Ryan Adams sounds, for the most part, like Ryan Adams. Ok, he has gone ‘off piste’ many times with his unofficial output, but on record you pretty much know what you’re gonna get and the same is true of most artists. But back in 2001 his band Whiskeytown released their album ‘Pneumonia’. Track nine was a song called ‘Paper Moon’. which is notable for sounding like nothing else in his catalogue, so much so that I would argue that you would be hard pressed to identify the artist if you heard it ‘blind’. Can you think of any other examples like this? Remember that Richard Thompson techno track that closed his last album, or the Manic’s foray into skiffle? Any more?
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Neela says
count jim moriarty says
Unmistakably Yes – it’s got the Accrington Milkman squeaking on it.
Neela says
Ahh_Bisto says
Peter Gabriel – Excuse Me
Ahh_Bisto says
Fleetwood Mac – Albatross
duco01 says
An unusual reluctance to ROCK here, in Motörhead’s “1916”.
bobness says
Bugger, you beat me to it…!
atcf says
Nothing unusual about the lyrics, but the jazzy trumpet is very un-Bruce:
Gary says
Lift Me Up has got to be the most un-Bruce song in the Springy catalogue, if only for his singular attempt at falsetto.
Neela says
Not quite singular, but almost. With – of course – Spanish subtitles.
Bamber says
Dreamworld by Rilo Kiley – the best thing they’ve ever done by some distance. I’ve no time for their other stuff nowadays but I still love this…
Smudger says
I’d go for How Soon Is Now. Certainly at the time of release, it had all been jangly guitar pop and then this turned up. This suggestion is possibly influenced by the fact that it is one of my least favourite Smiths songs and yet Bobness of this fair parish can’t stand The Smiths but loves it.
Black Type says
You could add Barbarism Begins At Home and Last Night I Dreamt… to that.
Black Celebration says
Oscillate Wildly is an unusual Smiths song as it is a rather good piano-led instrumental piece – no Morrissey, apart from coming up with the title, I assume.
bobness says
HSIN? is the Smiths song that people who don’t like the Smiths like. I am indeed living proof.
Paul Wad says
What about Abba sounding like Slade?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xyImJhdqTlc
fentonsteve says
I bloody love that. And I can properly dance to it as well.
Ahh_Bisto says
What about Slade sounding like Abba?
How Does It Feel?
Rigid Digit says
How Does It Feel is a weird one.
It is without doubt a brilliant song – one of the very best, if not the best, in the Slade catalogue, and a regular fixture in my list of “Best Songs Ever”.
But it also broke a 4 your run of Top 4 placings in the single chart.
There’s nowt as daft as the British public
Ahh_Bisto says
It’s the lyrics as much as anything that make it so different. That and the sense that the band is almost in awe of how great the song is with Noddy doing his best not to sing it like any other Slade song. The restraint is part of what makes it so brilliant.
davebigpicture says
Agreed, great song, but they took a long break to make Flame and never really recovered. (I assume it wasn’t released a long time ahead of the film?)
count jim moriarty says
Surely it was their protracted unsuccessful attempts to break America that really killed their momentum. Flame is a great piece of work though, entirely the opposite to what has always been expected from a band making a film.
davebigpicture says
From Wiki admittedly, but I’m sure I’ve heard Noddy say pretty much the same.
In 1979, Holder recalled: “It (making Flame) just took such a big chunk out of our career, we didn’t tour for a long time, we were not able to record for a long time, or write.”
count jim moriarty says
Nod has a point, but others have blamed the attempts to crack the USA as the major reason.
Black Type says
…And here’s Slade channeling their inner Django Rheinhardt (Noddy and Jim were huge fans – Noddy even called his son Django):
Askwith says
Great song. Lea/Holder very underrated as a songwriting partnership.
Black Celebration says
Does your mother know? is also a rockier number from the fabba four (as no one ever called them). Vocals are also led by Bjorn. It’s about rejecting the sexual advances of a girl due to her youth – a carefree, toe-tapping throwaway song at the time.
