History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / Music

* Music/FleetwoodMac:
** Before FM had their most popular lineup of Mick Fleetwood, [=John McVie=], [=Christine McVie=], Lindsey Buckingham and of course, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac alternated with a more blues-rock, psychedelic sound that sounded more like Music/JeffersonAirplane or Music/TheGratefulDead than the sophisticated pop-rock sound they were known for later.

* Music/{{Nirvana}}:
** Nirvana's debut album, ''Music/{{Bleach|Album}}'', takes massive influence from heavy metal -- it could reasonably be labelled "punk metal" (if avoiding the term "grunge") -- and sounds like a combination of Music/{{Soundgarden}} and Music/TheMelvins. Grunge music was forced on them by the producers, as the grunge scene was already huge in Seattle by that point. Cobain expressed disdain for this album in later years.
** Although Nirvana are considered grunge (usually by people who haven't heard of Music/AliceInChains or Soundgarden), they didn't reach massive success until they largely ditched grunge and released the commercially-accessible ''Music/{{Nevermind|Album}}'', their most famous album, in 1991... which is what most people consider to be grunge.
** Compare [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMDGO8RjJEg this song]] off ''Bleach'' to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg their more famous works]].

* Music/JanetJackson's first two albums, released in 1982 and 1984, were generic 80's pop-R&B riding on the same formula as big brother Michael's classic album ''Music/OffTheWall'', causing Janet to be written off as just another Jackson riding Michael's coattails. Her desire to get away from her family is what led to her 1986 breakthrough album ''Control''.

* Music/KennyG started out as a smooth jazz saxophonist as he primarily played the tenor saxophone while occasionally playing the alto and soprano saxophones as well as the flute and lyricon as his first three albums strongly suggest. But when he released his breakthrough album ''Duotones'' thanks in large part to his top 10 hit "Songbird," he would eventually become one of adult contemporary's biggest stars as he shifted his preference towards the soprano saxophone while occasionally playing the alto and tenor saxophones on some songs afterward.

* [[Music/RobZombie White Zombie]] are primarily known for mixing IndustrialMetal and GrooveMetal in the 90's, but started out as a chaotic, lo-fi NoiseRock band in the late 80's: They cited bands like Music/TheBirthdayParty, Music/ButtholeSurfers, and Music/BlackFlag as influencing this phase. Music/RobZombie's voice was also only sometimes recognizable at this point-- instead of the near raspy vocal style he'd use in White Zombie's nineties albums (and throughout his solo career), he sang in more of a nasal, punk-ish sneer. The main thread running through both stages of their career are WordSaladLyrics that sometimes double as {{ShoutOut}}s to grind-house and horror movies, and frequent use of SpokenWordInMusic. Interestingly, Kurt Cobain was a fan of their early work, as was Music/IggyPop.

* Music/AmyWinehouse began as solely a {{Jazz}} singer on her debut album ''Music/{{Frank}}'', but by the time of ''Music/BackToBlack'' she had abandoned Jazz completely for {{Soul}}. Her look also changed in accordance with her shift in genres. By the time of ''Back to Black'', she started wearing her trademark beehive haircut and thick black eyeliner which reflected the fact that she was drawing on Soul, girl groups from the 1960s such as The Ronettes for inspiration as opposed to Jazz singers such as Music/FrankSinatra whom her first album was even named after.

* Music/YeahYeahYeahs "Fever To Tell" is a lot more punk-sounding than "Show Your Bones" and "It's Blitz!".

* Music/WillieNelson began his country music career in the early 1960s as a clean-cut young man in sedate, tailored suits and ties. This is not a joke. (His musical output was more along the lines of what one would've expected from him, i.e. mainstream classic country material not that far from what he's performed in the last 35 years.)

