Tom Waits from boho barfly beatpoet to radical percussion and scary dancing

Wayne Hussey went from being a member of Dead or Alive, to front man of the Mission…….now there’s two opposite ends of the scale!!

While we’re on the subject of PWEI, what about Clint ‘Greebo’ Mansell turning his hand to become Soundtrack Composer Of The Year 2011.

Apart from ‘Black Swan’ I hadn’t realised he’d done so many.

Alanis Morisette started as cheesy pop no?

“

Sub Sub and Doves were the same band, weren’t they?

They were indeed. They changed course after they recorded and engineered a whole Sub Sub album over about 6 months then when they finished it, there was a fire at the studioand it burnt down destroying everything. All the existing masters, the lot!

Not fancying going back in to the studio to record the same album, and obviously not feeling too upbeat, they decided to have a crack at something a bit different and picked up some guitars. The result was the achingly brillliant Lost Souls.

Just shows what bloody brilliant muscicians they are

Doves, really good indie band formed off the back of a dance acid band.

Mark Mothersbaugh. Went from Devo to scoring pretty much every film and kids tv show ever made!!

Norman Cook??

Housemartins/Beautiful South/Fatboy slim & some other things in between

Not so much a reinvention but an evolution….

Depeche Mode?

beastie boys?

Yeah Yeah Yeahs changed with every album

Idlewild- from scrappy punk to happy REM

And F***ed Up, nobody really knows what they’re going to sound like tomorrow.

Joy Division to New Order. Unfortunately it took the death of Ian Curtis to force it.

Most of the ones I’d thought of already appear, here’s a few others (apologies if they’ve already been done):

Jefferson Airship / Jefferson Starship / Starship

Early (punk guitars) Tubeway Army to late Tubeway Army / Gary Numan solo

Adam and the Ants in a couple of directions – Adam went from punk (having started as a pub rocker) to “new romantic” while the Ants went from being Ants to being Bow Wow Wow with the addition of their singer. (meanwhile Adam recruited a new set of Ants prior to pop domination).

Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie – both in “and the Banshees” and the Creatures – the latter was a completely different thing each and every time they rolled it out and the former progressed from goth/punk/rock (pick a pigeonhole to taste) and had their biggest hit with a dance themed single that also heavily featured an accordion.

Joy Division into New Order? Surely that’s been mentioned and I missed it? [EDIT: While I was  typing!]

Genesis

Yes (thinking “owner of a lonely heart”)

Slade had tried a few different approaches before hitting gold with the glam rock thing

And of course, the band that started as a skiffle group, did some early rock’n’roll, had a big psychedelic hit before hitting the big time with that big, big metal sound: Spinal Tap!

If you take their first and last albums, you can see a fair old change in them there Beatles over only what? 6 – 7 years?

Manic Street Preachers? Or is that just called “growing up?”

Deep Purple: Similar to the Quo, first known for a big psychedelicish hit (Hush) before world domination in a different way.

The Yardbirds via a slightly meandering route into Led Zeppelin

While we’re on the subject of PWEI, what about Clint ‘Greebo’ Mansell turning his hand to become Soundtrack Composer Of The Year 2011.

I was going to mention this he did the soundtrack for Requiem for a Dream which is brilliant.

Couple more:

Bee Gees – their 60s stuff was very different to the disco stuff later on

Taylor Swift – started out as country (and / or western)?

Ministry

Beaten to it!

Synth-pop to full on industrial metal.

(ETA: learnt that from a forum member, so props where they’re due)

The Byrds from folk rock to country.

The much derided on here Beatles from rock and roll act to psychedelia and stopping off a few places in between and after.

Beastie Boys, Primal Scream, Beck and Massive Attack as already mentioned.

And of course – Joe Cocker.

Arguably Bruce Springsteen. Started out as an average singer songwriter on the first few albums before hitting on the now recognisable e-street band sound.

Say what now? The East Street Band were there from the beginning, they just didn’t have that name until several months after the first album was released. From the first album he showed himself to be a songwriter of unusually lyrical skills, and arguably lost that and went more mainstream after ‘Born To Run’

Springsteen was signed to Columbia Records in 1972 by Clive Davis, after having initially piqued the interest of John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan to the same label a decade earlier. Despite the expectations of Columbia Records’ executives that Springsteen would record an acoustic album, he brought many of his New Jersey-based colleagues into the studio with him, thus forming the E Street Band (although it would not be formally named for several months). His debut album <i>Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.</i>, released in January 1973, established him as a critical favorite<sup id=”cite_ref-24″ class=”reference”>[24]</sup> though sales were slow.

Two bands who continually re-invented themselves throughout their careers, (one continues to do so), are Talk Talk and King Crimson. Talk Talk went from an 80’s pop band to an ever-more stripped-down Indy/prog band, and KC, well, Robert Fripp just keeps on doing whatever the hell he wants, with little regard for what anyone else is up to, and I love him for it!

The keyboard player from D:Ream to a world-renowned physicist. That’s a much bigger transformation than one pop niche to another.