History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / Music

* Music/IceNineKills are a metalcore band that started out as a ska-punk band; tellingly, they no longer keep their first album on streaming platforms.

** "Love Me Do", "Music/PleasePleaseMe", "From Me to You", "Thank You Girl", "I'll Get You" and "I Should Have Known Better" all stand out for the use of harmonica, an instrument they rarely revisited after 1964.

** First, they were originally far rougher around the edges than we know them today, to the point where they could be described as whateverthe late '50s/early '60s equivalent of punk rock was. They had much shorter hair than we remember, sported leather jackets, performed in a surly and indifferent manner, ate fried chicken onstage (leaving the bones behind them), and sneered at the audience. In general, they were probably more performance artists than musicians in those days.

* Sentenced: Late band Sentenced began as this with Taneli Jarva on vocals [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRs4PBXG-WM]], and ended like this with Ville Laihiala as his replacement [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyqDFJ-4E1k]]. Consider that the guitarists and drummer are the same in both songs.

* Music/WillieNelson began his country music career in the early 1960s as a clean-cut young man in sedate, tailored suits and ties. [[https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/5/13/1431510426570/bc51c41f-be0f-47c6-9a8b-4cf62b7e0495-1607x2040.jpeg?width=1140&dpr=1&s=none 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.)

[[folder:Genres]]
* 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 were written for the purpose of shock value instead of actually depicting the band's beliefs.
* DeathMetal: the earliest examples of the genre could more accurately be described as very heavy ThrashMetal. The music isn't quite as aggressive and technically demanding, and the vocals are raspy shouts and snarls instead of the "cookie monster" growls normally associated with the genre. Music/{{Death}}'s 'Scream Bloody Gore'' is frequently pointed to as the point where death metal began to separate from thrash and become its own genre, and Music/MorbidAngel and Music/{{Deicide}} further refined the style.
* HeavyMetal as a whole can be considered to have this, at least for the mainstream. One of the most well known traits of heavy metal music is that of blistering speed and a sense of power & guitar virtuosity, and it's something that metal artists since the late 1970s were championing as one of the best aspects of the genre. Yet the band considered to have kickstarted metal music, Music/BlackSabbath, is near universally known for how ''slow'' and ''gloomy'' their music was (a trait which made them extraordinarily popular in the PunkRock and [[AlternativeRock 80s alternative]] underground). These elements in their music, along with their downer and much more personal lyrical themes (at least compared to what was standard for heavy metal in the '80s), helped give rise to DoomMetal and even {{Grunge}} to an extent, but until these came about, "slow-tempo heavy metal" would've been seen as an oxymoron save for GlamMetal power ballads or deliberately "Sabbath-esque" songs from non-doom metal bands— and because DoomMetal has never had a large mainstream presence, a very sizable number of mainstream rock & metal fans still perceive Sabbath's sound (as well as the style of their proto-metal contemporaries such as Music/BlueCheer, Music/DeepPurple, and Music/LedZeppelin) as EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.
[[/folder]]

** First, they were originally a "punk" band (or whatever the late '50s/early '60s equivalent of punk was) who had much shorter hair than we remember; sported leather jackets; performed in a surly, indifferent manner; ate fried chicken onstage (leaving the bones behind them); and sneered at the audience. In general, they were probably more performance artists than musicians in those days.

!!Music formats:

