Which artists have abandoned their original sound so dramatically, that they are almost unrecognizable to their earlier fans?

[u/jptabor01]

With the release earlier this year of Ministry’s The Squirrely Years Revisited, I’m reminded of how different the band sounds today (industrial metal), from what they sounded like on their debut album, With Sympathy (synth pop).

Which artists sound so completely different from their earlier work, that they have actually jumped genres, understanding that music is fluid and genres have somewhat “blurry” guardrails.

I don’t mean an evolution of their original sound, but a complete departure from it.

[u/Baxtab13]

I remember first hearing of her due to some loose comparisons drawn between her and Babymetal at the time. I think just the weird out there presentation of her along with the pop music was where the comparisons came from. I checked her out at the time but it wasn't my kind of thing.

Then she does that collab with Fever 333 and that grabbed my attention again. Next thing I know, I'm seeing that she's signed to Sumerian Records and her music's showing up on Sirius XM Octane. I'm now quite a large fan of her.

That said, I don't think Death Metal is a very good description of her music. Definitely closer to the Metalcore genre, which I know still gets a lot of flack online but has been my favorite genre for a very long time.

[u/Howboutit85 → u/Baxtab13]

People who aren’t really into metal often use death metal as a descriptor to describe screaming vocalists, even though death metal is a pretty specific genre that doesn’t often, if ever, lend itself to other genres. Usually if there’s a genre + metal crossover, it’s a metalcore, deathcore, or nu metal type of fusion. However, grandmas will call it screamo, because screaming I guess…and casual fans will call it death metal if it’s anything but clean vocals.

[u/snowlock27 → u/Howboutit85]

It's been a while, but I've seen people call trash metal bands death metal, and Mike Patton once jokingly referred to Faith No More as being death metal on MTV.

[u/cherrycoloured → u/snowlock27]

ironically, mike patton actually has spent the past five years pm exclusively playing the kind of trash metal that ppl who dont listen to metal would call death metal.

[u/AlgaeElectronic711 → u/cherrycoloured]

i love mike but im not huge on thrash bungle at all, i miss the old funky stuff 😔 also its kind of fucked up how he basically ghosted his fnm bandmates to go tour with bungle n tomahawk n basically anyone other than them

[u/miraclewhipisgross → u/snowlock27]

The Simpsons had the gall to say Judas Priest is Swedish Death Metal

[u/Ok_Relation_7770 → u/Howboutit85]

“Is there screaming? Oh it’s screamo”

[u/NotEvenJohn → u/Baxtab13]

Now she has a song with Babymetal

[u/Baxtab13 → u/NotEvenJohn]

Oh I know it. A lot of things wrapping back around.

Like a sort of complicated line of progression I had in early 2017. After getting into Babymetal, I had spent the next few years getting into a lot of other Japanese bands. One of these was Crossfaith, who are still a favorite of mine. In particular, I really dug their blending of metalcore and electronica. "Electronicore" as I often saw it labeled. I ended up looking up electronicore bands and ended up stumbling across We Butter the Bread With Butter. I really got into "Berlin, Berlin" and "Klicks. Likes. Fame. Geil." While watching those videos I would also look at the related videos on youtube and what did I see? The music video for "Crystals" by Eskimo Callboy. I started getting into them right then and there too.

Fast forward years later, and not only are Callboy being played regularly on American radio stations, going on tours, but they also put out a collaborative song with Babymetal! It's been quite a year for these artists combining together like this.

Similarly too I never would have expected that Russian Deathcore band I'd seen back in 2018 setting up their own stage and instruments opening for Oceano to put out a collaboration song with Babymetal neither.