Last week, legendary Outkast MC Andre 3000 made headlines and turned heads when he released his first record in over fifteen years in the form of a 90-minute instrumental space-jazz record.

While this is certainly a huge departure from what we’ve come to expect from Mr. 3000, there is a long history of artists bucking their audience’s expectations in favor of chasing a new musical muse. Sometimes, the gamble pays off, like when Radiohead rejected the mantle of the World’s Best Rock Band to create the largely electronic Kid A, regarded by many to be one of the best records of all time. Other times, it doesn’t—like Machine Gun Kelly trading his by-the-numbers mumble rap for by-the-numbers pop punk.

Below, we’ve compiled some of the most drastic artistic shifts in music history—for better or worse.

Miles Davis Invents Ambient Music

Miles Davis is synonymous with jazz. Ask any non-jazz fan to name a jazz musician and he’ll likely be named a majority of the time. His career was filled with monumental shifts that left massive impacts on the music world as a whole, from founding cool jazz in the 1950s to jazz fusion in the ’70s.

But the most seismic of these shifts was likely 1969’s In a Silent Way, the first record in his Electric Period that would also include Bitches Brew and On the Corner. But unlike the feral energy of those records, In a Silent Way is sublimely minimalist. He instructed his band—which included other jazz greats like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and John McLaughlin—to play like they didn’t know how to work their instruments. The chord progressions bloom across several minutes, creating a record that would go on to inspire artists like Brian Eno and Philip Glass to pioneer ambient music. As far as artistic changes go, this is one of the most revered.

It was certainly better received than his later experiments with hip-hop, anyway.

Paul McCartney Gets Weird

After years of being pigeonholed as the Poppy Beatle (did they never hear “Helter Skelter”? “Happiness Is a Warm Gun?”), Sir Paul decided to spend the first few years as a solo act dispelling that notion. His first record, McCartney, is a collection of home-recorded experiments that were as weird as they were charming (exception being the perennial love song “Maybe I’m Amazed”). He followed it with Ram, a rambling journey through psychedelic, blues pastiche, country, whatever “Monkberry Moon Delight” is, and a few moments that rivaled his most ambitious Beatles orchestrations.

While neither album was as weird as John’s involvement with Yoko or George’s all-Moog record, they’re at least listenable, and they would have a huge influence on what would become lo-fi and indie rock.

Mount Eerie Discovers Black Metal

After putting The Microphones on hiatus to launch Mount Eerie, it seemed that Phil Elverum’s sights were set on quiet lo-fi folk. That is, until he got into Xasthur. Elverum became fascinated with black metal and started experimenting with using the genre’s textural maximalism as a color in his sonic palette.

The resulting album, Wind’s Poem, is far from a black metal record in itself, but he does copy their notes at several times. Blasts of distorted guitar and multi-tracked full-kit drum rolls are used almost like one might use synth pads, plunging his quiet indie folk in a disquieting atmosphere that is unlike any record I’ve ever heard. While Mount Eerie would never get quite as dark as this again, it did win him a ton of fans from within the metal community.

Blink-182 Grows Up (Kinda)

Mark Hoppus was already writing songs about being too old for Blink’s schtick years before they released an album called Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. But, he was always the old man of the group. So once the rest of the guys had the same crisis, they turned down their amps, crossed out the dick jokes, and made an honest-to-goodness mature record.

Without their unmistakable voices, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Untitled is the work of a different band entirely. Songs are slower and more serious, guitars are often clean instead of distorted, overdubs are used liberally…even Robert Smith shows up! While the record was divisive among critics and longtime fans, it spawned one of their biggest hits in “Miss You” and became a beloved record for a large portion of their fanbase.

Thrice Frontman Records a Worship Record

Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue had never been shy about his faith. Religious references had marked his songwriting all the way back to Identity Crisis, with songs like “Anthology” and “Come All You Weary” being so overt you’d have to be blind to miss the clues. He had also spent many of those years as a worship leader in different churches, eventually writing a full album of worship songs (and one Thrice outtake) in The Water and the Blood.