[[folder:Music Formats]]
* Compact Cassettes went through a good deal of evolution on their way to late 20th century ubiquity.
** The format was originally for dictation and amateur home recordings instead of music. Early recorders were mono and had no noise reduction, with the latter being invented in the late 1960s and introduced in high-end stereo decks around the start of the 1970s along with improved tape formulations, leading to cassettes emerging as an alternative to vinyl records for home listening by the late '70s.
** 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 emerging. These became mostly standard for cassette releases after the early 1980s, when cassette sales overtook vinyl.
** Another carryover from 8-tracks was the idea of an endless loop of music, albeit with the same sequence on the LP, which on cassette was achieved simply by recording the entire album on both sides and playing it in an auto-reversing deck or just flipping the tape in a deck that didn't auto-reverse. Some early Music/{{U2}} cassette releases used this method, including ''Music/WarU2Album''.
* Like cassettes, the UsefulNotes/CompactDisc format was a much different beast in its early phases, stretching back to before it even made its official debut.
** Prototype [=CDs=] took more after the vinyl records that they were made to supplant, featuring small, standardized labels in the hub area and LP-style pressboard sleeves; the official launch of the format would switch over to the more ubiquitous jewel cases, designed after the ones used for cassettes (though "mini LP" packaging would later catch on as a novel alternative).
** From the format's launch up until the turn of the '90s, it was most common for [=CDs=] to still use standardized labels (occupying the whole of the disc face this time) thanks to silkscreen technology at the time only being able to accommodate one to three colors. Custom labels would be experimented with as soon as 1984, but it would take until the early 90's for most labels to phase out the standardized ones entirely (outside of re-pressings, CD singles, and promotional releases).
** Early [=CDs=] also tended to have mirror bands, thin blank areas at or near the rim of a disc that provided a pure mirror effect; mostly this just served to give an extra aesthetic touch during the era of generic label designs. Since this took up usable space, [=CDs=] that clocked in at an hour or more would downsize or omit them. The mirror band was mostly phased out by 1993 thanks to a mix of custom labels becoming dominant, albums growing long enough to use most of the space on a disc, and it simply being easier to manufacture discs without the mirror bands.
** 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 as well as 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.
** Early double-CD sets used to come in either two individual cases stacked in a single longbox or a single fatbox. The former was phased out with the longbox, while the latter was supplanted by the advent of standard-sized cases with hinged trays (though fatboxes remain in place for releases of 3 or more [=CDs=], assuming a digipak, digisleeve, or BoxedSet isn't used instead). Some releases both then and now feature individual cases in a single horizontal slipcase or just shrink-wrapped together, but these are comparatively rare.
** Double-LP albums that exceeded a CD's original 74-minute runtime -- or in more severe cases, [=PolyGram's=] 65-minute limit (as the 74-minute size was a last-minute expansion by Sony) -- used to either [[ReCut edit down or remove tracks]]. Creator/WarnerMusicGroup and Creator/VirginRecords, both frequent clients of [=PolyGram=] during the first half of the '80s, were serial offenders, where most other labels simply issued double-CD sets of double albums that didn't fit on one CD. This practice mostly died out after 80-minute [=CDs=] became widely available in the late '80s, though albums that still surpass ''that'' might rarely see edits. By that time, the commercial viablility of the CD format was more than proven, meaning that multi-disc sets weren't seen as much of a commercial risk as they were when the CD first launched.
** [=CDs=] were originally designed with the ability to subdivide tracks into segments via an index-marking feature, mainly to distinguish movements in ClassicalMusic releases. A few early releases on the format included this feature, both classical and non-classical (e.g. the first CD release of Music/PinkFloyd's ''Music/{{Wish You Were Here|1975}}'' as part of the format's launch lineup in 1982, where each side of the LP was one twentysomething-minute track subdivided into the individual songs via index markers), but compatibility was quickly dropped from CD players afterward thanks to it being much simpler to just sequence tracks as SiameseTwinSongs.
** From the format's launch through the early '90s, the back covers of CD releases carried three-letter SPARS (Society of Professional Audio Recording Services) codes indicating whether an album was recorded, mixed, or mastered on analog ("A") or digital ("D") equipment.[[note]]Since [=CDs=] are digital, they are all "digitally mastered." Certain cassette and LP releases featured "AAA" SPARS codes, but these are scarce compared to the ones that lacked codes altogether.[[/note]] This practice was also abandoned in the mid-90s outside of an increasingly small handful of labels; by then, digital recording became more widespread, SPARS themselves realized that the codes oversimplified the production process, and record companies realized that no one really cared except for audiophiles.
* Even vinyl records went through this:
** The earliest vinyl records were actually 78 rpm ones, replacing prior shellac discs due to the latter material becoming scarce during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Most of these were for V-Discs issued to the Armed Forces, though they later lingered around during and after the rise of their 12" and 7" successors, first for people who couldn't afford to upgrade their sets and then as novelty releases. Before the war, vinyl had also been the standard for radio transcription discs.
** The earliest pop music LP records were 10" discs, matching the size of their 78 rpm counterparts, and featured much greater gaps between tracks, while 12" discs were marketed to classical listeners. The assumption was that popular music listeners would prefer shorter albums, but they increasingly demanded more music on [=LPs=] like classical listeners had. In order to maximize the amount of music that could be included, the 10" discs were phased out in favor of 12" discs, and between-track gaps became far smaller.
** Creator/RCARecords introduced the 7", 45 rpm record as a competitor to Creator/ColumbiaRecords' LP (incidentally a successor to RCA's failed experiments with long-playing discs) in 1949; an album comprised several discs similarly to the 78 rpm albums that already existed. RCA relegated the 7" format to singles after it became clear that record buyers overwhelmingly preferred LP albums because they only needed one disc.
[[/folder]]