Paul Wad says
One of only two Abba songs I like (Knowing Me, Knowing You is the other, although I prefer the Danny Wilson version). However, as a kid I played my mum and dad’s records constantly, some of which became, and still are, my favourite songs, so I was most annoyed that Abba had ripped off the intro from one of them, The Hollies’ I Can’t Let Go!
Freddy Steady says
@black-celebration
Contains one of my favourite rock n roll moments…the slight delay in coming in with “smile.”
Black Celebration says
Yes, they are very clever. I remember my brother pointing out how impressive their lyric writing is considering that English is their second language
e.g. “Yes, I’m pretty sure my life was well within its usual frame…”
Tahir W says
Er Metal Machine Music?
Ahh_Bisto says
Prefab Sprout – The Golden Calf
Arguably you could say this is a progression from Faron Young but it still feels like Paddy McAloon’s inner rockist was released for one time only on this track.
Rigid Digit says
Slade doing piano led balladry
Everyday
Rigid Digit says
John goes “a bit T.Rex” with (almost) a ballad.
Unmistakably PiL, but not “template”
The One
Ahh_Bisto says
Neil Young’s ‘Trans’ album of which ‘Sample and Hold’ is possibly as atypical as you can get
https://youtu.be/ufYunBlwu6A
I sometimes think Granddaddy built their career on the back of this album.
Rigid Digit says
Pink Floyd go (very) heavy
The Nile Song
Mike_H says
…and also turn into The Gilmour Blues Band.
Rigid Digit says
Steven Wilson goes pop
Permananting
Askwith says
Bloody hell. Love that.
Ahh_Bisto says
B52s rein it in and deliver a brilliant ambient pop instrumental co-written with the ex-bass player of Gang of Four, Sara Lee
https://youtu.be/A0mZR1kltOU
Ahh_Bisto says
Cocteau Twins wig out and invent post-rock in 1985 with Rococo
Freddy Steady says
Plenty of examples out there I guess…”Golden Brown” by the Stranglers wasn’t their usual fare when it appeared.
My band when I was 16 (very much old school metal, covers of Paranoid, Child in Time, Smok on the Water etc) chose, for one weekend only, to turn into Shakatak and went all lounge jazz funk. I still for the life of me have no idea why.
duco01 says
The Osmonds – “Crazy Horses”
Here they are. Utah’s finest, showing an alarming propensity to ROCK.
OK … so it’s not exactly Black Flag, but you must admit, “Crazy Horses” is slightly more … erm … raucous than most Osmonds numbers.
Ahh_Bisto says
That’s a great example, perhaps even the most atypical of atypical examples.
fortuneight says
The “Crazy Horses” album had a coupe more rockers – “Hold Her Tight” and “Hey Mr Taxi”. All in all it was a pretty good album.
fentonsteve says
See also One Bad Apple, feaured on the Ace* compilation The Fame Studio Story 1961-1973.
(*) See what I did there?
Martin Hairnet says
I don’t think anybody wanted or needed this song in their lives. But The Police had other ideas. Strictly B-side material.
Martin Hairnet says
And in a similar vein, this is the point at which the love affair finally came to an end. The lopsided funk of ’81 single ‘Keep it Dark’ was interesting and its semi-instrumental B-side ‘Naminanu’ had echoes of the band’s Hackett era. But the contemporaneous ‘Whodunnit’ just sounded like an ugly, unruly noise, and Phil’s vocal is an absolute low point. Clearly the band thought this was an avenue worthy of investigation. But I completely lost interest after Abacab.
Ahh_Bisto says
‘Whodunnit’ lyrically and musically is an idiot version of ‘Robbery, Assault & Battery’.
Martin Hairnet says
It’s taken me a while to digest this, but I am now in full alignment with your excellent observation. Both tracks are dreadful, IMO, and I’m surprised the band found room for R, A & B on Seconds Out. They dropped it from their setlist after Hackett left, I think, so it can’t have been a favourite.
