Which band/artist almost completely recreated themselves - and succeeded?

I loved early Livvy but you are right about those dance moves...

 

She did her best, but wasn't up to carrying a movie like Xanadu which relied heavily on complicated dance sequences! My avatar pic shows her best era.

 

Charlotte Church: from a classical cross-over vocalist to artpop/rock goddess (IMHO). She has been steadily releasing a series of EPs (we are up to four now) over the past few years, all material (co)written and (co)produced by herself and released totally independent. Here is a recent tv-special on her recent music as broadcasted on BBC Wales (hopefully viewable for those in the US region):

 

Here are a few from off the top of my head.

Miles Davis - Bebop to modal to fusion, etc.

Marvin Gaye - Motown doo wop to politically infused ballads

Radiohead - alt rock to electronic

Taylor Swift - country to dance pop


I think of Madonna and Leonard Cohen as more chameleonic. Of course, one could argue that Miles sort of fits into the chameleon category as well, but he tended to dwell in one particular style for several years/albums at a time before moving on.

 

Sting went from Pop-Punk/Reggae with The Police to Smooth Jazz in his solo career, to medieval lute music.

 

You are right: not many bands can do that and Scorpions didn't, either. Have you heard Fly to the Rainbow or, for that matter, anything with Ulrich Roth on it? None of that material would be considered "hair metal".

UFO changed quite a bit from their first two albums to the stuff with Schenker, but it's not such a crazy transition that it qualifies, IMO. No different than Scorpions, in fact.

 

What about Paradise Lost going from doom metal to dark wave synth stuff and then back to doom metal?

 

Jimi. From r 'n' b sideman to psychedelic trailblazer.

 

Sorry, as much as I love Transformer (and it is an inner circle record for me), this strikes me as the quintessential "evolutionary" change that is common for a highly creative musician. Similarly, as much as I love the Beatles, their changes were evolutionary too (the remarkable thing is that there were so many changes in such a short time).

Two others mentioned that are great nominees: Kenny Rodgers ("I Just Dropped In To Know When To Fold 'Em") and Miley Cyrus.

Miley Cyrus illustrates one of the most important points about reinvention: It is really hard for a teen pop star to successfully reinvent him/her self, but failure to do so usually means career death (or at least obscurity and flying coach). Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift did it in a more evolutionary way.

What Miley Cyrus did is actually kind of amazing. She went from being Hannah Montana, an explicitly Disney-contrived "imaginary" pop star (and offspring of an especially soft-edged one hit wonder country musician), to something completely different, in a pretty short period. Granted, the music world likes to pay homage to the idea of youthful rebellion, but she has had to endure a lot more moral hand-wringing than the average musician (especially the average attractive, young, white, female pop musician). Her music isn't my cuppa, but I admire her spine.

Some of the nominees changed what they did in order to break out. For me, a good nominee has to have already achieved commercial success before the change. Matthew Sweet and Michael Bolton may have had completely different styles and repertoires before they made it, but I have zero familiarity with their "before" picture.

 

Amy Grant from 80s pop icon to grown up serious music artist.
LeAnn Rimes from country artist to now a dance-pop artist.

 

Good call on Marvin!

I definitely think Madonna doesn't qualify for the thread based on the OP's requirements...

 

I know that Simple Minds was listed here for their adventures in the mid-80's but I wanted to bring up their accomplishments dealing with the mid-90's on through the early part of the next decade. I'll admit a whole lot of bias as they are my favorite band that was not handed down to me via my mom's records (personally I consider The Beatles to be a universal presence for anyone who likes pop/rock music, even if they don't like The Beatles music, if you listen to pop/rock music you are enjoying their contribution, whether you want to admit it or not.......so there ). Anyways, Simple Minds had a rough road and if you told me that some of those wounds were self-inflicted I'd agree with you to a point although I don't begrudge them the success they enjoyed as a result of the change in trajectory they took after New Gold Dream. After the Street Fighting Years tour they lost someone that you just can't lose if you're Simple Minds, Michael MacNeil departed and was not to come back. They put out Real Life which was and is a fine album although his absence is easy to notice. In the years after that they found themselves as a duo and made the best of it (IMHO), putting out a great rock album in the vein of Billy Idol, it won't change your life but it makes those 45 minutes pretty nice while listening to it. The band went through some huge transformations in the following years and almost called it a day but fate put the core of Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill and to a degree, drummer Mel Gaynor in touch with some extremely able musicians and now they've managed to be as good as they ever were. If you have to lose a Michael MacNeil and a Derek Forbes, they went and did the best thing a band can do in inviting Andy Gillespie and Jed Grimes to join. The music they're making is superb and although different, I would say it's just as good as anything they've ever done.

 

Did anyone mention The Flamin' Groovies yet? From down and dirty Stones-like bluesyness to addictive power pop at it's best !

 

But the makeover wasn't a success

 

The Collectors/Chilliwack

 

This has got to be the only place where Matthew Sweet and Michael Bolton are mentioned in the same sentence.

 

Robert Palmer.

 

Dion went Folky with Abraham, Martin and John..and was very successful with that song.

 

Says who?

 

Exile
The Kinks
Steve Earle

 

Let me toss in a recent fave... I think all 4 of St. Vincent's albums are unique & rewarding for different reasons...but... there's a pretty striking difference between her debut & her most recent...truly one fascinating & compelling trajectory of evolution!!!

Did I totally miss it, or... is it that no one has mentioned The Clash yet either?

 

I have to keep in mind reading this that the title says "succeeded" not improved! I didn't find many of the transformations to be better. Best example for me would be Journey I loved the first three so much better than the Perry era. But then, I never really cared for the early Genesis, their great stuff began with "A Trick of the Tail" for me.

One that comes to mind for me is the (Nitty Gritty) Dirt Band. They moved from pretty much a bluegrass oriented folksy band to a very slick LA style beginning with "An American Dream" Very similar saga (and timeline) with Poco. In reality I think both were very successful in both styles, though neither was very successful in reaching the mainstream.

 

A far cry from "Kiss me with your mouth, your love is sweeter than wine" (or whatever the line was) was Lilac Time, Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy's late-'80s recreation. The title track of Return to Yesterday:



Also:

The Vogues did a huge change from mid-'60s British-influenced beatpop (You're the One, Five O'Clock World, Magic Town) to an older retro style (Woman Helping Man, etc.).

 

Per your specific instructions, the band that most immediately comes to mind is Underworld. Compare Underneath the Radar with dubnobasswithmyheadman or Second Toughest in the Infants (well, really any of their albums post-transformation). Rather successful transformation at that, both in terms of popular reception and artistic development.

I could think of several others but this seemed to be among the clearest cases in which the change is (and was) regarded as a major improvement over the previous incarnation.

 

Shame because they looked fabulous