There are some bands and musicians who have sounded more or less the same throughout their musical career. Their first album and fourth album released ten years apart have tracks that seem interchangeable with one another. Then you have the majority of artists, who evolve over time but stay within bounds; they might add a synthesizer here and adapt a folk music influence there, but they’ll start and end as a fairly straightforward and mild rock band.
But then there are groups who completely change their sound or reinvent their style. Here are ten bands who are almost unrecognizable from their debuts. As a note, this list does not include acts who switch up their style with each album (looking at you Beck and of Montreal).
10. Radiohead
Started as: Pretty standard 90s grungy rock
But is now: The experimental weirdos we know and love
Let’s get this obvious one out of the way first. As one of the most highly acclaimed and influential rock bands of the 90s and 00s, it’s easy to take how weird Radiohead is for granted. They can sell out any stadium in seconds, but recent singles like “Daydreaming” and “Lotus Flower” aren’t exactly what come to mind when you imagine rock bands with such mass appeal. What did sound conventional? Early Radiohead, namely their mega-hit “Creep.” Yes, “Creep,” the 1993 hit that remains their most-played song on Spotify and Last.fm in 2019. It grew to define Radiohead so much during their early years that they grew to hate it, writing the song “My Iron Lung” in 1994 as a response to its success, and they refused to play it live for up to seven years at a time.
While they’ve since made peace with “Creep,” it stunning how much this single or anything else on their 1993 debut Pablo Honey sounds nothing like the Radiohead we know and love today. Pablo Honey had a dozen perfectly fine rock songs on it, but its grunge flair didn’t exactly help it stand out in the mid-90s, and the album is generally considered one of Radiohead’s weaker releases. They wouldn’t become their more eccentric, experimental selves until the release of 1997’s breakthrough OK Computer, and now Pablo Honey Radiohead and A Moon Shaped Pool Radiohead seem like two different bands.
9. Ra Ra Riot
Started as: Baroque pop
But is now: Synthpop
One of the younger entries on this list, Ra Ra Riot only released their self-titled debut EP in 2007. They never reached the popularity of other late 2000s indie acts like MGMT or Vampire Weekend, but their full length debut The Rhumb Line was critically acclaimed and earned the band a modest following. Often categorized as “baroque pop,” this album combined calmer indie rock with orchestral sounds, thanks to the band having both a violinist and a cellist. They continued this sound with their second album The Orchard in 2010, and were most comparable to bands like Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian, and the Decemberists.
Then in 2013, Ra Ra Riot released Beta Love, an album that made followers of the band go “what the hell is this?” Seemingly out of nowhere, the band had gone from artsy baroque pop straight into dumbed-down synthpop. Sure, the band’s cellist left in 2012, but they still had a violinist and had rarely used synthesizer at all on their first two albums. Their 2016 album Need Your Light toned down the electronic excesses a bit, but still gravitated heavily towards pop, and neither of these synth-heavy albums were as well-received as the orchestral ones. While other bands on this list might make you think “that’s what they used to sound like?,” Ra Ra Riot are more “that’s what they sound like now?”
8. Destroyer
Started as: Mostly guitar-based indie rock
But is now: Jazz/lounge rock
Far from what their brutal name suggests, Destroyer is a relatively mild indie rock band fronted by Dan Bejar. Bejar is probably best known as a member of the indie rock/power pop “supergroup” the New Pornographers, where he and fellow Destroyer member John Collins create infectiously upbeat melodies alongside the likes of A.C. Newman and Neko Case. Destroyer’s music is less riff-heavy and hook-laden than the New Pornographers, but its general guitar and synthesizer work coupled with Bejar’s trademark nasal vocals provide some audible linkage between them. The eight albums Destroyer released from 1996-2008 were all distinctive from one another, and were more sophisticated and lyrically opaque than the New Pornographers, but they were still largely rooted in standard rock instrumentation.
Then in 2011, Destroyer went Kaputt. That’s right, Destroyer’s ninth album Kaputt switched out the guitar-based foundation of their previous albums in favor of jazzy horns and flute, pulsating synthesizers, and a good dose of 80s excess. Most striking of all, Bejar sang in a lower, more deadpan voice that added to the sensual “is an adult film about to start?” groove to the tracks. The album’s rave reviews gave the band a new following, who were probably surprised to discover it sounded almost nothing like either the New Pornographers or anything Destroyer had previously done. Destroyer continued this jazz rock/lounge sound on 2015’s Poison Season before getting a little more electronic on 2017’s ken, and both continued the more 80s-inspired and serious feel that started with Kaputt. Whether or not the band will stay away from the rock sound of the Destroyer of yesteryear is anyone’s guess, since the words most commonly associated with Bejar are “cryptic” and “enigmatic.”