Anyway, after several days of R&D, I’ve come up with this:
My Old Man’s a Dustman → The Battle of Epping Forest
↑ ↓
Who Dunnit? ← Robbery, Assault & Battery
Ahh_Bisto says
Apologies in advance for the length of this post.
We are on the same wavelength.
I love Genesis. When they’re good they’re very very good and when they’re bad…
It’s all relative but in the context of Trick of The Tail ‘R, A & B’ is disposable. It feels like they lost their nerve at some point in the studio in the immediate aftermath of the post-Gabriel world and used a track that was still knocking around pre-TOTT when Gabriel was lead vocals and in his pomp as as a live singer/stage performer. I have no evidence for this, it’s just the way the song jars on the album that makes me think it’s either a leftover from a Gabriel-era session or an exercise in the studio in seeing how a ‘Gabriel’ song works with Phil Collins. I could imagine ‘R, A & B’ working on The Lamb album if it was arranged in that stark way of tracks like ‘NYC’ and with that raw vocal Gabriel had. At a base level it needs to be harder, especially in the chorus which is begging for some serious guitar riffing and less embellishment; unlike a track like ‘Entangled’ which works so well with its layered acoustics. They got the balance better on ‘Dance On A Volcano’ or ‘Squonk’. It’s ironic that ‘R, A & B’ falls so flat on TOTT given Collins’s experience in the 60s as a child stage actor who performed in ‘Oliver!’ in the West End as The Artful Dodger opposite Jack Wild’s Oliver Twist. Gabriel though was a vocalist of rock music who found theatrics whereas Collins was a stage actor and performer who drummed and then found he could sing rock music. It’s a different path and a different approach to what passes as a performance and Gabriel has the edge in my book..
‘Who Dunnit?’ is just dreadful. It’s galling for the same reasons as you mention about ‘R,A & B’ as at the time Genesis again had better songs knocking around in the vaults. Remember the Paperlate EP? Every track on that is superior in every way to ‘Who Dunnit?’ Tracks that equal the best tracks in anything from the ‘And Then There Were Three’ era, when they still retained something of their unique talent for blending the classical and the rock. They never lost that blend of styles even when preferring to explore a more pop approach to music. Like many refugees from the prog/rock era of the 70s they managed to plough a successful furrow as stadium rock stars who were waiting for the right moment to reinvent themselves as chart-bound pop stars. Kerching on all levels: kids buy the singles en masse, adults go watch them live en masse.
When Genesis lost Gabriel they lost the rawness of rock ‘n’ roll and experimental rock but kept the lyricism and the ear for melody (they never lost an ear for a tune). When they lost Hackett they lost the guitar counter-point to Banks’s keyboards and lost a chunk of the lyricism and ear for melody that comes from that counterpoint (they STILL never lost an ear for a tune). I think they went into a musical ‘bunker’ mentality when there was just Banks, Collins and Rutherford, almost as if to prove their detractors wrong. They retained something ‘great’ about the music even through the 80s but with that bunker mentality they lost the ability to consistently reflect that greatness in their music; they needed the vocal and musical editing and song-writing sparring of the talents of Gabriel and Hackett to keep the bar high.
Martin Hairnet says
No apologies necessary! Isn’t this why we come here?
I wasn’t sure whether your ‘Who Dunnit?/Robbery, Assault & Battery’ comparison was a jokey, throwaway remark, or a theory based on serious reflection. Either way, I was sufficiently intrigued to head off and give A Trick of the Tail another listen. I love this album. It was something of a lifeline during my teenage years. I was fifteen when my father took early retirement, and I left my childhood home in suburban south Manchester and moved to rural East Devon. I struggled to transcend outsider status at my new school, and I found comfort and escape in long evenings alone with my Genesis records.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a great record, peak cult Genesis. But the record’s concept was rooted in an urban dystopia, and the music felt cold, angular and harsh. Gabriel’s departure soon afterwards left a huge hole, but offered new possibilities. Where Gabriel often barked and strained, creating a busy, sometimes cluttered atmosphere, Phil’s voice revealed itself to be a much less intrusive beast. His vocal is smooth, sweet and sentimental, and allows Hackett and Banks lots of room for their musical passages to flourish. What emerges is a stately pastoralism, full of open spaces and a warm sense of nostalgia.