While a worship record might not be out of character for Kensrue, it was met with confusion from fans and the press, many of whom tried to treat it like his previous solo records. The confusion ended up being widespread enough that Kensrue rereleased the album under the name The Modern Post.

The Smashing Pumpkins Quiet Down

After establishing themselves as demigods in the 90s alt-rock scene with three incredible guitar records and a B-side collection, The Smashing Pumpkins fired drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. With fans wondering how they would fill his massive drum sound to accompany their enormous guitar sound, Billy Corgan announced that they were writing a techno record.

They didn’t, but that didn’t keep Adore from being a massive departure, utilizing drum machines and samples in place of a drum kit. The change also brought a shift in their guitar sound, which was almost entirely bereft of the Big Muff fuzz guitar sound they helped popularize, and an increased use of keyboards.

Granted, the Pumpkins had used these sounds plenty on the gentler songs on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. But where that record punctuated these more tranquil moments with some of their most ferocious riffs, Adore stretched that mood into an entire record. Unsurprisingly, it remains their most divisive record.

For his own part, Billy Corgan has since regretted calling it a techno record, and says if they called it an unplugged record, it would have been better received.

Explosions in the Sky Goes Electronica

Few bands have done more for cinematic, guitar-based post rock (or crescendocore, if you’re feeling snarky) than Explosions in the Sky. From the moment of their debut, their effects-pedal heavy triple-guitar arrangements and extended, swelling songwriting became the Platonic ideal of emotional post rock. Beyond the popularity of their studio records, they were also tapped to make a number of high-profile soundtracks—most notably the 2004 football drama Friday Night Lights.

But on their seventh record, The Wilderness, things took a massive turn. While they had always had keyboards and electronics augmenting their guitar work, The Wilderness sort of reversed their usual palette. The record was primarily electronic, with guitars and drum kits filling out the synths and drum machines rather than the other way around. Additionally, their songs were far less meandering, with only one song stretching beyond seven minutes.

Despite the radical shift in sounds, Explosions in the Sky proved that they were still masters of mood. The songwriting was unmistakably EiTS, regardless of the instrumentation. The result was their freshest album in almost a decade.

The Beach Boys Leave the Beach

No band is as synonymous with surf rock as the Beach Boys. Songs like “Surfin’ USA,” “Surfin’ Safari,” “California Girls,” and more were huge hits, with their huge harmonies shooting to the top of the charts both in the US and abroad. But after principal songwriter Brian Wilson heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, it was like he had a religious awakening. He stopped touring with the band and dedicated himself to writing the greatest record of all time.

The resulting album, Pet Sounds, might be just that. While their trademark harmonies are still ever-present (thankfully), that’s about the only recognizable element. The guitar-based accompaniment that had marked their earlier work was replaced by a full orchestra. Rock and roll songs about girls and surfing and surfing girls were replaced by chamber pop opuses about existential dread—and girls, still.

Pet Sounds was an instant hit, and gave Paul McCartney the same reaction that Wilson had to Rubber Soul, eventually inspiring the Beatles to write their own opus in Sergeant Pepper. Sadly, Wilson would suffer a nervous breakdown trying to follow it up. Even today, it’s still regarded as one of the finest albums ever put to tape.

Wolves in the Throne Room Take a Massive Chill Pill

Olympia, Washington duo Wolves in the Throne Room have been standard bearers of post black metal since their debut record Diadem of Twelve Stars. From the beginning, they had created their trademark sound by blending atmospheric black metal with bits of folk and Dead Can Dance-esque goth. Their 2011 record Celestial Lineage perfected this marriage, offering a record that was as tranquil as it was brutal.

Its follow up scratched some heads, though. 2014’s Celestite marketed itself as a companion to Celestial Lineage, but it instead offered a closer examination of the atmospherics floating beneath the churning guitars and blast beats. The resulting album was a work of drone and dark ambient that was far closer to Tangerine Dream or Hammock than it was black metal.