* 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 were written for the purpose of shock value instead of actually depicting the band's beliefs.

* DeathMetal: the earliest examples of the genre could more accurately be described as very heavy ThrashMetal. The music isn't quite as aggressive and technically demanding, and the vocals are raspy shouts and snarls instead of the "cookie monster" growls normally associated with the genre. Music/{{Death}}'s 'Scream Bloody Gore'' is frequently pointed to as the point where death metal began to separate from thrash and become its own genre, and Music/MorbidAngel and Music/{{Deicide}} further refined the style.

* Dualtone Records was originally a country music label, having released albums by David Ball, [=McBride=] & the Ride, Radney Foster, and Music/ChelyWright among others; their first chart hit was Ball's late-2001 single "Riding with Private Malone". Over time, the country artists were replaced by more folk artists such as Shovels & Rope and The Lumineers.

* ''Give 'Em The Boot'', a series of PunkRock, HardcorePunk, and {{Ska}} compilations put out by Hellcat Records, had an IdiosyncraticCoverArt theme that only started with ''Give 'Em The Boot II'': Every album after the first looks identical except for color schemes and a roman numeral under the title. ''Give 'Em The Boot II'' itself is the only volume to have an AlbumIntroTrack, namely a stock sound effect of a yowling cat to go with the name of the record label.

* The Hellacopters: The Swedish rock band were clearly rawer and angrier on their first two albums ''Supershitty to the Max!'' and ''Payin' the Dues'', garage punk albums with a clear Music/TheStooges and Music/{{MC5}} influence. In ''Grande Rock'' onwards, vocalist Nicke Andersson shifted to a more melodic singing style, with the band transitioning from pure garage rockers to a garage-influenced, yet melodic hard rock band.

* Music/FaithNoMore's earliest material had a sound more oriented towards post-punk, back when Chuck Mosely was the vocalist. By their third studio album ''The Real Thing''(also their first one with Mike Patton), all the post-punk elements were shed.

* HeavyMetal as a whole can be considered to have this, at least for the mainstream. One of the most well known traits of heavy metal music is that of blistering speed and a sense of power & guitar virtuosity, and it's something that metal artists since the late 1970s were championing as one of the best aspects of the genre. Yet the band considered to have kickstarted metal music, Music/BlackSabbath, is near universally known for how ''slow'' and ''gloomy'' their music was (a trait which made them extraordinarily popular in the PunkRock and [[AlternativeRock 80s alternative]] underground). These elements in their music, along with their downer and much more personal lyrical themes (at least compared to what was standard for heavy metal in the '80s), helped give rise to DoomMetal and even {{Grunge}} to an extent, but until these came about, "slow-tempo heavy metal" would've been seen as an oxymoron save for GlamMetal power ballads or deliberately "Sabbath-esque" songs from non-doom metal bands— and because DoomMetal has never had a large mainstream presence, a very sizable number of mainstream rock & metal fans still perceive Sabbath's sound (as well as the style of their proto-metal contemporaries such as Music/BlueCheer, Music/DeepPurple, and Music/LedZeppelin) as EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.

