return-to-our-roots records where the idea went so wrong that it opened up a new space in the artist's music

[REM's] monster is probably the only return-to-our-roots record i can think of where the idea went so wrong that it opened up a new space in their music

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Monday, June 19, 2017 1:09 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gauntlet lobbed.

Not to go for the most obvious of all "return-to-our-roots-records" but, say what you will about Get Back/Let It Be, the results do sound genuinely different from any other Beatle record. If they were aiming for Cavern-era days, they somehow ended up at a not-as-good version of The Band, still basically able to play songs together but far from a tight, well-oiled rhythm-and-blues cover band. But Brad's "opening up" sort of hints at versions where the exercise really adds something new to the artist's palette going forward... where the discoveries of Monster for example contribute so much of the texture of New Adventures in Hi-Fi. In this sense the Beatles don't quite fit; they really didn't take anything forward from their "roots" exercise, unless you count the basic shagginess of the early solo stuff from Paul, Ringo and to a lesser extent George. Maybe "Oh! Darling."

not really sure how Monster was a return-to-roots record, unless you mean "Before we formed this band and recorded Chronic Town we used to listen to loud guitar music" or something.

That's being discussed in the REM C or D thread at the moment actually. I think Brad is right to this extent:

I remember it was marketed as a "going heavy rock/grunge" album. not too sure about "going back to our roots", though.

― AlXTC from Paris, Tuesday, June 20, 2017 6:52 AM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess my impression of it is as a "we're putting our mandolins back in the closet and we're gonna rock again" record, so "roots" isn't exactly correct, true, but it also doesn't really strike "heavy rock/grunge." it's a glam rock record with '90s production made by r.e.m., and it sounds very singular and strange bc of that particular convergence

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, June 20, 2017 10:27 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"mandolins back in the closet" was the key angle - suggests to the audience that the band has taken some kind of detour from what they were doing before, and now that is being shelved. in hindsight none of that was true but a big part of this record was certainly a desire by this long-established rockin' band to "rock" for their next arena tour.

I'm expecting / fearing / hoping that the next Taylor Swift album will exemplify this.

yeah sorry "return-to-our-roots" was the wrong shorthand expression

Could Green Day's American Idiot count here? Warning: was kind of a thematically lighter, poppier record, coming after a few jaded and angry 'punk rawk' type albums. The American Idiot, at least lyrically, came around and tried to frame them as being not only angry punk rawk, but politically rebellious to boot. Not that their earliest records were political, but definitely snottier than Warning:.

Graceland seems to fit the bill.

"I'm expecting / fearing / hoping that the next Taylor Swift album will exemplify this."

I feel like Miley Cyrus's upcoming album might be more likely to do this.

american idiot is a great suggestion imo

Graceland was both different (so, not a return to form) and good (not wrong).

The sequence When I was Cruel / Delivery Man / Momufoku might serve

Yeah I'm not sure Graceland was billed or received as a return to anything, save chart success - wasn't it much more "Paul Simon reinvents himself with a totally new sound and his best batch of songs since forever"? I suppose the waters could be muddied also by artists returning to their "roots" but not their own earlier sound, more "I'm getting in touch with the music that inspired me at the very beginning!" e.g. Billy Joel on An Innocent Man, etc. Then there's the "left turn that nonetheless seems to grow out of something that was in the earliest records" like Sleater-Kinney on The Woods.

Some of Jeff Lynne's various productions might count - Petty on Wilburys and Full Moon Fever, or McCartney on the self-consciously backwards-looking Flaming Pie? Subtle "new spaces" in all cases but still, not exactly what the artist had sounded like before.

oh yeah, jeff lynne productions are def like... ppl trying to access an earlier version of themselves and getting it fascinatingly not quite right, prob bc of all that reverb. mystery girl qualifies too imo

Rick Rubin has kind of made a career of this, no?

i guess i'd argue that rubin doesn't really open a new space in the music of the artists he produces, just laser-focuses on a particular element of their past

I'm not sure this quite fits, but when Alan Jackson made Like Red From a Rose it was supposed to be a bluegrass detour. Producer Allison Krauss convinced him to record a set of torch songs that sound like the kind of thing he should have been doing all along. I think his core audience must have hated it though, since the promo campaign for his next record was all about "I'm back to doing the kind of songs you like."

huh, i like that!

I'm not sure this quite fits, but when Alan Jackson made Like Red From a Rose it was supposed to be a bluegrass detour. Producer Allison Krauss convinced him to record a set of torch songs that sound like the kind of thing he should have been doing all along. I think his core audience must have hated it though, since the promo campaign for his next record was all about "I'm back to doing the kind of songs you like."

― President Keyes, Tuesday, June 20, 2017 12:27 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can confirm this was not a favourite at the time. The album still sold well but you can see it in that Good Time had 3 #1 (country) singles and from Like Red From a Rose he only released 2 singles and neither went to #1. His album before LRFaR was also not as great for singles so I think LRFaR totally revitalized things for him despite its failures. Also it was Krauss during the height of her powers so I am sure it rubbed off a bit.