History DarkerAndEdgier / Music

* Arguably, the entire genre of HipHop owes its current existence to this trope. Until the late-80's, the genre was dismissed as a passing fad by most music critics, due to its generally shallow/goofy lyrics and repetitive beats. But then, in 1988, two albums were released that would go on to legitimize hip hop as a relevant form of music: "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" by Music/PublicEnemy and "Straight Outta Compton" by Music/{{NWA}}. The former featured biting political commentary, centered around the oppression of black culture in mainstream America. While the latter contained some of the most genuinely scathing lyrics ever heard in popular music up to that point (it was, in fact, one of the first albums to earn a "Parental Advisory" sticker). In the wake of those two albums, HipHop took on a much more serious and socially conscious tone, much to the delight of both critics and fans. A few years later, the genre of GangstaRap showed the world just how dark and edgy hip hop could be, cultivating in the real life deaths of rappers Music/TupacShakur and Music/TheNotoriousBIG. And then came the sub-genre known as {{Horrorcore}}. GangstaRap turned UpToEleven, with lyrics worthy of DeathMetal.

* Linkin Park. They started out with "Hybrid Theory", which, aside from "One Step Closer" and "A Place for My Head", have no real screaming, though they did have angsty lyrics, and had no swearing. "Meteora" had angst, but no hard screaming or swearing. Then came "Minutes to Midnight", when lead singer Chester Bennington and lead rapper Mike Shinoda swore like sailors, with several uses of the word "fuck", and had "Given Up", one of their darkest songs to date, with suicide references. After that was "A Thousand Suns", a concept album about nuclear destruction, along with several more uses of "fuck" and "shit". Then the band became LighterAndSofter with "Living Things", with only one "angry" song, Lies Greed Misery, and no profanity.

* SonataArctica's music has been progressing from the standard cheesy excesses endemic to power metal to more grim lyrics and darker sounds. It seems to be working, though one wonders how far they can stretch it...

* The cover of ''Imagine'' by A Perfect Circle is darker, edgier, and downright depressing. With a simple shift to a minor chord, the song [[TheCoverChangesTheMeaning switches from hopeful and uplifting to cynical and depressing]]. "Imagine all the people sharing all the world! ...yeah, like that'll ever happen..." The change has been likened to going from a friendly, smiling hippie offering you peace and love and flowers, to a grim suicide bomber outlining his manifesto to a huddled, frightened crowd.
* TypeONegative make a RunningGag of doing this to hippie anthems: Seals & Croft's "Summer Breeze", NeilYoung's "Cinnamon Girl", several [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] songs...
* Any cover by MarilynManson. Impressive when he picks already-dark or creepy songs.

* NeilYoung's ''Rust Never Sleeps'' album is an example, as Young responded to the death of Elvis, the rise of PunkRock, and his own [[CreatorBreakdown fears of becoming culturally irrelevant]] by turning his soft-ish folk rock into nihilist hard rock with heavy distorted guitars, in a postmodern stage show with giant amps, roadies dressed like Jawas, and decaying film footage from Woodstock. It ''worked'' - the album received widespread popular and critical acclaim, and has been cited as one of the earliest examples of what would become {{Grunge}} music.
* Much, though not all, of JohnLennon's songwriting took this direction in the late sixties due to a combination of drug use (especially heroin), the influence of Yoko Ono, and a growing disillusionment with his role as a [[Music/TheBeatles Beatle]]. This culminated in his 1970 solo album ''Plastic Ono Band'' in which, under the influence of [[AndIMustScream primal scream therapy]], he expressed his childhood traumas and adult pain starkly and directly in a way that he couldn't do with the Beatles. While Lennon continued to write hard-edged songs afterward, most of his subsequent work was more pleasant and hopeful in tone.
* Music/TheBeatles as a group went DarkerAndEdgier gradually, from For Sale up to the White Album, but seemed to be going in the opposite direction at the time of the breakup.
* Similarly, many other '60s bands, including the TheBeachBoys and the RollingStones, became DarkerAndEdgier during the peak of psychedelia.
* The musical history of Music/PinkFloyd seems to have been one long slide from the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHRE5dyDKTA spacey, exploratory psychedelia]] of Syd Barrett, down into Roger Waters' descent into dark, cynical Wangst with ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'' and ''Music/TheWall''. Waters' post-Pink Floyd solo work continues the trend.
* Compare the album "The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp" to anything that KingCrimson's done, ever. The first King Crimson lineup ''was'' Giles, Giles and Fripp, plus Greg Lake.