7. Broken Social Scene
Started as: Ambient post-rock
But is now: Vivacious indie rock
Speaking of Canadian supergroups like the New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene is famous for combining the talents of the bands Metric, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, Do Make Say Think, and the singer Leslie Feist. This is to say nothing of the group themselves, whose 2003 album You Forgot It in People and 2005 self-titled album were lauded by critics and the then-burgeoning hipster populace. Their influence waned a bit by the time Forgiveness Rock Record and Hug of Thunder were released in the 2010s, but both albums were still highly-praised. All four of these studio releases were bursting with energy, the kind that could only come from around having around a dozen people in a band, and they really left their mark on indie rock with hits like “7/4 (Shoreline)” and “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl.”
Broken Social Scene didn’t start as a “supergroup” or a “collective” though. In fact, they were barely a “group” at all when they released their debut Feel Good Lost in 2001. Far from their 15-person Hug of Thunder lineup, this album only featured founding members Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, with Feist occasionally adding some vocals. On that note, there’s barely vocals on the album at all – Feel Good Lost was essentially an instrumental, ambient album that would be a stretch to even call “rock.” This wasn’t wholly unprecedented though – prior to forming Broken Social Scene, Drew and future bandmate Charles Spearin released two instrumental post-rock albums under the name “KC Accidental.” Coincidentally, Feel Good Lost sounds much more like KC Accidental than anything else Broken Social Scene released. Broken Social Scene occasionally revive their ambient past with soothing interludes and even a 2005 B-side titled “Feel Good Lost Reprise,” but it’s hard to imagine their big-name, expansive lineup doing anything other than anthemic indie rock now.
6. Joy Division
Started as: A pretty standard punk rock group
But is now: Well, New Order, but before that became goth pioneers
After the tragic suicide of singer Ian Curtis in 1980, the remaining members of Joy Division would go on to form New Order, a highly influential synthpop and new wave band. It might seem odd how Joy Division, a gloomy band known as the predecessors of gothic rock, became a danceable electronic-based act, but tracks like their synth-heavy single “Love Will Tear Us Apart” acts as a missing link between the two.
While Joy Division becoming New Order is fairly well known among every indie or alternative fan who has ever worn some variation of an Unknown Pleasures t-shirt, the fact that Joy Division started as a ferocious-sounding punk rock band is less common knowledge. Founding members Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook got the idea to form the band after seeing the Sex Pistols live, and they called their band “Warsaw” before changing it to Joy Division a year later. The tracks recorded under the name “Warsaw” that later made it onto Joy Division’s debut EP An Ideal for Living have a decidedly different flavor from the brooding Joy Division of studio albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer, with fast, intense drumming, heavy guitar riffs, and most surprising of all, the famously monotonous Curtis occasionally screaming. Joy Division later became known as pioneers of post-punk, and you can still hear some of their early punk intensity on Unknown Pleasures’ tracks like “Interzone,” but the sheer vigor of their Warsaw days is a world apart from the dark and ambling Closer.
5. My Bloody Valentine
Started as: Gothy post-punk
But is now: The shoegaziest of shoegaze
In any discussion of the ridiculously-named subgenre Shoegaze, there’s a 99% chance someone’s going to namedrop My Bloody Valentine. For many, My Bloody Valentine are the shoegaze band. The dukes of drone. The head honchos of haze. The deans of distortion.
What’s up with the name though? If you had never heard of My Bloody Valentine before, you’d assume they were a goth, emo, or metal band by the name alone. Well, funny story – they actually started out as a goth-tinged post-punk band not too different from Joy Division. Their first EP was called This is Your Bloody Valentine, which helps explains the name a bit, and there was absolutely nothing shoegaze about it. In fact, the EP sounds like a cross between the Doors and Nick Cave, with plenty of baritone vocals crooned by then-member David Conway (who left the band before any of their studio albums were recorded). Over time, the band would experiment more and more with adding fields of noise to their releases, moving away from punk and goth influences – although they did make a detour into jangle pop with the 1987 Ecstasy EP. By 1988 their full-length debut Isn’t Anything marked them as shoegaze pioneers, and their 1991 breakthrough Loveless is still the gold standard of the subgenre. The misleadingly dark name remains though.
4. The Horrors
Started as: Over the top horror punk/goth rock
But is now: Vaguely gloomy and shoegaze post-punk
When the Horrors released their debut album Strange House in 2007, they really made sure to live up to their name. The album started with the track “Jack the Ripper” and ended with “Death at the Chapel.” Every song heavily featured the use of synthesized organ, which gave a spooky effect akin to early horror movies or haunted house rides. Lyrics included “I imagined myself hacking desperately at a sea of appendages” and “one more for the slaughterhouse.” This is to say nothing of the band themselves, who used stage names like Rhys “Spider” Webb and “Coffin” Joe Spurgeon. They dressed in garish black suits, donned eyeliner, and sported coiffed black hair. This isn’t to suggest that the album wasn’t fun as hell to rock out to, but it definitely felt gimmicky.