* Music/TheHumanLeague were one of several bands who pioneered dark SynthPop, recording two very dark albums, ''Reproduction'' and ''Music/{{Travelogue}}''. A few years later, they dropped two of their original members, hired two female vocalists and gradually began turning into a pop-disco band, the most infamous example being ''Crash''. They were eventually ridiculed for their change in sound and have begun re-embracing their old style. It should be noted that the two members who left the original lineup (Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh) were those who formed the band originally, but quit due to CreativeDifferences with the singer they hired (Phil Oakey). As a result, they formed the band Music/Heaven17 with the singer they originally intended for the Human League (Glenn Gregory), so it turned out alright for them too.

* Music/IllNino has always been a metal band about evolution, but if you're familiar with their discography's second half, their first few albums will sound absolutely ''jarring''. Seriously, compare [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1nLow0txY All the Right Words]] to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxnbSBynn0Q La Epidemia]]. It's like hearing Linkin Park turn into All Shall Perish. The difference is absolutely staggering.

* Music/InThisMoment: Comparing their older music videos and their future ones is especially jarring. Compare [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uakxkjYMDI The Promise]] from 2010 and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WwRb6flzHI Beautiful Tragedy]] from 2011 to 2014's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-qQ_brIsfY Big Bad Wolf]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03X0B6u-AxM Sick Like Me]]. Their sound and especially music videos make them seem like two different bands. Their older videos were far less theatric and their songs more subdued sounding.
* Series/ImaginationMovers: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUOSFBp2SHA The original 2003 incarnation]] certainly was a lot... stranger.

* 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.
* For decades, Music/JeanMichelJarre [[OldShame pretended that he had had no releases prior to his break-through album]] ''Music/{{Oxygene}}''. Anything he had made before 1976, be it as himself, be it under [[IHaveManyNames various guises]], was never re-released until Francis Dreyfus released the 1973 soundtrack to ''Les Granges Brûlées'' on CD, which he owned the rights to, to cash in on the fans who were paying [[CrackIsCheaper ridiculous sums]] for Jarre's early works. It wasn't until the 2010s that Jarre started putting pre-''Music/{{Oxygene}}'' material such as the extremely rare "La Cage"/"Erosmachine" single from 1971 on [[GreatestHitsAlbum compilations]].\\

* Music/{{Kraftwerk}} started as a fairly conventional KrautRock band, with guitar, drums, bass and flute, even releasing three albums (''[[SelfTitledAlbum Kraftwerk]]'', ''Kraftwerk 2'' and ''Ralf & Florian''). In 1973, the band bosses Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben fired their guitarist Michael Rother and their drummer Klaus Dinger due to their constant arguing, and so they were down to synthesizers plus Florian's flutes. As a replacement drummer, they hired the percussionist Wolfgang Flür, but since neither he nor Kraftwerk had a drum kit, they built an electronic one, thus becoming the world's first mostly and later fully electronic band. ''Music/{{Autobahn}}'', recorded in 1973 and released in early 1974, was so revolutionary for not only the music scene, but also Kraftwerk themselves, that [[CanonDiscontinuity they refused to re-release their KrautRock albums, which therefore have never become available on CD, and still pretend these albums were never made]] in order not to taint their reputation as the SynthPop pioneers.

* Music/{{Maroon 5}}'s early stuff has a bit more soul/jazz influence. Website/ThatOtherWiki lists one of the genres for their debut ''Songs About Jane'' as "blue-eyed soul". If you listen to the demo versions of "Harder to Breathe" and "Sunday Morning" (released as part of the 10th anniversary edition of ''Songs About Jane''), the R&B influence is even more evident. Their later albums are almost completely pop-rock and, starting with ''Overexposed'', electropop. The band started out as a Music/{{Jellyfish}}-like PowerPop ''quartet'' called Kara's Flowers in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990s]], with Adam Levine as the band's sole guitarist.

* Before Music/AlanisMorissette broke out with ''Jagged Little Pill'', she was a teenage pop sensation in her native Canada producing music reminiscent of Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson, complete with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=175&v=TrWzKmhoA44&feature=emb_logo big hair and choreography]].