* PorcupineTree have been doing this since 2003 or so. While they never made the most upbeat or happy music out there, there's a definite change between psychedelic, PinkFloyd-influenced rock like ''The Sky Moves Sideways'', and the metal ''Fear of a Blank Planet'', which has ends with "Sleep Together", about the album's 'narrator' trying to convince another teenager to commit suicide with him.

* VanHalen's fourth album, ''Fair Warning''. Most of the band's, silly hard-partying atmosphere (which made them famous) from the previous albums disappears and a heavier, more serious sound is heard. This is mostly attributed to the tensions between lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen and lead singer David Lee Roth at the time. The album features "Mean Street" and a foggy synthesized instrumental "Sunday Afternoon in the Park" that is full of terror.

* Winger was originally known for being a standard glam act with a pretty-boy frontman and musicians that were far above the rest of the pack, but their overly poppy leanings made them among the most frequent targets of ire from the anti-glam crowd, which wasn't helped by the ''relentless'' mockery they received on ''BeavisAndButthead''. 1993's ''Pull'' answered these criticisms with a shockingly dark and mature album that emphasized their technical ability while completely eliminating the poppiness of their earlier material. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late, and the album went unnoticed until the mid-00's glam revival.
* CountingCrows' first album, ''August and Everything After'', was a sweetly melodic, very subdued folk album. Their second, ''Recovering the Satellites'', added distortion guitar, angry lyrics, and several swear words. Eventually they found a middle ground which worked quite well.
* {{Eminem}}'s discography has been a sine-wave of LighterAndSofter and DarkerAndEdgier. His 1996 debut ''Infinite'' was the former, though [[CreatorBreakdown a series of life events]] caused him to take the [[DarkerAndEdgier darker content]] [[UpToEleven to the nth degree]] with both ''The Slim Shady LP'' and ''The Marshall Mathers LP'', both of which were critical and commercial successes. His subsequent two albums were somewhat LighterAndSofter, though the cycle has begun again with the recently-released ''Relapse'', which serves in and out of this trope. Each album always has a parodying track somewhere in it.
* MassiveAttack. While ''Blue Lines'' and ''Protection'' weren't entirely sunny, ''Mezzanine'' had a sonic background so dark, it absorbed light.

* Jazz musicians will occasionally take songs from seemingly light repertoire and turn the intensity up. Sonny Rollins took the corniest of show tunes (such as "There's No Business Like Show Business") and turned them into positively hip (for the time) jazz tunes. John Coltrane famously turned the light-hearted, optimistic [[TheSoundofMusic My Favorite Things]] into what one critic described as a "hypnotic eastern devish dance", one that lasted an impressive 13 minutes.
** Trane himself is a truly a great example of this trope. Starting with light-hearted simplistic albums like ''Blue Train'' before becoming gradually more complex with ''Giant Steps'' and ''My Favorite Things'' and culminating in the madness of ''Ascension'' and ''Meditations''.
** ''Blue Train'' is many things, but it is in no way simplistic. Look at the chord progression to "Moment's Notice," for example, and you'll see that it's an early iteration of ''Coltrane changes'' - the substitutions that would eventually result in ''Giant Steps''. Although Coltrane hadn't yet gotten to what would later be called his infamous "sheets of sound," ''Blue Train'' is still a seminal album in the history of jazz.

* Happened naturally to Music/MichaelJackson in the mid-90s. His 1991 album ''Dangerous'' was, like his previous albums, a mix of standard pop and uplifting songs. His next album, ''[=HIStory=]'' (1995), came out following his 1993 child molestation allegations and ''it shows''. The album is filled with dark songs that exude paranoia and anger, dealing with topics like betrayal, media scrutiny, loneliness, and ''a song about a child dying from neglect''. It also has more swearing than any other Michael Jackson album, including the only instance of the word "fuck." Even the '''sole''' love song on the album, the R. Kelly-penned "You Are Not Alone", is a little bit of a downer because it is about separated lovers. Jackson's 2001 album ''Invincible'' would retain some of the darker influences from this period though it would also be a bit of a return to form, with more upbeat, love/life-affirming songs compared to ''[=HIStory=]''.