* Music/{{Abba}}: Their early material is more in the vein of rock, ballads (encompassing several genres such as '60s soft-rock and Latin, which the group would largely abandon following their third album) and showtunes, and often featured Björn or Benny on lead vocals. Later on they'd go in a more pop and disco direction, with Björn only taking one lead vocal per album from their third album onwards (and not on ''Super Trouper'' at all).

* Music/BeastieBoys started out as a punk rock group. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu5VkypHzoI No, really!]] That didn't last long, however- they quickly realized that punk wasn't going to be profitable and switched to rap. Considering how successful they were, it was probably a wise choice - specially as their musical instruction allowed for songs where they played the musical backing such as "Sabotage".

* Music/DeepPurple: If you know them primarily as the hard rock band who brought you heavy rock albums like ''Music/DeepPurpleInRock'', ''[[Music/MachineHeadAlbum Machine Head]]'' and ''Music/MadeInJapan'' then Deep Purple Mk. 1 with Rod Evans on vocals, will come as a surprise to you. Their keyboard-heavy EpicRocking and penchant for bombastic covers made them sound a lot like an English Vanilla Fudge, while Evans' deep, soulful vocals are a sharp contrast to the shrieking, screaming Ian Gillan, who would come on board in mid-1969, ahead of ''In Rock''. To top it off, their first record with Gillan, ''Music/ConcertoForGroupAndOrchestra'', was a collaboration with an orchestra.

* Music/{{Descendents}}' first single, "Ride the Wild" / "Hectic World". As opposed to the melodic HardcorePunk they'd become known for, the two featured songs were sort of a mix of PowerPop and {{New Wave|Music}}, prominently featuring a SurfRock-influenced guitar-playing style with no distortion. In addition, Milo Aukerman hadn't joined the band yet, so members Frank Navetta and Tony Lombardo sang one song each - neither Frank nor Tony considered themselves singers, so they basically recorded and self-released the single as a tool to recruit a full time vocalist. The songs were later included on the compilations ''Bonus Fat'' and ''Two Things at Once'', and their contrast with the rest of the compilations' material can be sort of jarring. The songs would be later re-recorded with Aukerman and the band's current style for their 2021 album ''9th & Walnut''.

** Before FM had their most popular lineup of Mick Fleetwood, [=John McVie=], [=Christine McVie=], Lindsey Buckingham and of course, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac alternated with a more blues-rock, psychedelic sound that sounded more like Music/JeffersonAirplane or Music/TheGratefulDead than the sophisticated pop-rock sound started by ''Rumours'' in 1977 and culminated in ''Tango in the Night'' ten years later.
** TheNineties was a bad time for FM, well, at least the early part. Buckingham left in 1987, and Nicks followed suit in 1992. The one bright spot was the classic lineup reuniting for UsefulNotes/BillClinton's inauguration in 1993 after Clinton used "Don't Stop" as a campaign song, but it was a one-off. 1995's ''Time'', not featuring the two was a commercial and critical disaster. Their reputation became somewhat of a joke, and an insipid relic of the 1970s and 1980s, with a small group of loyal fans still supporting them. However, 1997's reunion was a smashing success, and helped people rediscover their legacy and mark on music.
** The TurnOfTheMillennium brought fortune to Fleetwood Mac, with an expanding fan base of younger people who might have been introduced to them by their parents or friends, and sold-out tours.

* Music/{{Japan}}'s first album ''Adolescent Sex'' is camp glam rock with frequent use of the words 'dancing' and 'babe' and vocals delivered in quite a high range. Japan would become famous for melancholic NewRomantic music with baritone vocals and oriental influences. So anyone who was into the later stuff picking up their first album out of curiosity without reading about it first would have been shocked. Their second album, 'Obscure Alternatives' is very experimental and has Sylvian singing in both his older falsetto style and his later baritone style, with a mix of both the glam rock songs and the PostPunk/new romantic style they would evolve into. Unsurprisingly, David Sylvian wishes Adolescent Sex never existed and that Obscure Alternatives should have been their first album, which is quite a brave statement considering many fans of the band discredit the first two albums entirely and start with their third "Quiet Life", which sounds like the band's signature style coming into place but not being quite there yet. Possibly because of this dramatic change in style, the compilation "Assemblage" was released at the height of their popularity in 1981. It features some of their early work and but also most of their later work that didn't appear on albums.

