Marmite Bands

[New Dazzler]

Frank Zappa and/or the Mothers of Invention - a classic example of a point I was going to make about Queen, love some of their stuff, find other things unlistenable.  I bought Zappa's "Hot Rats", "Chunga's Revenge" at the time on vinyl, now have them on my I-pod and of course Spotify, and still find them to be classic albums.  Within a couple of years of these he brought out an Album (with a film to boot!) called "200 Motels" and "The Mothers Live at the Fillmore East" which, as schoolkids listening to cassettes of these in the 6th form block we thought were hilarious and could recite all the vocals - now they just sound like smutty gibberish! 

There are countless bands and artists whose output has been so varied across the course of a career, that there is bound to be some crap periods following brilliant starts, I am thinking The Police, Blondie, Boomtown Rats, Talking Heads, even Kate Bush and David Bowie produced some stinkers (all in my opinion of course).  Elbow took about 10 years to get to the stage of making a classic album in "Seldom Seen Kid". I am a massive fan of Joni Mitchell, her output in the 70s was outstanding, but if her entire output was the stuff that came out after 1980, she would probably never have had a career!

Which brings me on to something that I was going to start as a new thread, but thought I would include it here as it is a similar theme. 

What do people think of bands that have totally changed musical direction at a point in their career, with varying amounts of critical/commercial success?

The 2 obvious ones for me  are Fleetwood Mac, who went from a very successful (critically and chart wise) blues band based around Peter Green's genius, to a much more successful (commercially at least) "Adult Orientated Rock" band.  And the Bee Gees, who went from Beatles sound-alikes in the late 60s,the specialising in ballads like "Massachusetts" (or, as Kenny Everett would say "Mass of Chew-Sets") to a high pitched disco combo selling stuff by the bucketload and obviously, the high involvement with the mega Film Soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever".  Any opinions on these two?  

Another band that totally changed musically, as well as their name, was T.Rex, I know they were mentioned on one of the music posts on here.  Also Mott The Hoople were similar to T.Rex, in as much as they were a decent band with limited commercial success, until David Bowie got hold of them and turned them into a sort of rock band version of himself!

[Lanterne Rouge]

6 minutes ago, New Dazzler said:

Frank Zappa and/or the Mothers of Invention - a classic example of a point I was going to make about Queen, love some of their stuff, find other things unlistenable.  I bought Zappa's "Hot Rats", "Chunga's Revenge" at the time on vinyl, now have them on my I-pod and of course Spotify, and still find them to be classic albums.  Within a couple of years of these he brought out an Album (with a film to boot!) called "200 Motels" and "The Mothers Live at the Fillmore East" which, as schoolkids listening to cassettes of these in the 6th form block we thought were hilarious and could recite all the vocals - now they just sound like smutty gibberish! 

There are countless bands and artists whose output has been so varied across the course of a career, that there is bound to be some crap periods following brilliant starts, I am thinking The Police, Blondie, Boomtown Rats, Talking Heads, even Kate Bush and David Bowie produced some stinkers (all in my opinion of course).  Elbow took about 10 years to get to the stage of making a classic album in "Seldom Seen Kid". I am a massive fan of Joni Mitchell, her output in the 70s was outstanding, but if her entire output was the stuff that came out after 1980, she would probably never have had a career!

Which brings me on to something that I was going to start as a new thread, but thought I would include it here as it is a similar theme. 

What do people think of bands that have totally changed musical direction at a point in their career, with varying amounts of critical/commercial success?

The 2 obvious ones for me  are Fleetwood Mac, who went from a very successful (critically and chart wise) blues band based around Peter Green's genius, to a much more successful (commercially at least) "Adult Orientated Rock" band.  And the Bee Gees, who went from Beatles sound-alikes in the late 60s,the specialising in ballads like "Massachusetts" (or, as Kenny Everett would say "Mass of Chew-Sets") to a high pitched disco combo selling stuff by the bucketload and obviously, the high involvement with the mega Film Soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever".  Any opinions on these two?  