* Hanson, in a sense, though more with their image than the actual music. I think they've used swear words in a few interviews or stuff they had, and the lead singer had sex before he got married. As for their music, they're not as light and innocent as they were [[ChildrenAreInnocent as children]], but still a very upbeat group. It's more that they've switched their style.

* MileyCyrus is going this way with her music.

* ManicStreetPreachers started off with a double album ''Generation Terrorists'', which had a political glam-punk sound inspired by Music/GunsNRoses. Their second album, ''Gold Against the Soul'', was more introspective compared to the first, while retaining the glam of their debut. Richey James Edwards, one of the band's songwriters, began to lose control and go on a downward spiral, resulting in the increasingly dark nature of his lyrics. This culminated with the grim, pessimistic atmosphere in the band's third album, ''The Holy Bible''. Just as the band was about to tour stateside to promote their third album, Richey disappeared (he would later be presumed dead). The band, reforming as a trio, recorded music that was LighterAndSofter, even though the band would occasionally release darker albums such as ''Know Your Enemy'' and ''Journal For Plague Lovers'' (which contained the last of Richey's lyrics).
* DavidBowie albums, or stretches of such, tend to alternate between this and LighterAndSofter (owing to his penchant for the NewSoundAlbum trope), but an even clearer example of this can be seen with his stage personas in TheSeventies. After the flamboyant tragic rock messiah of Ziggy Stardust and the variants of Aladdin Sane, et. al., with 1976's ''Station to Station'' came The Thin White Duke -- a heartless Fascist. This persona owed a lot to a CreatorBreakdown and his heavy drug abuse at the time (including cocaine addiction), and Bowie's decision to pull himself up from it all was accompanied by a choice to not only dump the persona, but to only be himself on stage from that point on.
* LadyGaga released ''The Fame'', her first label-sponsored LP. The album had a very upbeat, joyful theme, centered mainly around party life, along with [[IntercourseWithYou love]], along with the [[SlidingScaleofIdealismVersusCynicism idealist's]] view of fame and tributes to her favourite artists. Her follow-up EP, ''The Fame Monster'', is it's [[ArtistDisillusionment "hangover"]]. The cover, [[DeliberatelyMonochrome monochrome]] with the Gaga veiled up to the nose by a cape; combined with music centered around [[BadRomance love evoking a bad, sexy romance novel]]; romantic anxiety ("Dance in the Dark"); and [[IntercourseWithYou sex]]; the music took a more dark, perverse, challenging, and personal route
** ''Born This Way'' got [[GenreRoulette eclectic]], with dance-pop ("The Edge of Glory"), {{house|Music}} ("Marry the Night"), {{techno}} ("Judas"), [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] ("[[OminousLatinChanting Government Hooker]]"), and [[ThePowerOfRock rock]] ("You and I"). It's no ''[[DavidBowie Station to Station]]'' or ''[[{{Madonna}} Ray of Light]]'' but it's a [[NewSoundAlbum shift]]. Could be [[LighterAndSofter more upbeat]] at times than ''The Fame Monster'', though.

* {{Gorillaz}} pulls a not-so subtle variation in their story canon, which started out as a zany and [[DarkComedy darkly humorous]] setup but got noticeably darker in the second and third phases. Party animal [[{{Jerkass}} Murdoc]] shifted sharply into a violent psychopath with the Plastic Beach arc, (though this may be justified as an already twisted man being driven to desperate measures by greed.) In accordance, his [[VitriolicBestBuds relationship]] with 2D has changed in portrayal from [[AmusingInjuries comedic bullying]] to [[BreakTheCutie pretty abusive]], though it could always have come off this way [[FridgeHorror if you thought about it.]]

* {{Weezer}}'s release after their self titled debut, Music/Pinkerton, contained a more abrasive and darker sound than their previous album.

* The 80's albums from British band ''Madness'' progressively got more serious as time went on. Their first album, "One Step Beyond", featured reggae covers and songs about singing and dancing, any potentially serious subject matters (such as the chorus in "Mummy's Boy" that reveals the song's main character to be a pedophile) sung purely tongue-in-cheek. By their sixth album (the tellingly titled "Mad Not Mad"), they were singing critiques of the modern song industry itself, cynical parodies of Americanism and a surprising number of completely serious songs about child abuse. Their post-90's comeback albums have largely subverted this trend though.