* Compared to the later albums that Music/NewOrder would produce, their debut album ''Music/{{Movement}}'' is a bleak PostPunk tone not unlike their Music/JoyDivision output, with synthesizers playing a lesser part in the sound than it would on the band's later material. There is a reason to this disparity, however: during the making of ''Movement'', the band was aiming to try and continue the sound that they had developed in Joy Division, but after the album was released to a mixed reception, they opted to [[GenreShift shift away from the sound completely]] from ''Music/PowerCorruptionAndLies'' onwards, resulting in the AlternativeDance sound that would help them break out of Joy Division's shadow.

* Orchestral Manœuvres in the Dark: Listening to their self-titled album for the first time is a strange experience for anyone used to the band's later work. It sounds like Seventies German techno rather than Eighties British synthpop. Even the album version of "Messages" is jarringly different from the later recording that became a hit single.

** If you believe Pantera's official website, their first release ''was'' ''Cowboys from Hell''. [[OldShame Their early works aren't even listed]].
** While the glam-metal era is a no-brainer, the canon release ''Cowboys From Hell'', while it does have a few songs that are lyrically heavy, is a lot more fun and wild than their later albums (compare the title track for instance to anything out of ''Vulgar Display''). Also Phil Anselmo's vocal-style was a lot more melodic on his first two albums with the group, from "Vulgar Display" onwards Phil's vocals were much louder and more aggressive with more shout-screaming and very little in the way of clean vocals.

* Music/{{Seal}}'s {{SelfTitled|Album}} debut album has more of an electronic sound compared to his later albums, which are straight {{Pop}}. This is probably unsurprising, given Music/TrevorHorn's involvement. This also extends to Seal's appearance, as he had dreadlocks [[ImportantHaircut before he shaved his head]].

* Music/{{JohnPhilipSousa}}:
** Most of Sousa's early marches (from 1873 to 1885 lack the break or "dogfight" strain.

* Music/StoneTemplePilots were one of the biggest alternative acts of the 1990s, but their debut album ''Core'' has a HeavyMetal sound and marketed as such[[note]]all of their albums [[NewSoundAlbum sound different from the last]], but this one is the most out-of-place in the discography[[/note]]. Released in 1992, ''Core'' was initially lambasted by critics for being derivative of bands like Music/AliceInChains from the then-huge [[{{Grunge}} grunge metal]] scene. Fans of 1996's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds_43MdYiuQ Lady Picture Show]]" may be surprised to hear "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hhu-OyHqZM Sex Type Thing]]", the band's debut single, for the first time. Also, it was in the 1996 album ''Tiny Music'' where Scott Weiland arguably found his own voice as a singer, almost completely [[VocalEvolution eschewing the yarling grunge baritone]] going forward. It gets weirder; the band started out in the late 80s as a ''{{Funk}} band'' called Mighty Joe Young, and then Shirley Temple's Pussy until the name was [[{{Bowdlerise}} censored]] to their current name.

* Music/{{Stuck Mojo}} (a rap metal band from Atlanta GA) achieved most of what infamy they had based on being unapologetically pro-American, starting with their third album ''Rising'' (which was promoted by Turner Broadcasting and featured the Wrestling/{{WCW}} United States Championship Belt on the cover). They'd later get mainstream attention for their fourth album ''Southern Born Killers'', which featured the pro-American "I'm American" and the pro-war anti-Islamic-millitant "Open Season". So it might surprise fans of their later work to see a song like "Uncle Sam Scam" and other leftist politically charged songs on their first two albums.

* ''Super Eurobeat'': The {{Eurobeat}} compilation series was, for its first ten installments, [[NonIndicativeName actually a compilation of Italo-disco]], a predecessor genre to Eurobeat that is much slower and more serious.
* Music/{{Swans}}: The 1982 self-titled debut EP is vaguely creepy, saxophone-laced PostPunk with a pronounced No Wave influence; their first LP, 1983's ''Filth'', is far harsher, not unlike some sort of primitive hybrid of {{Industrial}} and HardcorePunk. It is also far more unsettling. And then there's their second LP, 1984's ''Cop''. "Brutal" does not begin to describe it.