It’s a fine experiment, for sure, but releasing it as a standalone record turned some heads—especially among newer fans who found WitTM in the fallout of Deafheaven’s Sunbather, which brought throngs of new fans to black metal’s more experimental bands. That said, it was a brief detour, and Wolves in the Throne Room returned to their signature metallic sound on subsequent albums.

The Cure Goes Pop

Despite their objection to the label, The Cure were major players in the goth movement of the ’80s thanks to their three-album run of Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography. That trio of LPs trafficked heavily in isolation and misery, offering very little levity and giving the group a reputation for being dark and dour. 1984’s The Top introduced more psychedelic elements, but it did little to change the group’s image.

But then, Robert Smith got tired of being pigeonholed and turned the group in a different direction. 1985’s The Head on the Door often sounded like the work of another band entirely, with tracks like “In Between Days” and “Close To Me” offering some of the most infectious hooks and danceable beats this side of New Order. “Push” felt more like Van Halen or Journey than the band that wrote “A Forest.” There was also a wry humor in tracks like “The Blood” and Six Different Ways” that rejected the reputation they had been saddled with.

The shift paid off in a big way. They reached the top ten in their native UK and broke into the American market in a big way. It also kickstarted as successful a four-album run—both commercially and artistically—as any band could ever hope to have.

mewithoutYou Trades Shouty Post-Hardcore for Quirky Folk

mewithoutYou burst onto the early 2000s hardcore scene with a unique sound that was as frenetic as it was passionate. Aaron Weiss’s unique shouted vocal delivery was paired with inventive drumming, atmospheric guitarwork, and acrobatic bass lines, and their first three full-lengths became instant classics in the scene.

If you were paying close attention to mewithoutYou around 2007, it wasn’t much of a surprise that they would release a Neutral Milk Hotel-esque folk record. Aaron had started playing covers of NMH, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash to the crowds waiting outside the venues. He and his brother/mwY guitarist Mike went on a coffee shop tour playing new, folksier songs that seemed like they might be for a spin-off project.

But if you were just listening to their studio output, it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s all right was like someone threw a wrench in the gears of the machine. Longtime producer Brad Wood (known for his work with Sunny Day Real Estate) operated in a reduced role while weirdo folk hero Danielson handled production duties. The songs were entirely sung clean rather than hollered, with the music led primarily by acoustic guitar and augmented by accordions, horns, strings, and more. The adventurous drums and guitar work that marked the earlier records was largely toned down. The lyrics traded the angst of the earlier records with references to children’s stories and campfire singalongs about Bible characters and zoo animals.

While these elements were present in some form on Brother, Sister, they were brief detours along their familiar shouty post hardcore. it’s all crazy ended up being wholly divisive. Many longtime fans stopped following them altogether, while also attracting new fans who didn’t care for the old stuff. mewithoutYou returned to their signature sound on Ten Stories and the albums that followed, but it’s all crazy remains polarizing among the fanbase.

Sufjan Stevens Discovers Synthesizers

After making a name for himself as a masterful storyteller and chamber pop arranger—and teasing a Fifty States project that never happened—Sufjan Stevens disappeared for a while. He returned in 2010 with The Age of Adz, an experimental maximalist electronica record filled with apocalyptic dread.

The banjos and acoustic guitars that marked Michigan, Seven Swans, and Illinoise were absent. While there were still plenty of horns and strings, they were paired with chaotic synthesizer arrangements that seemed to have no precedent anywhere in recorded music. It also featured Sufjan’s first f-bomb—repeated about thirty-two times by a choir.

Sufjan certainly knew Adz was going to be divisive, and preceded it with All Delighted People, an “EP” that chronicled a number of unreleased folky songs, almost as an apology for what was to come. A decade later, The Age of Adz is almost entirely forgotten by fans and Stevens’ live sets alike.