* {{Epica}} zigzagged this trope a bit with 2 consecutive albums. Their 2009 release "Design Your Universe" was, musically speaking, the darkest, heaviest, and most intense of their works as of 2012, but had arguably the most optimistic and uplifting lyrical message. Their 2012 release "Requiem for the Indifferent," by contrast, lightened up the compositions and went in a more prog-metal direction but took on a condemning, accusatory lyrical tone that decried the injustices of modern society and the inaction of those who could make a difference.
* LambOfGod had always been known to deliver some already dark, heavy and intense albums, like "Ashes In The Wake" and "Wrath", but then they managed to one-up themselves with 2012's "Resolution", which resulted in both some of their darkest songs ever, (Such as "King Me", "Ghost Walking", "Insurrection" and the bonus track "Bury Me Under The Sun") and some of Randy Blythe's most insane and intense vocals (Most notably "King Me", which featured different styles of singing, such as spoken word, the basic grows and Randy's screams of insanity and rage towards the end.)

* The "Outlaw Country" subgenre of CountryMusic that was popular from the 1960s to the early 1980s was darker and edgier than the more clean-cut and family friendly "Nashville sound" mainstream country music. Outlaw country musicians such as DavidAllanCoe, MerleHaggard, and WaylonJennings had long hair, beards, and dressed in denim jeans and work shirts rather than rhinestone-covered stage outfits that mainstream country artists were fond of. Outlaw country songs frequently dealt with subjects like alcoholism, failed relationships, poverty, and other subjects that many blue-collar Americans could identify with. Outlaw country was sometimes called "Texas country" because many outlaw country musicians came from Texas instead of Tennessee.

* [[DefLeppard Def Leppard's]] 1996 album ''Slang'' showcased a more organic, darker musical style and subject matter, fueled by [[CreatorBreakdown personal turmoil]] in the band members' lives, express themselves more honestly and by their willingness to experiment with new sounds and acknowledge the [[TheNineties 1990's]] AlternativeRock movement. It was their first album since their debut ''On Through The Night'' not to be produced by Creator/RobertJohnMuttLange.
* When FaithNoMore were quoted as saying "People are going to hate our new album" prior to the release of Angel Dust in 1992, they were ''not'' mincing words. Fans of the upbeat FunkMetal sound of ''The Real Thing'' were in for a shock to discover their much-anticipated follow-up to be filled with minor chords, DoomMetal riffs, circus and funeral organs, subject matter even more disturbing than before (third world starvation, [[{{Squick}} explicit gay sex]], [[DrugsAreBad drug-induced]] [[AxCrazy psychopathy]], and [[DrivenToSuicide what reads like a deranged man's suicide note]]), and MikePatton exchanging his nerdy [[AlternativeRock alt-rock]] vocals for a combination of gothic crooning and [[HarshVocals over-the-top screams]]. Also greeted with images of a slaughterhouse upon opening the album packaging.

* [[VincentPrice Vincent Price's]] 1977 cover version of light-hearted novelty song The Monster Mash, which had a more sinister melody and also had the sound of a woman screaming near the end.

* By [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQbcYlraq_g the songs that have been]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLD3PDI41K8 revealed so far]], Future Perfect's upcoming third album, ''Before The Fall'', appears to be headed in this direction, both instrumentally and lyrically.

** [[BrokenBase Depending on who you ask]], ''Music/AmericanIdiot'' is darker than any of their previous albums in context

** ''Born This Way'' got [[GenreRoulette eclectic]], with dance-pop ("The Edge of Glory"), {{house|Music}} ("Marry the Night"), {{techno}} ("Judas"), Music/NewWave ("[[OminousLatinChanting Government Hooker]]"), and [[ThePowerOfRock rock]] ("You and I"). It's no ''[[DavidBowie Station to Station]]'' or ''[[{{Madonna}} Ray of Light]]'' but it's a [[NewSoundAlbum shift]]. Could be [[LighterAndSofter more upbeat]] at times than ''The Fame Monster'', though.