Of course lyrically and stylistically there’s still a lot of carry over from the previous incarnation of the band. The dense, gurgling guitar work on opener ‘Dance On a Volcano’ could sit comfortably alongside ‘The Colony of Slippermen’. ‘Robbery, Assault and Battery’ may have been an attempt to revive Gabriel era theatrics (‘The Battle of Epping Forest’, ‘Harold the Barrel’), but fell completely flat (you’re right, the chorus is weak and flabby). ‘Squonk’ is also not much more than a ponderous, plodding riff with Phil’s vocal struggling to find something to grab hold of along the way.
Three tracks stand out for me – ‘Entangled’, ‘Mad, Man Moon’ and ‘Ripples’ – all written, or co-written by the much maligned Banks. Some of the band’s most beautiful musical moments can be found in these songs. Listen to Phil’s vocal phrasing on ‘Mad, Man Moon’ (“Forever caught in desert lands one has to learn, To disbelieve the sea.”), Hackett’s mournful, understated guitar on the instrumental section of ‘Ripples’, or the twelve string finesse of ‘Entangled’. Calm, understated and accomplished, this is perhaps, the essence of Genesis for me, the place where I most feel at home within their entire catalogue.
When Phil stepped in front of the mic., it coincided with a big rise in the band’s fortunes, particularly in the US. It’s as if audiences found Phil a more approachable front man. I’ve always liked Phil’s vocals on Gabriel era live standards like ‘The Musical Box’ and ‘Supper’s Ready’. He did more than a decent job. Ultimately, Phil’s presence at the front did seem to dilute the band’s more arch and arty tendencies. But with A Trick of the Tail they are still learning afresh what they can achieve as a new kind of unit.
I don’t think Genesis ever really sounded like this again. The follow up album, Wind and Wuthering can obviously be seen as a companion piece, but it lacked the innocence of it’s predecessor, and some of the songs struggle under the weight of their archaic themes and lyrics. In mood, perhaps, A Trick of the Tail harks back to the Hackett/Collins free zone of Trespass, and the pastoral inclinations of erstwhile guitarist Anthony Phillips (whose extensive back catalogue is currently being carefully curated and reissued by Cherry Red). Indeed, Phil’s fantastic guest vocals on Phillips’s 1977 album The Geese and The Ghost hint at what might have been.
duco01 says
That two minutes of mellotron instrumental that concludes “Entangled” is quite magnificent, and among my very favourite pieces of Genesis music.
Martin Hairnet says
I feel I should just give a mention to the final two tracks, ‘A Trick of the Tale’ and ‘Los Endos’. Neither are essential to my enjoyment of the album. Stylistically, ‘A Trick of the Tale’ sounds a bit old school, and you can imagine Gabriel wading his way through the verbiage. But there’s some lovely vocal arrangements here – and David Hentschel’s production keeps things sounding whole.
Album closer ‘Los Endos’ really endured in their live sets – I saw them perform it – with the ‘Conversation for two stools’ intro – at the Hollywood Bowl on the 2007 reunion tour. I prefer the ‘It’s Yourself’ version.
OR – Replace ‘Robbery, Assault and Battery’ with ‘Squonk’ and add the full version of ‘It’s Yourself’ before Mad, Man Moon’.
