change from the album before could (should!) definitely have been on Fever.

i know Fear Of Music had I Zimbra but..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2d/TalkingHeadsRemaininLight.jpg/220px-TalkingHeadsRemaininLight.jpg

Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies' Man
Swans, The Burning World

o yeh - Death of a Ladies' Man, good call!

Did Moby do more than one punk rock record?

Not an expert here, but Judas Priest's Turbo maybe?

The Wedding Present - Ukrainski Vistupi v Johna Peela

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukra%C3%AFnski_Vistupi_v_Johna_Peela

Released right between George Best and Bizarro - yeah it's a compilation album of Peel Session but I think it fits right here. I've not heard it for a long time but I seem to remember it being good too.

re: Nebraska

could have been until springsteen did the ghost of tom joad

Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance For Silence

I REALLY disagree that most of his albums sound similar to each other. Also, The Sign of Four is every bit as noisy as this, although I suppose it's a collaboration with Derek Bailey, Gregg Bendian, and Paul Wertico.

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Friday, January 18, 2013 1:22 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also did Song X with Ornette

http://www.amazon.com/Song-X-Pat-Metheny/dp/B000000OPX

I really like Song X but I don't really think of it as a noise record per se as much as just an out/free record. It's certainly evidence that not all of Metheny's albums sound like each other though!

A couple that spring to mind:

Derek Bailey's String Theory -- each track is a drone, something he didn't do before or since.
(would also accept Guitar, Drum 'n' Bass)

Wayne Shorter's Super Nova -- not a hard left turn, but a decisive one, and an area of music-making that he never even hinted at on subsequent records.

Jewel, 0304.

I came on here to post Bad Religion, LOL. Actually I own that album on vinyl and like it.

But another one that comes to mind (in a great way) is Rudimentary Peni's Cacophony. Stands out as by far the most progressive and bizarre outing in their otherwise sterling--but uniform, punk catalog. Arguably their greatest work (along with undisputed minimalist gothic punk masterpiece Death Church.)

More people who like Lovecraft and opium and death (and Captain Beefheart for that matter) need to get down with this album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llC3DE6wXAQ

illuminations - buffy sainte-marie

Ooh disagree with you there

Illuminations is awesome. And yes, it does stick out in her discography.

well she did a country album too but that one sticks out more?

Illuminations is such a grab-bag of songs. The Schickele stuff rules and there's nothing like "God is alive" in anybody's catalogue anywhere, but aside from that, "Poppies" and "The Vampire", there's not a lot that wouldn't be heard on any of Buffy's other records imo. The weirdest song on that record to me is "Paris" just bc it's so po-faced, like she's making fun of France Gall

Jewel, 0304.

― katherine, Friday, January 18, 2013 7:55 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this is def one of the best suggestions itt, totally forgot about that

I didn't know what this Jewel record was before 30 minutes ago and it is blowing my mind

i really dig Killing Joke's often maligned Outside the Gate. synth-heavy, theatrical and amazingly flamboyant, it sounds like no other KJ album (and that includes Brighter than a Thousand Suns which imo feels like a bunch of classic KJ tunes slightly overproduced, while OTG has an entirely different vibe in terms of songwriting and delivery)

and yeah, it's a Jaz solo record in disguise but who cares

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mjN10O-QAI

While I wouldn't say "sore" for any of these:
Thin Lizzy - Nightlife
XTC - Mummer
John Martyn - One World
AC/DC - Stiff Upper Lip
New Order - Republic
Felt - Train Above The City
Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
Severed Heads - Haul Ass
The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
The Rolling Stones - Dirty Work
Bob Dylan - Self Portrait (ok, this was kinda sore)

Common - Electric Circus

Kinda think AC/DC is excluded from this thread by definition. A record of theirs that meets the OP's criteria would have, at most, a tambourine overdub.

Chris Cornell - Scream

If that counts, since it has been his last solo album so far.

I haven't heard enough of their work to say definitively, but isn't The Trinity Session pretty different from the rest of the Cowboy Junkies' discography?

Alan Jackson- Like Red from a Rose

he had to do PR to his fans, letting them know that he was definitely going back to his old sound

Nashville Skyline and Self-Portrait are both good calls: despite some similarity, the former is the only nice-normal-mild-mannered, almost-all-orignal-all-the-way-through country album he's ever done. "Girl From The North Country" is pretty much based on a particular trad tune, right? So not quite all original material, but almost. The latter is so nice and normal it's total escapism, from the pressured of being BOB DYLAN, and a big fat fuck you/fuck me: "See? I don't have to top myself every time, at least not quality-wise, and yes I can make a bad album, and this is me and my family and our roots, we ain't going nooowhere for the nonce. and everything else I di after this may sound better by comparison." Covers and originals live, seemingly deliberately mixed as blandly as possible. I did like "Days of 49" and maybe something else. Dylan was outtakes, covers, and said to released only in revenge when he temporarily left Columbia; not his album, in that sense.