* Music/HeavyMetal, with its distinctive association with controversy and [[RuleOfCool Rule of Brutal-based everything]], has several entirely darker-and-edgier subgenres. First of all, Music/BlackSabbath were intended as DarkerAndEdgier rock. About a decade later, ThrashMetal came along and was the new DarkerAndEdgier. Then DeathMetal, BlackMetal and {{Grindcore}} came along, and no genre has topped them yet.

** Frankly, the last thirty years of Music/HeavyMetal could be summed up as a sort of DarkerAndEdgier LensmanArmsRace.

* Believe it or not, Music/{{Pantera}} started out as a mere GlamRock act, with their debut ''Metal Magic'' not quite living up to its title and a vocalist that sounded straight out of Music/{{Foreigner}} or Music/{{Loverboy}}, along with family-friendly lyrics that sounded straight out of a 1950s teenager's locker. Their following records ''Projects in the Jungle'' and ''I am the Night'', however, were each progressively more Music/HeavyMetal influenced, and their once-squeaky clean singer had gotten noticeably harsher and started showing impressive falsettos, while the lyrics began delving into HotterAndSexier SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll territory, {{Fantasy}} themes, horror and {{Angst}}y subject matter (one song even deals with [[DrivenToSuicide suicide]]).

* Music/{{Skillet}}'s ''Alien Youth'' and ''Collide'' albums marked a shift from their initial AlternativeRock[=/=]{{Electronica}} sound to a more Music/HeavyMetal-oriented one.

* Music/HeavyMetal, with its distinctive association with controversy and [[RuleOfCool Rule of Brutal-based everything]], has several entirely darker-and-edgier subgenres. First of all, Music/BlackSabbath were intended as DarkerAndEdgier rock. About a decade later, ThrashMetal came along and was the new DarkerAndEdgier. Then DeathMetal and BlackMetal came along, and no genre has topped them yet.

* With her third album, ''Little Machines'', the once [[{{Moe}} cheerful]] Music/{{Lights}} has taken a somewhat angstier turn.

* By [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQbcYlraq_g the songs that have been]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLD3PDI41K8 revealed so far]], Future Perfect's upcoming third album, ''Before The Fall'', appears to be headed in this direction.

** [[BrokenBase Depending on who you ask]], ''Music/AmericanIdiot'' is darker than any of their previous albums in context

** And jazz musicians don't do this "occasionally" so much as ''constantly.'' Most of the standard repertoire that is required knowledge for jazz musicians is songs lifted from Broadway musicals of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. For example, of the six songs on Miles Davis's 1956 ''Relaxin' With the Miles Davis Quintet,'' four are from musical theater or film ("If I Were a Bell," "You're My Everything," "I Could Write a Book," "It Could Happen to You").

*** [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in that most of the songs on ''Can't Be Tamed'' are about ''empowerment'', or about Miley missing her boyfriend on the road. [[ContractualPurity But the media's focus]] on the mild ThreeMinutesOfWrithing and (relatively) saltier language ([[FelonyMisdemeanor she uses "hell"]] [[PrecisionFStrike in a song]]) and revealing clothing in her music videos has overshadowed the enpowerment themes.

* DavidBowie albums, or stretches of such, tend to alternate between this and LighterAndSofter (owing to his penchant for the NewSoundAlbum trope), but an even clearer example of this can be seen with his stage personas in TheSeventies. After the flamboyant tragic rock messiah of Ziggy Stardust and the variants of Aladdin Sane, et.al., with 1976's ''Station to Station'' came The Thin White Duke -- a heartless Fascist. This persona owed a lot to a CreatorBreakdown and his heavy drug abuse at the time (including cocaine addiction), and Bowie's decision to pull himself up from it all was accompanied by a choice to not only dump the persona, but to only be himself on stage from that point on.

* The 80's albums from British band ''Madness'' progressively got more serious as time went on. Their first album, "One Step Beyond", featured reggae covers and songs about singing and dancing, any potentially serious subject matters (such as the chorus in "Mummy's Boy" that reveals the song's main character to be a paedophile) sung purely tongue-in-cheek. By their sixth album (the tellingly titled "Mad Not Mad"), they were singing critiques of the modern song industry itself, cynical parodies of Americanism and a surprising number of completely serious songs about child abuse. Their post-90's comeback albums have largely subverted this trend though.