Another band that totally changed musically, as well as their name, was T.Rex, I know they were mentioned on one of the music posts on here.  Also Mott The Hoople were similar to T.Rex, in as much as they were a decent band with limited commercial success, until David Bowie got hold of them and turned them into a sort of rock band version of himself!

One man`s change of direction is another`s re-inventing yourself. I`m thinking of Blondie from your list above who`s career mirrored the evolution of pop music over the years (they were destroyed by former peers like The Ramones for `selling out` when they released I think, Heart Of Glass) and Debbie Harry goes into great detail about what they were trying to do and how much some of the comments upset her in the excellent Sky Arts documentary on them where she says all they were basically trying to do was to keep up with a fast moving industry.

Bowie just couldn`t stand still, he always had to be trying something new - most of it worked, some of it didn`t - but he stayed relevant and interesting. He never intended any of his phases to be long term - Ziggy Stardust for instance was always intended to be a rise, burn brightly and crash story with a finite end.

I tend to agree regarding the Bee Gees and Fleetwood Mac though and you can add Genesis (as has been discussed at length in another thread!) to that.

[AppyDAZE]

1 hour ago, New Dazzler said:

Frank Zappa and/or the Mothers of Invention - a classic example of a point I was going to make about Queen, love some of their stuff, find other things unlistenable.  I bought Zappa's "Hot Rats", "Chunga's Revenge" at the time on vinyl, now have them on my I-pod and of course Spotify, and still find them to be classic albums.  Within a couple of years of these he brought out an Album (with a film to boot!) called "200 Motels" and "The Mothers Live at the Fillmore East" which, as schoolkids listening to cassettes of these in the 6th form block we thought were hilarious and could recite all the vocals - now they just sound like smutty gibberish! 

There are countless bands and artists whose output has been so varied across the course of a career, that there is bound to be some crap periods following brilliant starts, I am thinking The Police, Blondie, Boomtown Rats, Talking Heads, even Kate Bush and David Bowie produced some stinkers (all in my opinion of course).  Elbow took about 10 years to get to the stage of making a classic album in "Seldom Seen Kid". I am a massive fan of Joni Mitchell, her output in the 70s was outstanding, but if her entire output was the stuff that came out after 1980, she would probably never have had a career!

Which brings me on to something that I was going to start as a new thread, but thought I would include it here as it is a similar theme. 

What do people think of bands that have totally changed musical direction at a point in their career, with varying amounts of critical/commercial success?

The 2 obvious ones for me  are Fleetwood Mac, who went from a very successful (critically and chart wise) blues band based around Peter Green's genius, to a much more successful (commercially at least) "Adult Orientated Rock" band.  And the Bee Gees, who went from Beatles sound-alikes in the late 60s,the specialising in ballads like "Massachusetts" (or, as Kenny Everett would say "Mass of Chew-Sets") to a high pitched disco combo selling stuff by the bucketload and obviously, the high involvement with the mega Film Soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever".  Any opinions on these two?  

Another band that totally changed musically, as well as their name, was T.Rex, I know they were mentioned on one of the music posts on here.  Also Mott The Hoople were similar to T.Rex, in as much as they were a decent band with limited commercial success, until David Bowie got hold of them and turned them into a sort of rock band version of himself!

Excellent points, well made.

[Slacker]

The Jam/Paul Weller solo.Some OK stuff in amongst it but really don't understand Paul Weller's God like status.I do love the fact that his fans love to tell us nonbelievers that "We just call him Weller",as though the man himself has visited all of their houses and said to them individually,"All right mate?Just call me Weller."