Of course some things he did after this did not sound better by comparison. Albums of the present century are not as nice and normal and country as Skyline, being more bluesy, sometimes jazzy, rocky incl relationship-rocky, growling at his old lady etc.

Alan Jackson- Like Red from a Rose

he had to do PR to his fans, letting them know that he was definitely going back to his old sound

One of his best, if not his best, imo.

Osmonds' Crazy Horses (a Chuck Eddy fave); Pat Boone's In A Metal Mood (goofing on his own sound and metal too)Freaked out some fans, esp. when he showed up in Rob Halford-style gear on talk show (can't remember which one. but he took the album cover esnsemble further)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eQuRvXGinM

Robbie Fulks, Couples in Trouble - Ambitious, genre-jumping album (fake trad.arr, orchestrated torch song, Marshall Crenshaw-esque pop, etc.) largely separate from the country foundation of the earlier and later albums. This was my first Fulks record, so unfortunately, regardless of the quality, I've been disappointed in his other albums because I was expecting a different kind of musician.

I don't think things like Pat Boone's metal album (or Ethel Merman's disco album) really count, since they didn't really have "recording careers" at that point; these are essentially novelty records or producer-driven conceptual projects.

I don't think Pat Boone's metal album counts at all because it's just him covering metal songs in jazz/big band style. It's not actually a metal album.

Haven't heard it, but Ritchie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio are on it, so surely there's some metal shavings sprinkled throughout?

It's crazy to think Dio was an early contemporary of Boone; Ronnie & the Red Caps put out their first single in 1958.

crazy horses the album actually not all that different from other osmond records of that period. crazy horses the song certainly stands out cuz it would stand out on anybody's album.

I feel like this is one of the rare list-threads where it is acceptable to use John Cage 4'33" as a pertinent example.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, January 18, 2013 1:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Leaving aside the fact that Cage's work is fairly diverse sonically -- though I guess you'd say that a piece without any performed sound stands in stark contrast to numerous pieces with -- did Cage (or David Tudor) ever record 4'33" himself? (I'm not sure.)

"TSOL's catalog is all decent-to-awful takes on SoCal rock of the moment- hardcore, roots, warped tour punk- except for the keyboard heavy Beneath the Shadows, where their arrangements are suddenly first-rate and it elevates everything else. Same impulses that Bad Religion had, but it works."

The first one I heard by TSOL and still the one I really liked was the album Change Today? with the other vocalist. It's got a pretty weird mix of SoCal punk/Bauhaus with a Danzig/Jim Morrison crooner. I love the song "Flowers by the Door".

The Doors - The Soft Parade

As I said, Boone was goofing on his patented approach, even going back his roots: he was famous/infamous for anodyne covers in the 50s--also demonstrating how easily all those bad boy songs could be neutered (although, so what "Ain't what you do, it's how you do it") He was still releasing records, therefore he still had a recording career. He did manage to freak out some fans, just the fact that he was doing those songs at all, and prob many would dream of listening, of getting that close to SATAN--the metal accoutrements were bad enough. I'll bet Merman turned off some of her fans too: the older campsters, behind gated properties on Fire Island, wanting none of that disco trash (the musical kind, anyway).

many would *never* dream of listening

Individual track rather than an album, but:

I've been working, in order, through the big Miles Davis box set I got for Christmas. After 26 albums of instrumental jazz of various hues, track 7 on album 27 ('Nothing Like You' from Sorcerer) is a cheeky pop vocal number. It's presence is frankly inexplicable and I don't quite know what to make of it. I rather doubt album 28 will go on to build on this tune.

the columbia box? yeah thats an awesome set

It really is. I also got the Prestige one, but the Columbia one is prettier so I started with that.

i dont have that just the columbia one. got the prestige cds on their own tho

I haven't heard enough of their work to say definitively, but isn't The Trinity Session pretty different from the rest of the Cowboy Junkies' discography?

No, it's pretty much of a piece.

Wasn't it their first album tho? *googles* No, it was their second

Miles' Christmas album features Bob Dorough, of Alphabet Rock or whatever you call it; pretty chipper. The Man With The Horn's title track has cute male R&B vocals. Dunno if those are in there, but worth hearing. The Man also has pre-tasteful Mike Stern guitar--kinda metally at time--not like Cosey or Sharrock. Oh yeah, vocals: Miles soloed on a pop-sh Sarah Vaughn track, when they were both so young! Can't remember the title; something about "I'm not the kind of a girl..." A bit coy, but so much suave vitality (minus later mannerisms.) Only other vocalist I can think of with Miles: Nana Vasconcelos, during interludes on Live-Evil.