* Ted Leo & The Pharmacists: Their first album was a lo-fi, dub-inspired 19-song album released in 1999 titled "tej leo (?), rx/pharmacists" on Gern Blandsten Records. It isn't fully considered a TL/RX project since it was mainly just Ted Leo and a friend, Jodi Buonanno. Several of the songs were built off samples, something the band in the future wouldn't revisit as a whole. The lengthy tracklist is partly due to short interludes like "Version: (To Decline to Take a Shower)", which is a snippet of Ted singing acapella inside a shower, taking up the bulk of the songs. Fans have tended to not like this album very much in contrast to the band's future work 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.

* Music/{{Seal}}'s SelfTitled debut album has more of an electronic sound compared to his later albums, which are straight {{Pop}}. This is probably unsurprising, given Music/TrevorHorn's involvement. This also extends to Seal's appearance, as he had dreadlocks [[ImportantHaircut before he shaved his head]].

* Music/{{Metric}}: When they first formed in 1998, they had a different stage name (Mainstream) and very different musical output compared to their later releases. The "Mainstream" EP had little to none of the signature sound the group would codify on "Static Anonymity" and "Old World Underground", was much more downtempo and electronica-based, and didn't have supporting bandmates Joules Scott-Key and Joshua Winstead (they hadn't joined the band yet).

* Music/AphroditesChild are mainly known for their double ConceptAlbum ''[[NumberOfTheBeast 666]]'', completely composed by their percussionist and keyboarder Music/{{Vangelis}} Papathanassiou, an early ProgRock album which spent several years in DevelopmentHell. Before ''666'', however, they made two albums that sound vastly different. They can be described as "vaguely psychedelic pop, but so kitschy it borders on schlager".

** The unexpected success of early single "Cooky Puss" was what eventually led them to start performing hip-hop, but even that release was pretty far from what they'd sound like on their first full album: The title song was a parody of instrumental breakdance music, with the group's voices mainly being heard in the form of crank-calls to a Carvel restaurant and [[{{sampling}} samples from their previous hardcore punk songs]]; the only b-side that wasn't a "Cooky Puss" remix was "Beastie Revolution", a dub reggae jam [[note]]the liner notes to the ''Some Old Bullshit'' compilation explain that for these sessions, they ended up in a studio normally used for commercial jingles and couldn't get their punk songs to sound the way they wanted with the equipment provided, so they just started messing around with other styles[[/note]].

** 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 (as was typical of A-A-B-A structure), 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".

* ''LetsPlay/CaptainSparklez''' Fallen Kingdom series of songs begins with the self-titled "Fallen Kingdom", which is a cover of Music/{{Coldplay}}'s "Viva La Vida" with different lyrics. The rest of the series consists of original songs.

** Even their sound was different early on. On the first two albums, Lynn Bellmore (then under her maiden name Lynn Anderson, and not the same woman who sang "Rose Garden") largely plays an analog synthesizer instead of more traditional keyboards. "Last Frontier", the opening track to ''Culture Shock'', even has a drum machine! [[ThePeteBest Original bassist Jim Pennell]] gets two turns on lead vocal, singing "Smeltin' USA" on ''Yoopanese'' and "Chicquito War" on ''Culture Shock''. Pennell's short-lived replacement, Joe [=DeLongchamp=], sang and wrote the title track to ''Camp Fever''. Finally, most of the second halves of ''Culture Shock'' and ''Camp Fever'', even beyond the folk song covers, rely on "folksy" instrumentation such as jugs, spoons, washboards, and gutbucket bass (interestingly, this includes the SignatureSong "Second Week of Deer Camp" from the former). By ''Yoop It Up'', their sound was almost fully established.

* Music/RonnieJamesDio is best known for his work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio, but he initially started out in the late 1950s... as a teeny-bopper doo-wop musician. His work with Ronnie and The Red Caps and Ronnie Dio and The Prophets is vastly different from anything he would spend the majority of his career on, with the former band cranking out this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRSMAx_X8Xg Bobby Darin-esque number]] from 1960. Ronnie and the Prophets, on the other hand, were dangerously close to Lou Christie territory with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWJucJ4BSdQ this particular song from 1967]]. Even Dio's pre-Rainbow band Elf was more hard rock than heavy metal, as evidenced by this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqHzPgpp3RY cover of The Faces' "Stay With Me".]]