[New Dazzler]

2 hours ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

One man`s change of direction is another`s re-inventing yourself. I`m thinking of Blondie from your list above who`s career mirrored the evolution of pop music over the years (they were destroyed by former peers like The Ramones for `selling out` when they released I think, Heart Of Glass) and Debbie Harry goes into great detail about what they were trying to do and how much some of the comments upset her in the excellent Sky Arts documentary on them where she says all they were basically trying to do was to keep up with a fast moving industry.

Bowie just couldn`t stand still, he always had to be trying something new - most of it worked, some of it didn`t - but he stayed relevant and interesting. He never intended any of his phases to be long term - Ziggy Stardust for instance was always intended to be a rise, burn brightly and crash story with a finite end.

I tend to agree regarding the Bee Gees and Fleetwood Mac though and you can add Genesis (as has been discussed at length in another thread!) to that.

I take your point with Blondie to a degree, TBH I knew very little of them until they had a hit with Denis, and then the release of the Parallel Lines album, which I thought was a brilliant pop album - which contained Heart of Glass - and also a massive seller.  So I'm not really viewing them as "selling out" by bringing out that album, more that PL was such a great album with a very high quality of song writing (although HOG has been overplayed so many times on the radio I wouldn't care if I never heard that again!) and for me the style of music didn't change that much, apart from a little dalliance with rap, but the quality of the songs after PL. just never matched up to that album.  Likewise, The Police brought out 2 very good albums and then we had Zenyetta Mandetta, the style was the same, the quality of songs was underwhelming.  One more example I will chuck out there is Ian Dury and the Blockheads, pretty much everything he brought out before the "Do It Yourself" album was top drawer - perhaps there is something in the "difficult 2nd album syndrome" but the quality of the songs on "New Boots and Panties" is absolutely outstanding, the only thing he did that I liked after that was "Hit Me" and it's B side "There Ain't 'Alf Been Some Clever Bastards", and "Reasons to be Cheerful" was decent.

Bowie was an exceptional artist with a very long career (50+ years?) so there is always going to be some mediocre stuff in the catalogue. What you said, though, reminded me of how he always seemed to be ahead of the game, suddenly knocking out a soul influenced album in Young Americans in 1975, and then the ultra-commercial Let's Dance album in 1983 with 3 tracks that stormed the singles charts.  His recordings before Space Oddity are also very interesting..

[Lanterne Rouge]

27 minutes ago, New Dazzler said:

I take your point with Blondie to a degree, TBH I knew very little of them until they had a hit with Denis, and then the release of the Parallel Lines album, which I thought was a brilliant pop album - which contained Heart of Glass - and also a massive seller.  So I'm not really viewing them as "selling out" by bringing out that album, more that PL was such a great album with a very high quality of song writing (although HOG has been overplayed so many times on the radio I wouldn't care if I never heard that again!) and for me the style of music didn't change that much, apart from a little dalliance with rap, but the quality of the songs after PL. just never matched up to that album.  Likewise, The Police brought out 2 very good albums and then we had Zenyetta Mandetta, the style was the same, the quality of songs was underwhelming.  One more example I will chuck out there is Ian Dury and the Blockheads, pretty much everything he brought out before the "Do It Yourself" album was top drawer - perhaps there is something in the "difficult 2nd album syndrome" but the quality of the songs on "New Boots and Panties" is absolutely outstanding, the only thing he did that I liked after that was "Hit Me" and it's B side "There Ain't 'Alf Been Some Clever Bastards", and "Reasons to be Cheerful" was decent.

Bowie was an exceptional artist with a very long career (50+ years?) so there is always going to be some mediocre stuff in the catalogue. What you said, though, reminded me of how he always seemed to be ahead of the game, suddenly knocking out a soul influenced album in Young Americans in 1975, and then the ultra-commercial Let's Dance album in 1983 with 3 tracks that stormed the singles charts.  His recordings before Space Oddity are also very interesting..