* Music/BillyJoel is best known for contemplative keyboards-based ballads such as ''Piano Man''. If asked to categorise his music, the listener might think of the pianist in an upmarket bar or restaurant playing jazz-flavoured mellow ballads. But not so in 1970, when he was the keyboards half of an ''unique'' heavy metal band called Atilla. Unique as it only had keyboards and drums. They only made one album, the cover of which shows two hirsute barbarians dressed as the eponymous Huns, in an abattoir amidst what look like horse carcasses. The music isn't much better.

** For even more early installment weirdness, there's their rare debut single, "Can I Sit Next to You Girl"/"Rockin' at the Parlour", their only release to feature [[ThePeteBest original lead vocalist Dave Evans]]: On one hand, the actual song-writing isn't ''too'' different from their Bon Scott material, and in fact the band re-recorded "Can I Sit Next To You Girl" with Scott for the album ''High Voltage''. On the other, Angus and Malcolm Young hadn't found their signature guitar tones yet, and most strikingly, Dale Evans sang in a drastically different way from either of the band's better-known vocalists: Both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson are known for high-pitched, raspy singing voices, while Evans had a lower voice that didn't stand out nearly as much from other hard rock or glam singers of the time. Seeing the rare promo video for the original version of "Can I Sit Next to You Girl" can be surprising too, since the band had a GlamRock image instead of the more "working class" one they have now - Angus Young still had his trademark schoolboy outfit, but in a way that just makes everyone else look weirder in comparison.

** Avenged Sevenfold's first effort, ''Music/SoundingTheSeventhTrumpet'' (2001), resembles their later works very little. First, the bassist wasn't Johnny Christ but Justin Sane[[note]]not to be confused with the Music/AntiFlag frontman[[/note]], Zacky Vengeance was the sole guitarist, M. Shadows screamed for 90% of the album, and drummer The Rev was in the middle of his 'Pinkly Smooth' period (a Music/MrBungle-inspired side-project). The result was a pretty messy HardcorePunk album produced with close to no budget under a Belgian label, that featured none of the epic riffing and soloing of later albums (save for the remade intro track "To End the Rapture", recorded after Synyster Gates joined the band as lead guitarist). The album does feature a PowerBallad though, which is pretty jarring. The untitled demo made the year before with original bassist Matt Wendt, is even weirder.

** Even when compared with their other early rock and roll-style songs, "Love Me Do" is very musically and lyrically primitive. The song consists of three identical verses, a short bridge, and no chorus, with every sentence rhyming with an "oo" sound and only nineteen different words used in the song: "Love", "me", "do", "you", "know", "I", "I'll", "always", "be", "true", "so", "please", "whoa", "someone", "to", "somebody", "new", "like" and "yeah".

* Music/{{Rush}}: On their self-titled first album, they sound like just another Music/LedZeppelin clone. This started to change with their second album, ''Fly by Night'', when drummer Neil Peart joined and took over writing most of the lyrics, although it took another couple of albums until they fully developed their sound.

* [[Music/RobZombie White Zombie]] are primarily known for mixing IndustrialMetal and GrooveMetal in the 90's, but started out as a chaotic, lo-fi NoiseRock band in the late 80's: They cited bands like Music/TheBirthdayParty, Music/ButtholeSurfers, and Music/BlackFlag as influencing this phase. Music/RobZombie's voice was also only sometimes recognizable at this point-- instead of the near GutturalGrowler vocal style he'd use in White Zombie's nineties albums (and throughout his solo career), he sang in more of a nasal, punk-ish sneer. The main thread running through both stages of their career are WordSaladLyrics that sometimes double as {{ShoutOut}}s to grind-house and horror movies, and frequent use of SpokenWordInMusic. Interestingly, Kurt Cobain was a fan of their early work, as was Music/IggyPop.