** Then they managed to go from Darker And Edgier after three albums, to even more, MUCH MORE, with the release of their eighth album "The Great Southern Trendkill", which dealt with the afforded-mentioned subject matter relating to suicide, drugs, the end of the world by a massive flood, the media and many more topics along with Anselmo AND [[AnalCunt Seth Putnam from Anal Cunt]] himself sounding like both are ready to go "[[ContinuityNod fucking hostile]]"

* {{Weezer}}'s release after their self titled debut, Pinkerton, contained a more abrasive and darker sound that their previous album
** But can you blame them? Rivers was pretty beat up after having multiple surgeries to correct a minor bone deformity that he wrote the entire album with a bitter disposition. The entire album is themed around breaking up, it's hard to write upbeat songs about breakups.

* Progressive metal band Music/DreamTheater has done a little in this direction lyrically and vocally, the only curse words in the band's 16+ year history were in its past three albums (still very few overall), but this change has been mostly for the better, as their softer songs don't really portray the technical brilliance of the instrumentalists, and vocals such as "The smile of dawn/Arrived early May/She carried a gift from her home/The night shed a tear/To tell her of fear and of sorrow and pain, she'll never outgrow" in a track from their 1992 album Images And Words stand in stark contrast to the guitar riffs and drumming, which wouldn't be out of place in a Music/{{Metallica}} song.
** Arguably, they were already doing this on Awake. See "The Mirror" and "Voices", as well as "Scarred".

* [[DefLeppard Def Leppard's]] 1996 album ''Slang'' showcased a more organic, darker musical style and subject matter, fueled by [[CreatorBreakdown personal turmoil]] in the band members' lives, express themselves more honestly and by their willingness to experiment with new sounds and acknowledge the [[TheNineties 1990's]] AlternativeRock movement. It was their first album since their debut ''On Through The Night'' not to be produced by RobertJohnMuttLange.

* The entire musical genre of DoomMetal is one big exercise in how grim and depressing music can get.
** Music/HeavyMetal has several entirely darker-and-edgier subgenres. First of all, Music/BlackSabbath were intended as DarkerAndEdgier rock. About a decade later, ThrashMetal came along and was the new DarkerAndEdgier. Then DeathMetal and BlackMetal came along, and no genre has topped them yet.
** Frankly, the last thirty years of Music/HeavyMetal could be summed up as a sort of DarkerAndEdgier LensmanArmsRace.

* Arguably, the entire genre of HipHop owes its current existence to this trope. Until the late-80's, the genre was dismissed as a passing fad by most music critics, due to its generally shallow/goofy lyrics and repetitive beats. But then, in 1988, two albums were released that would go on to legitimize hip hop as a relevant form of music: "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" by PublicEnemy and "Straight Outta Compton" by {{NWA}}. The former featured biting political commentary, centered around the oppression of black culture in mainstream America. While the latter contained some of the most genuinely scathing lyrics ever heard in popular music up to that point (it was, in fact, one of the first albums to earn a "Parental Advisory" sticker). In the wake of those two albums, HipHop took on a much more serious and socially conscious tone, much to the delight of both critics and fans. A few years later, the genre of GangstaRap showed the world just how dark and edgy hip hop could be, cultivating in the real life deaths of rappers TupacShakur and TheNotoriousBIG. And then came the sub-genre known as {{Horrorcore}}. GangstaRap turned UpToEleven, with lyrics worthy of DeathMetal.
* GreenDay's ''Insomniac'' is lyrically darker than ''Dookie'' (or, for that matter, ''1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours'' and ''Kerplunk!''), and the music has sometimes been perceived as heavier and more abrasive.
** [[BrokenBase Depending on who you ask]], AmericanIdiot is darker than any of their previous albums in context

* While Metallica certainly went in a LighterAndSofter direction with their music during the 90's, ''[=ReLoad=]'' was decidedly darker and more sinister-sounding than the comparably upbeat ''Black Album'' and ''Load.''

* Megadeth's return to metal from The System Has Failed onwards has been this, with Mustaine revamping his singing style into a snarling spitting style and going for a heavier and less speed oriented form of metal. His lyrics are almost exclusively political now.

*** Her 2013 album ''Bangerz'' was her first album released with a Parental Advisory sticker (though a Clean Version was also released).