Strike a Pose: Most Chameleon-Like Pop Stars Ever

are you aware of confirmation bias?

Fair point, as is the point about sampling.

nerds are more interested in guys who can't sing than long running r&b acts, glad that's settled

I changed my mind and decided Miles Davis is the one and only best answer to this

My "you" was probably just a general you, since I evidently disagree with everyone here.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Lou Reed--we nerds love people who can't sing.

Just in terms of musical shifts, yeah, I would say Miles Davis is as good an answer as any.

chamillionaire

Jason Derülo

"I asked the question about your listening because..."

Actually, I think I know exactly why you asked it.

I asked it because if you still did the question about the Isleys' influence would've answered itself

No, not at all. That they've now shared a #1 hit with Beyonce does not, for me, leap-frog them in influence over Neil Young or Lou Reed. One of last year's biggest documentaries was Todd Hayne's VU film. Does that count for anything?

Was Parliament/Funkadelic more chameleonic than the Isley Brothers? I'm sure George Clinton took more psychedelics than the Isleys combined.

The Isley Brothers certainly changed more, but I think Parliament/Funkadelic's blend of funk and rock was much more expansive and innovative than the Isley's.

Or Isleys'

But we're not making evaluative claims on this thread, no?

I am confident in my evaluation of George Clinton's consumption of psychedelics.

genuinely regret ever bringing up the isleys. jesus h. corbett.

I'm having popcorn and I'm waiting for more metrics to be thrown in. HoF induction date anyone ?

Idk why Shaggy keeps coming to mind but he does so I'll mention him. It's not even that his music has ever really changed particularly its just every now and then the time is right for him to reappear and get the best greeting

I'm very interested in artists - not necessarily good ones - who seemingly exist to totally camouflage into the times each instance they do something. By which I mean OK Go - snotty power pop in 2002-03, NME-ish garage indie in 2006, MGMT/Anco-ish electropop in 2009/2010 and whatever the 2014 album was I never heard it

HoF induction date anyone ?

Isleys first, but Reed twice!

oh my god this thread is such a nightmare that my dumb chamillionaire shitpost might have improved it!

the one thing i’ll add to this matter is that the isleys made songs in the 50s that were covered by the dang beatles and boasted jimi fucking hendrix as a member of their band in the mid-60s.

meanwhile, in the year 2022, their new album has features from rick ross and 2 chainz, and literally right fucking now have a song on the charts with beyonce

We said that already, get in line, sport!

I'm very interested in artists - not necessarily good ones - who seemingly exist to totally camouflage into the times each instance they do something. By which I mean OK Go - snotty power pop in 2002-03, NME-ish garage indie in 2006, MGMT/Anco-ish electropop in 2009/2010 and whatever the 2014 album was I never heard it

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 20 October 2022 08:26 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like this post, this feels like (at last!) a productive line of inquiry here. The Chap are a kind of preferable analogue - moving from post-rockish artpop in the early 00s to a more confident indie-pop in the late 00s to math-rocky miserablism in the early 10s (The Show Must Go - their best, what an underrated album!) to electropop in the late 10s to whatever they're planning next

i would also be interested in its inverse: artists who change to be completely UNLIKE their times. perhaps a rarer phenomenon, and yet, kevin barnes has been going out of their way to sabotage of Montreal's success since 2007, in ways that lie completely at odds with the fashion of the age, but which have both entertained and maddened; their last 10 years have been a way more compelling arc than the already-varied journey of their supposed heyday

am also sliiiiightly surprised damon albarn hasn't gotten a mention, although ugh, and no he doesn't deserve a mention, and i wish he'd go away

We said that already, get in line, sport!

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 20, 2022 6:47 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

nobody said anything about former isley bros guitarist jimi hendrix!

(or 2 chainz)

Herbie Hancock

the mess of this thread has convinced me that there is no real proof of concept here. david bowie was a restless artist who, because of the type of art he was interested in, happened to change his physical appearance alongside his musical evolutions. lots of other people are restless creative musical evolvers, especially jazz giants like miles and trane and herbie. also the isley brothers have had a long, fascinating and successful career.

beyond that no real conclusions do i draw

I think sun ra might even beat miles for radical musical transformations but he's even less of a pop star (yet has more actual pop songs in his catalogue! or attempts at them) and the relative consistently of his persona and the fact that he didn't abandon older styles makes him seem less chameleonic than he actually was

coltrane has a neater more traditionally progressive trajectory that you can more or less track if you ignore a few messy detours

lots of other people are restless creative musical evolvers, especially jazz giants like miles and trane and herbie.

in spite of a certain amount of accuracy regarding his stylistic transformations, herbie was a joke entry to this list.

Bowie claimed (at one time) to only be interested in music as a means to his extramusical artistic ends: to be a chameleonic artist.

Something to the effect of, music just happened to be the most viable path to expressing the sort of artistic / personal vision he wished to express. The implication is that if he had he landed in a universe in which macrame or carpentry or pasta-making (or whatever) was an expedient path to the kind of expression he wanted to make, he would have done that instead.

coltrane has a neater more traditionally progressive trajectory that you can more or less track if you ignore a few messy detours

Really only active for about 12 years. Joined the Miles Davis Quintet in late 1955; first recording session as a leader, May 1957; died April 1967.

My wife was at the airport yesterday and there was a little girl there named Isley. Haven't heard of a child named Neil in a while...

Or Jasper, for that matter.

The Hendrix connection is a good one that I totally forgot about; I also overlooked the kids-at-airports metric. I had a couple of other things to add--and I may poll the kindergarten class I'm working in today--but I'll settle instead for things more or less being back on track to befuddlement over the thread's initial premise.