Ahh_Bisto says
I also wonder if part of the problem in certain songs losing their edge post Gabriel was Rutherford’s increasing preferred use of bass pedals rather than a bass guitar. When I saw The Musical Box (Genesis tribute band) perform all of The Lamb it was quickly apparent how ferocious and heavy a sound Genesis could generate in their rhythm section, especially when the bass guitar was used. Genesis never were rockers but part of their uniqueness was their ability to mix very dynamic song arrangements and seamlessly switch from that acoustic/classical prog sound to something altogether more primal. Fly On A Windshield being a prime example on The Lamb or the ending of Entangled on TOTT being followed by the crunch of Squonk.
Martin Hairnet says
Yes. ‘Watcher of the Skies’ is another good example of that fierce versatility. I think Rutherford combined use of bass guitar and Moog Taurus bass pedals from quite early on in their career.
I think you’re right though. With Gabriel gone and, crucially, with Hackett’s departure, Rutherford’s musical responsibilities would have increased massively. Perhaps he steered more towards the bass pedals simply because it gave them a bass sound, but enabled him to do other things at the same time (other than bass guitar). Of course, in the studio he could have multi-tracked whatever he wanted over the top, and session musicians could be added for live work. But with fewer members of the band, the pedals probably became integrated into demos, and therefore the final songs. Just a guess.
Banks seemed to assert more authority with each departure, and keyboards, always very evident in Genesis music, came right to the fore. He smeared them all over And Then There Were Three, often to great effect, but the band was diminished by the absence of a great guitarist, and I think the album offers quite a limited sound palette. Things got more basic on subsequent albums, and Phil, growing in confidence as a vocalist, started to compensate by getting all shouty.
Tiggerlion says
I would in no way regard myself as a fan of Genesis. However, I have absolutely loved this exchange on TOTT. It’s exactly why I stick with the Afterword. I will even buy that album to hear what you are on about. It’s very cheap. Thank you.
Moose the Mooche says
“getting all shouty” – his drums got all shouty too. Which was good on Peter Gabriel 3, not so good on the entirety of pop music in the 80s.
Lando Cakes says
Not a techno track but Psycho Street is surely Richard Thompson’s strangest song. This live version doesn’t quite match the oddness of the album track but you get a flavour. 2 minutes plus of cracks about Australia at the start…
hubert rawlinson says
Well there’s this by RT too.
or this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_of_Souls
Lando Cakes says
Well, if we’re including the FFKT stuff, that’s a rich seam…
dai says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBFMmIZTVs
Tiggerlion says
One of the things I love about Remain In Light is that it starts with a cracking pace, but each track in turn is slower, until the album grinds to a halt with The Overload. After that, there is nowhere else to go.
Ahh_Bisto says
So with Remain In Light they were, like, on a road to nowhere?
Tiggerlion says
Arf!
Effectively, they reinvented themselves and became a completely different band, no longer Art Rock with Eno but Pure Pop.
duco01 says
Rainbow – “Rainbow Eyes”
I’m not an expert on Rainbow – far from it – but I believe this is a pretty atypical Rainbow track.
Put simply, they are unwilling to rock. They elect not to rock. They are disinclined to rock. They have little desire to rock. They register low on the rockometer.
Sewer Robot says
Hard to have an atypical song when you’ve done the whole buffet from hey nonny nonny Mediaeval greensleeves to the huge sound of Stargazer, Cozy Powell propelled Lost In Hollywood, the power pop of I Surrender and F.M. U.S.A. poodle metal in six or so years.
Black Type says
The songs performed by ‘Chris Gaines’ were atypical of his creator/alter ego Garth Brooks.
LesterTheNightfly says
Well I’m going to nominate “Changes” by The Sabs from “Volume 4”
3 albums of crushing riffs and bleak lyrics then this.
Also includes the acoustic “Laguna Sunrise”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPtorZ2k7Ak
Rigid Digit says
Certainly atypical, yet somehow perfectly place in the noise of Volume 4.
Rigid Digit says
Ozzy (well, Randy Rhoads actually) does something similar in the middle of Blizzard Of Ozz
Dee
retropath2 says
I love this. Hawkwind.
Zanti Misfit says
Depeche Mad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fm0PN6fHjA