LogFAQs > #967542244

Black_Crusher posted...

it's probably impossible to sound exactly the same from album to album, as people might tend to get burnt out on them and then your career isn't quite as long!

Never mind the audience, the band itself would probably get burned out trying to sound exactly the same and never really evolving.

But that's the main key to why bands change their sound over time. Because the people in the band change. Martin at age 20 is not the same man he was at 30, or 40, or 50 (or 61 today). He's not going to write the same sorts of songs while in the depths of his alcoholic period as he would when completely sober. He's going to have a different view of the world as a young punk trying to establish an identity than he will as an adult with multiple kids and a 40-year legacy as part of one of the world's most famous bands (especially in Europe). Alan Wilder offering ideas when he was part of the band is going to help create a different sound than after he's gone. Dave's own interests and influences may lead to him offering advice or creative input. As the band goes from being influenced by the people who came before them to blatantly influencing tons of people who came after them, their own sound is going to evolve simply by virtue of the world they exist in.

Bands that sound the same album after album are almost certainly trying to just make the same songs over and over again (because it was succcesful for them before) rather than writing and performing what actually interests them. Which is why so many bands like that tend to burn out or fade away.



Black_Crusher posted...

One thing about the band is sometimes trying to find the right mix of a song, since there are so many of them. A great example would be the video version of In Your Room, which is far superior to the album version

Absolutely - I definitely prefer the Zephyr Mix to the album version. Helped by the fact that it was remixed by Garbage (and I was a fan of that band at the time as well).

It's one of the reasons why I posted the Some Bizarre Album version of Photographic up there - not only is it essentially their official "first" song (it was released before their debut album), but the album version of it is significantly different. Compare the two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkKueyJaA0A

That was one of the advantages of getting all the singles - most of them come with B-sides. A bunch of them are remix versions of album songs.

Of course, the other advantage to the singles is that some of them have entirely new songs that don't show up on the albums at all. Some of which are really, really good. Dangerous and Sea of Sin could easily have been on Violator, for instance (and honestly, I prefer them to some of the songs that were on the album).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LHuEvw56F8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPb-59BPHAk