** Although Nirvana are considered grunge (usually by people who haven't heard of Music/AliceInChains or Soundgarden), they didn't reach massive success until they largely ditched grunge and released the commercially-accessible ''Music/{{Nevermind}}'', their most famous album, in 1991... which is what most people consider to be grunge.

* Ted Leo & The Pharmacists: Their first album was an experimental and dub-inspired 19-song album released in 1999 titled "tej leo (?), rx/pharmacists". It can't even really be considered a TL/RX project because it was mainly just Ted Leo and a friend, Jodi Buonanno. Several of the songs sampled tracks, something the band in the future wouldn't revisit as a whole. The lengthy tracklist is partly due to short, lo-fi interludes like "Version: (To Decline to Take a Shower)", which seems to simply be a snippet of Ted singing acapella inside a shower. The sound of the guitar (echoing until it becomes feedback) would be used often in future works. Fans also don't like this album very much and for the longest time even Ted himself was overlooking it, but in recent times he's become more willing to play some of those songs live.

** The packaging of music cassettes also went through several iterations. Early cases were paperboard or plastic sleeves, sometimes with a snap case (paperboard sleeves would be retained for cassette singles). The liner notes were also limited to the front cover and tracklist on the assumption that, like 8-tracks, they would be used mainly with portable and car units. This only started to change around the turn of the decade when record companies noticed that cassettes were rivaling vinyl records for home listening, with plastic flip-top cases and foldout J-cards including full liner notes and interior artwork emerged. These became mostly standard for cassette releases after the early 1980s, when cassette sales overtook vinyl.

* Music/{{Chrome}}'s first album, ''The Visitation'', recorded before Helios Creed joined, lacks the wild guitar effects and production trickery of their later album.

* BlackMetal as a genre also went through this trope. The early first-wave black metal (called "extreme metal") was basically a ''very'' raw ThrashMetal with shades of DeathMetal, SpeedMetal, DoomMetal, SludgeMetal, HardcorePunk, PunkRock, PostPunk and proto-{{Grunge}}, and the Satanic themes was used more as a shock value rather than having the bands actually being Satanists.

* Music/MelindaKathleenReese, of the [[WebVideo/TwistedTranslations ''Google Translate Sings'']] series on Website/YouTube, takes well-known songs, runs them through a few layers of Google Translate, then sings the results. Her early videos were quite basic, with her singing in front of a blank wall and including a video of the original music video for comparison. This began to change when she did a translated cover of "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', which featured Caleb Hyles and some props. By the time she covered "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'', she was creating full music videos for the translations and was no longer including videos of the original song with hers. Recent videos have her recording herself singing a line multiple times to create a chorus, or occasionally playing characters in the videos, and sometimes instead of covering a whole song she sings well-known bits of a few different ones in the same video. If you only got into the ''Google Translate Sings'' series later on, it can be quite odd to go back to her first video and see how basic it is in comparison.

* Music/AlterBridge's first album, ''One Day Remains'', has a far stronger PostGrunge influence and a heavy Music/{{Creed}} feel in its songwriting (considering the band was made up of 3/4 of Creed). It did however have a couple songs (most notably the title track and "Metalingus") that are more like what they'd write later.

* Creator/MelindaKathleenReese, of the [[WebVideo/TwistedTranslations ''Google Translate Sings'']] series on Website/YouTube, takes well-known songs, runs them through a few layers of Google Translate, then sings the results. Her early videos were quite basic, with her singing in front of a blank wall and including a video of the original music video for comparison. This began to change when she did a translated cover of "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', which featured Caleb Hyles and some props. By the time she covered "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'', she was creating full music videos for the translations and was no longer including videos of the original song with hers. Recent videos have her recording herself singing a line multiple times to create a chorus, or occasionally playing characters in the videos, and sometimes instead of covering a whole song she sings well-known bits of a few different ones in the same video. If you only got into the ''Google Translate Sings'' series later on, it can be quite odd to go back to her first video and see how basic it is in comparison.