Live-Evil is album no.40; The Man With The Horn is no.47. Thanks for spoiling the surprise ffs (just kidding!).

I don't see any reference to Sarah Vaughn or a Christmas album, but that's not to say they're not buried somewhere deep in the bowels of this behemoth.

Unless you count Miles' guest shots with Cameo, and some others (expressed interest in playing with "Spitti Politti" and Missing Persons, but don't know if he did)(he accompanies John Lee Hooker on The Hot Spot soundtrack)

I'm out of my depth here

There isn't a Miles Davis Christmas album; the tunes with Bob Dorough ("Blue XMas" among them) are on Quiet Nights, which otherwise features a desultory Miles/Gil pseudo-bossa-nova collaboration. If there's a "bad" record in Miles' pre-80s discography, it's Quiet Nights.

Quiet Nights is no.17. I can't've been listening properly then.

Muddy Waters - Electric Mud

Similarly: The Howlin' Wolf Album

The Miles Davis Christmas album is Blue Christmas, Dorough chirps the Scroogey title track. It's a compilation album, and prob way out of print.

is that the album that had on its front cover, This Is Howlin Wolf's New Album. He Doesn't Like It?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/33/The_Howlin%27_Wolf_Album.jpg/220px-The_Howlin%27_Wolf_Album.jpg

Cool, is Cosey on it? If so, I'll get it.

He is! He's also on Electric Mud. I really need it get on it and get into those records asap.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Cars_-_Panorama.jpg

oooh good pick

How's it different?

Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies' Man
Swans, The Burning World

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Friday, January 18, 2013 10:31 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was just realising yesterday that I really liked the sound of Death of A Ladies Man as possibly the title track popped up on my walkman. Thought it was something I would have been interested to hear more like. Wondered if anybody had been deeply influenced by it and thought Tindersticks but not sure if that's true.

As for The Swans, my favourite era of that band was about a year before that lp when they toured as the ultra heavy folk rock band with the line-up from Children Of God, unfortunately there isn't an easily got lp representing that era. Unless Gira's rereleased 2 Anonymous Figures In a room which I think was from then. Line-up had already fragmented by the time Burning world appeared.
Something of a similar style was explored during the White rabbit era as compiled on Various Failures but the line-up was different so the feel wasn't exactly the same. Has had some influence on the way they sound now but still not the same. Glad I found various live sets from taht era over the years.

I haven't heard enough of their work to say definitively, but isn't The Trinity Session pretty different from the rest of the Cowboy Junkies' discography?

― (hcnuL dlO) * (Old Lunch), Saturday, January 19, 2013 4:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the first lp is working its way toward that style but then Trinity became really popular and I think they changed the sound. Or is Caution Horses that different?

First two Cowboy Junkies LPs were mostly covers; mostly originals from The Caution Horses on.

Miles' Christmas album features Bob Dorough, of Alphabet Rock or whatever you call it; pretty chipper. The Man With The Horn's title track has cute male R&B vocals.

Similarly, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.

Would nominate Britney's Blackout and Chris Isaak's Speak of the Devil (his one delving into a more polished pop sound).

U2 Pop, too...

"Nothing Like You" was recorded like 5-6 years before the rest of Sorcerer, so yeah its inclusion was a total "wtf"?

xxxxxpost

xposts

I don't really see The Soft Parade fitting here. It was the reputation because of the orchestration, but in reality that's like three songs and, "Runnin' Blue" aside, everything else could have easily fit on any other Doors album.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Hot_Trip_to_Heaven.jpg

I think that might be my favorite Love And Rockets album too.

Mos Def, The New Danger?

was gonna say New Danger but I think Mos changed it up again anyway, The Ecstatic was basically a fake Stones Throw album and sounded nothing like the first couple (True Magic's the possible wrench in that theory, but I genuinely don't remember that album at all)

Only other vocalist I can think of with Miles: Nana Vasconcelos, during interludes on Live-Evil.

Dow, I think you mean Hermeto Pascoal, here.

destroyer - kaputt and your blues

You're right, Ward, thanks. The vocal (and trumpet) interludes are like sunlight traveling across wallpaper---between the multiplying dimensions of the party tracks. One of the first and best jazz albums I ever heard.

Can't think of another album by anybody using vocal interludes that way.

portastatic - de mel, de melão (okay, it's an ep)

I'm not sure if he counts, since he's only released three albums, but IMO Divine Styler's second album belongs to this category. This is what his discography is like:

First album: cool, idiosyncratic rap record that combines hip hop tradition with the latest techniques of its era.

Second album: a mess of a record that sound like artsy experimental rock, complete with guitar solos, endless noodling, atonal noises, terrible wailing and mubling by DS, barely any rapping.