* Eisenfunk: The Industrial/EBM band's self-titled first album was nothing special compared to other bands. The only thing that distinguished them from others was the heavy use of electronic music and sampling. In their next album, 8-Bit, they kept the electronic music but overhauled everything else, becoming much LighterAndSofter ([[RuleOfFunny and humorous]]) and incorporating numerous references to [[JustForFun/OneOfUs geekdom]]. It was these changes that made them well known. Their third album, Pentafunk stayed the course (for most part), leaving Eisenfunk as the odd ball album.

* Glenn Frey: As a Michigan teen in the mid-'60s, he played with the Mushrooms, faking an English accent in their song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sejypeDSfv8 "Such a Lovely Child"]]. Meanwhile, in Texas, Don Henley was lead singer and drummer for Felicity, his voice instantly recognizable in songs like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4WLXVTf2nY "Hurtin'"]]. Either way, it's a far cry from what they'd put out as members/creative leaders of Music/{{Eagles}}.

* Music/DeltaGoodrem's first single ("I Don't Care") and the first two videos she recorded were decidedly pop to take advantage of the trend of the time. It was 2001 and she was finding her feet, but contrast incredibly with her Innocent Eyes and Mistaken Identity albums, which are Singer/Songwriter and extremely autobiographical.

* 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 ''Made In Japan'' 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/TheBeeGees While their legacy will always be known as one of of the biggest disco bands ever, the Bee Gees started with a more folk rock, vocal harmony sound that was more along the lines of ''The Beatles''. Then they entered the latter half of the 60s as a five-piece, producing psychedelic BaroquePop.

* Music/BigAndRich: Before the band was founded, members Big Kenny and John Rich cut solo albums (which went unreleased until 2005). Although Big & Rich's music was silly, fun country-rock with some rap, Big Kenny's solo album was more indebted to synthpop and psychedelic rock, and John Rich's was largely slick commercial late-90s country-pop outside a few tracks like "She Brings the Lightning Down" that hinted at the lavishness of Big & Rich.

* Music/GreenDay's first two albums were recorded at indie label Lookout! Records, and feature a noticeable lack of polish than their later albums. ''39/Smooth'' also featured their original drummer John Kiffmeyer rather than Tré Cool, who'd join Billie and Mike on ''Kerplunk'' when Kiffmeyer left the band to go to college. They also feature a more straight Punk sound than they're usually known for. Their third album ''Music/{{Dookie}}'', which was more polished and contained stronger hooks than the last two, became a giant hit and revolutionized what we call PopPunk nowadays. After that, the rest of their 90s output into ''Warning'' went either darker or experimental. Hell, ''Warning'' was their most Pop-friendly album at that point, and even features plenty of Folk elements. It was only when they lost the master tapes to ''Cigarettes and Valentines'' that was supposed to bring them back to how they used to be that they decided to produce their magnum opus, ''American Idiot'', and reinvented themselves with a more political edge and RockOpera tendencies, which they continued into their next album before producing the ''Uno... Dos... Tré!'' trilogy to try again to hearken back to what they used to be, then decided to mix the main elements of their best albums to produce ''Revolution Radio'', which has a good mix of both political and non-political songs.
* Music/EllieGoulding is well known for her well-polished brand of SynthPop and general ElectronicMusic. However, her debut album ''Lights'' was much less professionally produced, and more along the lines of indietronica. Also, there were prominent folk influences that never show up today.

