Random Bands Tried To Change Their Sound But Failed (15 items)

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  (#10) The Beach Boys 'Still Cruisin''

  One review of the Beach Boys' spectacularly bad 1989 release Still Cruisin' summed the album up in two accurate words - rock bottom. Granted, it wasn't necessarily an album of all new songs and rather a repackaging of other songs under the guise that they'd been used in movies. It of course includes "Kokomo," and also features the cringe-inducing "Still Cruisin'" from the Lethal Weapon 2 soundtrack.

  It does feature some original songs and an attempt to stay relevant with a version of "Wipe Out" that featured a rap group. It was an uninspired, money-grabbing attempt at reinvention that is an embarrassing chapter in the Beach Boys saga. 
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  (#8) Starship

  Jefferson Starship was the continuation of Jefferson Airplane, which then morphed into Starship, which then had a massive hit with "We Built This City." The song was an attempt to revitalize and reimagine Grace Slick and company, but it didn't stand the test of time despite it being shoved down the world's collective throat upon its initial release.

  The most fascinating thing about the song was that it was written by a series of songwriters over a long period of time before finally reaching its final composition stage. Years later, the song is widely accepted as almost hilariously bad despite its commercial success. Even the band themselves despises it. Slick, years after its release, called the song "awful."

  "I felt like I'd throw up on the front row, but I smiled and did it anyway. The show must go on," she said. 
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  (#1) Guns N' Roses 'Chinese Democracy'

  By the time Guns N' Roses released Chinese Democracy, there'd been years and years of speculation as to when it would be released. There'd also been an enormous amount of money spent to make the album happen, which created major buzz surrounding it. While it did fairly well commercially when it was released 17 years after production began, it received mixed reviews critically.

  Perhaps the biggest problem with Chinese Democracy is the fact that the band was completely new aside from singer Axl Rose - meaning that the signature Slash riffs that made the band massive stars were nowhere to be found. The band took the lack of Slash and ran with it, changing their sound in the process. 

  "The problem is when one member of a given band, who wasn’t even the main man responsible for its initial success, gets to run around unchecked and impose his musical will on others," one review of the album stated. 
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  (#9) INXS 'Switch'

  INXS' attempt to revitalize their career after the death of frontman Michael Hutchens was well-documented in the reality show Rockstar: INXS. That show brought them singer JD Fortune, who admittedly stepped into a band that relied so heavily on its iconic vocalist that there was virtually no way he'd ever be fully accepted. 

  Switch was the new INXS trying to bring themselves back into the fold with a new singer - something that always has mixed results. Unfortunately it didn't work very well, with many critics expressing lukewarm opinions about the new version of INXS. 
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  (#6) Fleetwood Mac 'Time'

  By 1995, Fleetwood Mac had become a shell of the group's heyday. Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham were long gone and the lineup was strange to say the list including Christine McVie, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, former Traffic guitarist Dave Mason, longtime Mac guitarist and Buckingham's replacement Billy Burnette, and new vocalist Bekka Bramlett.

  That lineup recorded the disastrous Time, which saw the band attempt to reach new stylistic ground. The results were not very memorable as one review in LA Weekly called it "dull, overwrought, overlong and occasionally dire." 

  Mason later explained that there were several factors in the album's failure, including a lack of enthusiasm from the label.

  "We did the album, and Warner Bros. didn’t really bother with it, frankly. So, it sort of just came out and died a death. And that was that," he told Something Else. "I could understand, from some people’s point of view, because the Rumours album obviously sold so many copies. It was so huge that that sort of overshadowed everything else."
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  (#12) U2 'Pop'

  U2's 1997 album Pop was a major departure for the Irish group, who were on top of the world at the time thanks to the success of their late 80s and early 90s releases such as the Grammy-nominated Achtung Baby. The Pop album attempted to bridge the gap between electronic music and the band's own brand of rock, but didn't quite land with listeners. Despite the massive stadium tour that accompanied it, the album didn't sell as well as expected and the band themselves weren't particularly happy with the finished product.

  In an interview years later, Bono expressed disappointment with the album - saying that he wished they could've spent more time on it.

  "I always think if we'd just had another month, we could have finished it," he told the Chicago Tribune. "It didn't communicate the way it was intended to." 

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