Cave In Gets Spaced Out

Massachusetts’s Cave In started their career playing heavy-hitting metalcore that drew immediate attention. Beyond Hypothermia, a collection of early singles, and Until Your Heart Stops—both released in 1998 through Isis frontman’s Hydra Head Records. They became major players in the East Coast scene, alongside bands like Converge.

But then, they got really into HUM and Failure. Their second record Jupiter still had a metallic edge, but the songs were decidedly more melodic, with vocalist Stephen Brodsky delivering all of his vocals clean. While it may have turned some fans off, it was enough to land them a record deal with major label RCA. In 2003, they released Antenna, completing their transition from metalcore to alt-rock. They even toured with Foo Fighters.

While Antenna alienated fans at the time, it remains beloved in the scope of their career. For their own part, Cave In grew disillusioned with RCA and returned to Hydra Head, adding more hardcore and metal to their sound.

Bowie Goes to Berlin

David Bowie’s entire career is marked by metamorphosis. The rock icon is synonymous with reinvention. However, no shift was quite as drastic as his Berlin Trilogy in the late ’70s.

After becoming a pioneer in Glam Rock and shifting to a more funk-oriented sound with Young Americans and Station to Station, David Bowie found himself in the throes of drug addiction and personal crisis. He relocated to West Berlin (alongside his friend Iggy Pop) to get clean. While he was there, he was introduced to the Krautrock scene, led by bands like Can, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream, all of whom were stretching rock music far beyond its established parameters.

Bowie reached out to ambient musician Brian Eno, whose records had also had a huge impact on him, and the duo collaborated on three records between 1977 and 1979, Low, “Heroes,” and The Lodger. This trilogy of records were starkly obtuse, experimenting with minimalist compositions and new instruments. Both Low and “Heroes” had full instrumental B-sides that sounded even more alien than the sides with proper songs.

While these records were revered by critics and had a huge influence on the burgeoning post punk and new wave scenes, they weren’t exactly the sort of thing that makes for commercial success. As revered as they are, many fans regard the Berlin Trilogy as an interesting footnote in Bowie’s career.

Hundredth Trades Hardcore for Shoegaze

When Hundredth emerged in the late ’00s, they offered a brand of melodic hardcore that quickly won fans within that scene (despite rumors that members For Today ghost wrote their riffs). In 2017 though, they released RARE, a full on shoegaze album that bore little resemblance at all to their earlier records.

Much of their fanbase was irrevocably turned off, many of them saying they should have rebranded themselves as a different band altogether. New fans who found them through RARE had no interest in their earlier records. While they kept their new sound on the follow up Somewhere Nowhere, it failed to get the same sort of attention from either half of their fanbase.

Kanye Stops Rapping

In the light of the last few years, it’s easy to forget just how white hot Kanye West’s career was in the mid ’00s. College Dropout and Late Registration were massive hits both critically and commercially, and Graduation proved that he had the staying power to be a major player in the charts. But then, his personal life took a series of massive hits, splitting from his fiancee and losing his mother in rapid succession. This led to an artistic shift that no one could see coming.

808s & Heartbreaks saw West experimenting as both a producer and a vocalist. Where his beats had previously utilized retro samples and orchestral instruments, this record found him creating nearly everything with a Roland 808 drum machine. Likewise, he never raps a word on the entire record, instead singing through heavy Autotune. At times, it felt more like an indie pop record than a hip hop record.

As divisive a figure as Kanye already was, 808s & Heartbreaks increased that to an order of magnitude. While it was lauded by critics and brought him hosts of new fans, many were disappointed by the lack of rapping and saw the Autotune as a mark that he lacked “real” musicianship.

In hindsight, it’s still the major outlier in his catalog. However, it ushered in a major shift in hip hop, opening the door to more Soft Boy sensibilities in a genre previously dominated by brash machismo—and yes, I’m talking about Drake.

How do you feel about any of these artistic shifts? Did we miss anything significant? Let’s talk about it in the comments.