The band must have sensed this, because their 2009 sophomore album Primary Colours cleared out the cobwebs and toned down this over-the-top theme. It was still gothic and moody, but it swapped the horror organ for more traditional synthesizers and had forays into psychedelic rock and shoegaze. Their three albums since Primary Colours have continued this progression, moving towards post-punk and electronic rock as the band members have gotten haircuts and even worn colors other than black. They still have that same dreariness that causes the goth label to linger, but their band’s name seems more conceptual than literal now.
3. Andrew Bird
Started as: 90s swing revival
But is now: A violin and guitar playing singer-songwriter
If you’re old enough, you might remember what was surely one of the weirdest music trends in recent memory: the swing revival of the 1990s. That’s right, the same decade that gave us grunge and Britpop also brought back a music style from the 1930s and 40s, and movies like 1996’s Swingers captured this anachronistic zeitgeist. One of the most prominent swing revival bands was Squirrel Nut Zippers, who featured a budding violinist named Andrew Bird on three of their most commercially successful albums in the late 90s. Bird had released his own violin-heavy solo album Music of Hair in 1996, but then had the idea to start his own band alongside the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Dubbed “Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire,” this band’s debut Thrills from 1997 and follow-up Oh! The Grandeur from 1998 fit in very well with the swing revival, borrowing two Squirrel Nut Zippers members to solidify their big band credentials.
Just as swing music fell out of fashion for the second time in history, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire released their third album The Swimming Hour in 2001. It still had a fair amount of jazziness to its tracks, but its constant genre-hopping and moves into pop and rock marked a significant step in Bird’s musical evolution. One night in 2002, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire were asked to open for the Handsome Family (who he would later cover on 2014’s Things are Really Great Here, Sort of…), and only Bird himself was available. He went on by himself, and the crowd’s positive reception to his violin playing and whistling set the course for his now-prolific solo career. The Bowl of Fire was soon disbanded, and he’s since released 11 albums under his own name. Bird is now known for making a unique hybrid of classical, pop, folk, and rock, with only the occasional bit of jazzy swagger, but who knows what’s he’ll do if there’s another swing revival.
2. The Avalanches
Started as: Basically a Beastie Boys copy
But is now: An esteemed plunderphonics/electronic sampling group
The Avalanches are best known as the electronic act who released the groundbreaking and widely-feted Since I Left You in 2000 and then didn’t release their second album Wildflower until 2016. Since I Left You was a triumph in plunderphonics, with each note coming from one of the thousands of samples the group used to create this grand musical collage. However, they took the “better to seek forgiveness than ask permission” approach to these samples, and their rise to fame meant they couldn’t really pull that off again. Therefore, Wildflower contained fewer samples overall (although all were legally cleared), but made up for this sonic gap with original instrumental recordings and guest vocals by Danny Brown, Biz Markie, and Toro y Moi. However, the Avalanches themselves remain enigmatic figures on both albums – you never hear Robbie Chater or Toni Di Blasi’s voices, and it’s hard to tell their instrumental contributions from the multitudes of samples and collaborators.
The Avalanches’s debut EP from 1997, El Producto, shows a very different group. It still involved samples and turntablism, but it was much more hip-hop influenced and included vocals from then-member Darren Seltmann, who left the group before Wildflower. The result is very similar to the Beastie Boys, and you’ll probably understand why they decided to move away from the original vocals once you hear the bars they’re throwing down. Still, they knew what they were doing behind the decks, which foreshadowed their success on Since I Left You three years later.
1. Kings of Leon
Started as: Gritty southern rock
But is now: Not gritty nor southern rock
If you’ve heard of Kings of Leon in the US, there’s a good chance it’s because of their massive hits “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody” that were all the rage around 2008-09. These two singles from their fourth album Only by the Night were comparable to a lot of other top rock songs on alternative and indie stations, and the band’s origins were anyone’s guess. Kings of Leon seemed to fade away as quickly as they appeared stateside, and it’d be a stretch to say that they caused any sort of lasting sensation.
Across the pond was a different story. Kings of Leon were much more like actual kings in the UK, where their first three albums all charted and have since reached at least double platinum sales. The British music press had been closely watching the band since their inception, and their fascinating origin story must have seemed particularly exotic there. Three members of the band are brothers raised by their traveling Pentecostal preacher father, and every member of the band (the fourth is their cousin) has their roots in the southern US. As such, early Kings of Leon had a really distinct southern sound to their garage rock, like CCR mixed with the Strokes, and they even looked like good ol’ boys who had just gone thrifting. While this was a minor novelty in the US, it was unheard of in the UK, where their massive fandom would emerge. This popularity boom arguably caused the band to alter their musical (and hair) styles, which grew away from their Nashville roots and towards a more polished, angular indie rock that was, well, more British-sounding. Their debut EP Holy Roller Novocaine and full-length Youth and Young Manhood still stand up as excellent southern rock, but by their third album Because of the Times, only singer Caleb Followill’s drawl hinted at their homeland.
