The Sameys: An Award For The Most Monotonous Output

AND IT IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE REST OF THEIR SONGS BECAUSE EVERY ONE OF THEIR SONGS WAS SO TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER SO I THINK YOU MUST BE A DEAF

i will nominate TEH ROMONES but in the worst possible way

The real winner, I'm sure, is some lo-fi bedhead who put out 45 full-lengths last year.

Or B.B. King.

No wait, they actually have two different songs that they play over and over again. Same with Coldplay.

But even I, no fan of the band, will have to admit that their Achtung Baby-Zooropa-Pop period is enough to forfeit the award.

Nope thanks to "Poor Boy" and just basically the fact that his entire career isn't in fact limited to the Pink Moon LP.

More obscurely, Electric Frankenstein.

Don't forget "With or Without You"!

Guided By Voices is the correct answer.

But how is it we've got this far in the thread and Oasis hasn't been mentioned?

I'm not sure this is entirely true. Early albums were more organic and live sounding; parts on The Biz and Nassau even kind of ROCK; later albums have a more electronic feel, The Fawn being the transition album.

Anyone who nominates Stereolab is lying.

But then, by the same token you could as easily nominate New Order.

Wha—?! I have a hard time thinking of a band whose output is MORE stylistically varied. Pollard's range is huge...power pop, gutter punk, snyth ballad, noise, Big Prog, frat rock, post-punk...and then he ups the variation quotient with different production on every album.

American Analog Set...zzzzzz...owns this thread.

It's amazing that not a single rapper has been called out yet. Go ILM.

ps omg lol ac/dc otm

I may also suggest Nas, whose production still sounds surprisingly mid-90s.

But mostly I was commending ILM for refraining from a facile "OMG every rapper evah" post... which, of course, immediately followed.

Ghostface is particularly guilty of saminess. Although I lovelovelove it.

i agree with everclear to some extent (90% of their output sounds like 'snta monica', a few tracks sound like 'heroine girl'), the ramones too (though in a good way), but im sure there are a thousand hardcore bands in the bad brains tradition that'd probably be the best answer (in the worst possible way).

Aren't those different issues, though? One has to do with production, which can result in a typical and recognizable "sound" (I would place U2 or, say, Soul II Soul in this category.) The other, which is how I was interpreting this thread, has to do with actual songwriting: using the same chord progressions over and over (Modern Talking, again, or even the songs of Stock, Aiken and Waterman), melodies that are only slightly modified, or having recurring lyrical obsessions (which actually no one has picked up on).

However surely with U2 it's the opposite to what you claim - the production has changed (Steve Lillywhite brittleness --> Eno/Lanois gauziness --> gauze + blues affectations --> Eno/Flood avant-INXS --> Eno/Flood Berlinesque --> mid-late nineties codtronica --> back to a mixture of 1 & 2) but, with a few eclectic showpiece exceptions, the song has remained the same (even Zooropa has "Stay").

I think it's the same with New Order mostly - from Power, Corruption & Lies onwards what has really changed has been the production/arrangements rather than the basic approach to songcraft, and having them veer back and forth between rock and dance-pop has only emphasised this; either way there will be a yearning pop song with a Peter Hook bassline and non-sensical lyrics somewhere. Whether this is shameful saminess or fidelity to a vision is another issue.

What does strike me as interesting is whether the two areas -- production and songcraft -- can be as easily separated as I originally thought. The Pet Shop Boys once said that technological changes actually altered the way they write songs; so for example, sampling meant that they could start writing songs around a hook which they didn't used to before, or a new synth might actually create new sounds they could use. If this is true, then songcraft and production cannot be untangled.

(Of course, this probably applies more to bands that are actively involved in the production of their records.)

The typical critical manouevre - in line with the perhaps unconscious assumption that all rock songs are written live, either via jamming or one person on a piano/guitar - is to assume that song/lyrics/melody come first. Hence all music reviews which say "this is a great song but it's been badly over-produced/is too cluttered/has an awful synth sound etc. etc." This presupposes that the synth sound (or whatever) is always an add-on, an accompaniment that either nicely frames or obstructs and distorts the song's artistry.

U2 and New Order are interesting cases because I think they've been simultaneously more diverse and more singleminded than most comparable big bands. But I think both would get away with accusations of saminess if they weren't so devoted to songs qua songs: the contours of their songs are so precisely structured that (like Crowded House or The Smiths, say) they have an implicit familiarity even if they readjust one or more components (lyrics, melody, production).

A lack of investment in classic songcraft carries different dangers, maybe - the typical one of course, levelled at genres from dance to death metal ("it all sounds the same") - but it does mean that for close listeners changes in any particular component is more readily recognised as change in a way that can be missed when the hooks are so classically sculpted.

Galaxie 500, Luna, and Damon & Naomi are absolute hall-of-famers here.

OTM I'm all about the Raped Ape but they pretty much said what they needed to say on the first album.

Every song by Gerty Farish started with the same Casio-drum fill. I alwas kind of loved that.

T. Rex, perhaps?

50 Cent
The Game
Snoop
Busta Rhymes
...

almost all of them does the same on every fucking song.

They had a disco period, a druggy sitars'r'us period... no go.

I don't think this is always the assumption, or at least you can make that assumption and even if it's wrong still legitimately make that criticism. Just because the band thinks a particular sound is key to a song doesn't mean it actually is. The critic is saying the song would sound better without it, even if it was specifically written/produced with this noise/part as the centerpiece. I can think of a few albums where if a band wasn't so wedded to a particular image or sound it would be much better.

Uh...Silkworm?