* Melinda Kathleen Reese, of the ''Google Translate Sings'' series on Website/YouTube, takes well-known songs, runs them through a few layers of Google Translate, then sings the results. Her early videos were quite basic, with her singing in front of a blank wall and including a video of the original music video for comparison. This began to change when she did a translated cover of "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', which featured Caleb Hyles and some props. By the time she covered "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'', she was creating full music videos for the translations and was no longer including videos of the original song with hers. Recent videos have her recording herself singing a line multiple times to create a chorus, or occasionally playing characters in the videos, and sometimes instead of covering a whole song she sings well-known bits of a few different ones in the same video. If you only got into the ''Google Translate Sings'' series later on, it can be quite odd to go back to her first video and see how basic it is in comparison.

* [[Music/{{Jesu}} Justin Broadrick]] and [[Music/{{Cathedral}} Lee Dorian]] are known for EpicRocking in their respective bands; ten minute songs are the norm for them. Both musicians first broke out into music by appearing on the first Music/NapalmDeath album, ''Scum,'' arguably best known for establishing world records in MinisculeRocking.

* Music/AvengedSevenfold

** Their second album ''Music/WakingTheFallen'' also qualifies, but to a lesser extent -- while it has a melodic Main/{{Metalcore}} style and still a lot of screaming, the core of their later material is already there, and the final track "And All Things Will End" largely prefigures the style of ''City of Evil''.

** Avenged Sevenfold's first effort, ''Music/SoundingTheSeventhTrumpet'' (2001), ressembles their later works very little. First, the bassist wasn't Johnny Christ but Justin Sane[[note]]not to be confused with the Music/AntiFlag frontman[[/note]], Zacky Vengeance was the sole guitarist, M. Shadows screamed for 90% of the album, and drummer The Rev was in the middle of his 'Pinkly Smooth' period (a Music/MrBungle-inspired side-project). The result was a pretty messy HardcorePunk album produced with close to no budget under a Belgian label, that featured none of the epic riffing and soloing of later albums (save for the remade intro track "To End the Rapture", recorded after Synyster Gates joined the band as lead guitarist). The album does feature a PowerBallad though, which is pretty jarring. Also, the band didn't have its iconic Deathbat logo yet. The untitled demo made the year before with original bassist Matt Wendt, is even weirder.
** Their second album ''Waking the Fallen'' also qualifies, but to a lesser extent -- while it has a melodic Main/{{Metalcore}} style and still a lot of screaming, the core of their later material is already there, and the final track "And All Things Will End" largely prefigures the style of ''City of Evil''.

[[caption-width-right:350:Take note as this was the early fashion sense of Devo, long before [[Music/FreedomOfChoice the energy domes]].[[note]]And yes, they were wearing diapers[[/note]].]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Take note as this was the early fashion sense of Devo, long before [[Music/FreedomOfChoice the energy domes]][[note]]And yes, they were wearing diapers[[/note]].]]

** CD packaging was also different early on too. Early jewel cases had smooth lid edges instead of ridged ones, and more significantly the cases had an extra layer of packaging in the form of 12"-tall "longboxes" intended for vinyl-oriented record store racks and out of an attempt to make them difficult to shoplift and attract buyers with large designs similar to [=LPs=]. These were eventually phased out in 1993 thanks to a mix of environmentalist pressure (since most people threw out the boxes after purchase), the boxes making shoplifting ''easier'' instead of deterring it (since shoplifters could stealthily remove the [=CDs=] and leave the boxes in place), jewel case-sized store racks becoming more common, label and retailer fears about consumers rejecting smaller jewel case sizes turning out to be unfounded, and newer, more effective forms of anti-shoplifting technology emerging.