* Music/{{Kraftwerk}} started as a fairly conventional KrautRock band, with guitar, drums, bass and flute, even releasing three albums (''[[SelfTitledAlbum Kraftwerk]]'', ''Kraftwerk 2'' and ''Ralf & Florian''). In 1973, the band bosses Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben fired their guitarist Michael Rother and their drummer Klaus Dinger due to their constant arguing, and so they were down to synthesizers plus Florian's flutes. As a replacement drummer, they hired the percussionist Wolfgang Flür, but since neither he nor Kraftwerk had a drum kit, they built an electronic one, thus becoming the world's first mostly and later fully electronic band. ''Music/{{Autobahn}}'', recorded in 1973 and released in early 1974, was so revolutionary for not only the music scene, but also Kraftwerk themselves, that [[OldShame they refused to re-release their KrautRock albums, which therefore have never become available on CD, and still pretend these albums were never made]] in order not to taint their reputation as the SynthPop pioneers.

** It wasn't so much that ''The Fame'' was out-of-place so much as just... ''different'' from her next two releases. ''The Fame Monster'' was intentionally different, and ''Born This Way'' mostly continued the "darker and edgier" style mentioned above. From there on out, fans just sort of expected this to be her style (particularly ''Born this Way'', as it was largely devoid of the "fun" songs prevalent throughout ''The Fame'', instead going for a more serious approach). In any case, the fans expecting this to be Gaga's permanent style was more of a knee jerk reaction to a singer whose career was still relatively young.
** To the surprise of some fans, ''ARTPOP'' ended up largely going back to ''The Fame''[='s=] style with the varying genres and electropop overtones (though not without plenty of vibes unique to ''ARTPOP''). The sculpture of Gaga featured on the cover art even sports the signature fringe bangs she had in her outfits for ''The Fame''.

* Music/LinkinPark, in their ''Music/HybridTheory'' EP era circa 1998-99, had a fairly creepy and somber sound with somewhat less conventional song structures than their next two albums (before they switched to U2-like alt-rock and then to an indietronica sound).

* Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}' musical output was very different in their early years, especially for fans who only know of them based on their last two-three decades of work. [[Music/TheRollingStones1964 Their self-titled debut]] from 1964 consisted almost entirely of covers (with one original song written by Jagger/Richards), and was heavily R&B-oriented. Their debut tour in the United States was a disaster - television hosts made fun of them for dressing as a ripoff of other successful [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]] groups like Music/TheBeatles, and their former manager/publicist Andrew Oldham removed at least one man from the group (including future Stones roadie and session pianist Ian Stewart) because they did not fit the mould of "thin, long-haired boys" wearing identical suits. It was only on 1966's ''Music/AftermathAlbum'' that the group began to codify their signature sound, not only making the songs much more otherworldly and [[DarkerAndEdgier darker]], but unintentionally ditching the "boy band" image. Also, they became more [[IntercourseWithYou sexual]] than The Beatles.

* Music/ScatmanJohn's first album, under his real name of John Larkin, was more straightforward piano-driven jazz, as opposed to the eurodance-scat mix sound he pursued starting with "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)".

* Music/TheSweet: The British glam rock band had their first major U.S. hit was 1973's "Little Willy," which was overtly bubblegum music, despite its rough power chord and distorted guitar sound. Although it bridged their musical styling, from pop rock to more hard rock, members of the band have tried – unsuccessfully – to distance themselves from the song, preferring output such as their hard rock songs "Ballroom Blitz," "Fox on the Run" and "Love is Like Oxygen." However, to this day, "Little Willy" remains their biggest U.S. hit and gets more airplay than their last two American hits combined, and considerably more than "Ballroom Blitz" (although "Blitz" is of course the cult favorite).

* While Music/LouisArmstrong's influence on {{jazz}} is undeniable, most audiences are familiar with his '50s/'60s crooner-era where he mostly sang crossover traditional pop and R&B ballads; his trumpet solos during this era also tended to be slower and simpler. It can be quite a shock for these audiences to listen to his more acclaimed '20s/'30s work, where he played fast-paced Dixieland jazz, mostly playing instrumentals with an occasional vocal here or two. His trumpet and cornet playing was also a lot faster and more intense around this period.

* 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/{{Seal}} Seal's]] SelfTitled debut album has more of a SynthPop sound compared to his later albums, which are straight {{Pop}}. This is probably unsurprising, given [[Music/TrevorHorn Trevor Horn's]] involvement. This also extends to Seal's appearance, as he had dreadlocks [[ImportantHaircut before he started shaving his head]].