You`re right about Bowie. He was never content to just be one thing and didn`t do things just to be successful/profitable - the Tin Machine era was excruciating and I`m one of his biggest fans (I can only imagine this was intended to be his bleak industrial period a la Kraftwerk) - but he committed fully to whatever he was doing before moving on to something else, often a world away from the last. You only have to look at his acting career too - The Man Who Fell To Earth, Labyrinth, Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, The Hunger and Just A Gigolo is a pretty eclectic mix of styles to say the least!

Blondie were unfairly treated by a lot of the media IMO. They were never a `new wave` band just a damn good pop act despite what the music press tried to label them as. It`s a bit like The Buzzcocks or The Undertones being labelled punk bands - they weren`t, they were bloody good pop groups.

[RED4LIFE]

Neil Young has always seemed to be quite marmite between my friends.

Personally, I think he's brilliant but as with others mentioned on this thread with such  a prolific output over many years some of it is bound to be dross.

Old Man and Down By The River are particular favourites, although DBTR is mainly due to Crazy Horse, rather than Youngs vocals.

[Port Said Red]

I was listening to Tindersticks earlier today and realised that they should be given a mention on this thread. They are probably one of the biggest bands few people have heard of. They have had released over 20 albums and have performed and written many soundtracks, they are particularly popular in France. 
I think that some people are put off by Stuart Staples voice, some people I have tried to introduce to their music have likened him to the "pub singer" that Steve Wright created in his radio 1 days. I must admit it sometimes lacks "colour" especially live, and my favourite tracks of theirs are those where additional vocals have been used. 
This track would make my top 10 all time songs. telling a beautiful story with a great use of strings. 

 

[Major Isewater]

On 08/07/2020 at 15:17, Port Said Red said:

I was listening to Tindersticks earlier today and realised that they should be given a mention on this thread. They are probably one of the biggest bands few people have heard of. They have had released over 20 albums and have performed and written many soundtracks, they are particularly popular in France. 
I think that some people are put off by Stuart Staples voice, some people I have tried to introduce to their music have likened him to the "pub singer" that Steve Wright created in his radio 1 days. I must admit it sometimes lacks "colour" especially live, and my favourite tracks of theirs are those where additional vocals have been used. 
This track would make my top 10 all time songs. telling a beautiful story with a great use of strings. 

 

 I love this song it reminds me of the duets of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra.  

[Robbored]

Apart from a couple of decent songs I’ve never liked Queen. 

[Port Said Red]

24 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

 I love this song it reminds me of the duets of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra.  

Did you know it anyway Major, or have I done you a favour by introducing it to you? 

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

For me it’s The Doors.  My wife is Jim Morrison’s no 1 fan, but I’ve been listening to The Doors for a lot longer than her and I have always found them the dullest band imaginable.  Never got it at all.  What am I missing?

Ditto, Grateful Dead.  The biggest cult following of any band in history probably, but as dull as ditchwater as far as I’m concerned.

[Markman]

On 02/04/2020 at 08:28, Port Said Red said:

Judging by the other music related threads, Queen are a real marmite band. People either really like them or really hate them, there seems very little fence sitting going on. So who are the others, I will start us off with 

The Fall

My friend of 50 odd years and I have very similar musical tastes, but he loves them and I just don’t get it.

give this a chance till the end = what a driving song (vocals are a tad unusual)

 

 

[Port Said Red]

5 hours ago, Markman said:

give this a chance till the end = what a driving song (vocals are a tad unusual)

 

 

I know this one, don’t get me wrong I have listened to loads and there are some good tracks. It’s just that my friend (and he is not alone) thinks that MES is a god like genius who can do no wrong. I can’t get on board with that.

[Major Isewater]

16 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

Did you know it anyway Major, or have I done you a favour by introducing it to you? 

I knew the song and the Tindersticks are from Nottingham where I used to live . You did me a favour by posting it on OTIB.

[City oz]

On 02/04/2020 at 19:52, CyderInACan said:

Wurzels - I bloody love them but know loads who think it's a load of bumpkin shoite 

Ran out of likes. Keep it up cyderinacan