Third album: cool, idiosyncratic rap record that combines hip hop tradition with the latest techniques of its era.

ita not a mess and the rock isn't really experimental and the noodling isn't endless (the songs aren't that long) and 95% of the album is completely tonal. there is some wailing and mumbling though. briefly.

Well, regardless of what you think about its quality, you have to admit it's completely different from the albums that preceded and followed it, as those are rap music.

its different for sure, but the first album was not a really normal rap album either if you listen to it.

It's not "normal", the third one isn't either, but they're clearly recognizable as rap albums with hip hop beats. The second album is experimental rock with a bit of rapping included.

Stevie Wonder, The Secret Life of Plants? Don't think he's done a whole album like this otherwise, or maybe even occasional tracks like these?
Jamey Johnson's Hank Cochran tribute, with countrypolitan orchestrations (no ODs, though) and cavalcade of guest stars.

Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

Divine Comedy - Regeneration

Haujobb - Ninetynine

My Bloody Valentine (depending on loose your definition of "decent number" is)

Fakebook

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEftj2acv0

robbie williams - rudebox

all right all right i'm going

Many prog acts went AOR for a while in the 80s, but Camel ("The Single Factor") and Pendragon (Nomzamo") were the only ones who did for one album only.

Bowie might not quite fit in here as he has changed genre all the time through his career, but his 70s style changes were all gradual whereas "Earthling is easily completely unlike anything he has ever done before or since.

Gotta disagree with "Mummer" btw. That album was a departure at the time, but largely predated everything they would become from "Skylarking" onwards.

Why was "Mummer" a departure? Other than being not quite as good as the preceding albums (but better than people say it is)

it wasn't, they just stopped touring and became more studio-focused

"Mummer" is less "new wave" and more pop. More pastoral and less "rock".

it does not stick out like a sore thumb

neither does king crimson's 'lizard' tbh

although i think 'muswell hillbillies' (kinks) fits pretty well

Erasure's self-titled album breaks pretty sharply from the rigid formula of their other albums, even though the sounds used aren't much different. Lots of extended-length songs, long instrumental sections.

This is a pretty good acid rock album from the bubblegum heroes.

http://npknet.com/images/Jackvynil/1231albums53.jpg

Erasure's self-titled album breaks pretty sharply from the rigid formula of their other albums, even though the sounds used aren't much different. Lots of extended-length songs, long instrumental sections.

I kind of agree, although the one Erasure album that sticks out the most is the all-acoustic "Union Street", followed by "Loveboat", which also contained a lot of guitar.

I'm dying to hear that 1910 Fruitgum Co. biker album!

bjork's catalog can hardly be described as consistent, but debut sticks out for being so deeply normal-sounding in comparison to the rest.

i kept thinking there would be a bizarre standout to the ghostface discography, but they're all so maddeningly consistent. even wizard of poetry is a ghostface album through and through.

glad someone mentioned picnic of love upthread :D

Note that the original question was:

Bands with a decent number of albums that all mostly sound somewhat like each other with ONE notorious exception that sticks out like a sore thumb and it wasn't the first or last album...

There are plenty of bands/artists with anomalous first albums.

Perspex Island definitely belongs on this list.

I suppose if we're only counting 'proper' studio albums, then Pet Shop Boys Introspective surely sticks out - if only in terms of approach.

I have always assumed that Introspective was a similar project to Disco. But you're right, it was a 'proper' studio album. Weird.

Tangerine Dream- Cyclone

The only one of their 70s albums with prominent vocals

Yes, kinda terrible too, except for the 2nd side which is well up to their usual standards

Seems to me that CINDER by the Dirty Three was something of a departure from their others. Not sure if their most recent was a return to form or not.

Maybe stretching the idea a little.

Lilys - Zero Population Growth: Bliss Out Volume 15

The Manhattan Transfer - Extensions

Mainly because of this craziness..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C278Y5BFEFs

Erasure's Loveboat doesn't really have that much guitar on it and what's there doesn't sound even particularly well-recorded. Their S/T is their most unusual album though, with all those long 'Chill Out' interludes.

Erasure's Loveboat doesn't really have that much guitar on it and what's there doesn't sound even particularly well-recorded. Their S/T is their most unusual album though, with all those long 'Chill Out' interludes.

― 'Separate Lives', by Phil Collins & Marilyn Manson (PaulTMA), Wednesday, February 6, 2013 3:39 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM.

I still, to this day, can't believe that Flood was involved with Loveboat. The production and mix of the thing is awful.

The Village People - Renaissance

Oh, duh. Genuine Imitation Life by The Four Seasons.

which reminds me of this one:

http://www.ovationshop.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/3/0/300_85_UMA_2720046_1.jpg

Iggy Pop - Avenue B, maybe?