So. Yesterday a friend posted a video by Simple Plan on my wall on Facebook (thanks JP!), and I had never really listened to Simple Plan before, but I thought they were pretty cool sounding, so I watched a few more of their videos, only to find that their style used to be completely different. I like the new style and all, but... it's not as good as the older stuff. It got me thinking about music and how each band seems to sort of "evolve" over the years... but I guess it would be more like "devolving" since they all seem to get worse. It's like people decide to grow up and want their music to grow up with them, but sometimes that just doesn't work! So many bands start out with a nice raw, edgy, very simplistic style and try to improve it. But they're not improving! How does a group of spikey-haired punk boys ranting that "I'm just a kid, and life is a nightmare" turn into a bunch of posh preppy guys singing pop-rock breakup songs? [NOTE: While I normally can't stand anything I label as "preppy," that's not the fact in this case. I still think their music sounds cool, but I would definitely say they're preppy compared to their old style.] The fact that they sound more "mainstream" and "radio-friendly" doesn't necessarily mean they're better. What happened to music that's actually fun to listen to?!
Other bands seem to be going down a similar path. Stellar Kart, for example, used to be my favorite band. Their first two albums are amazing... catchy, upbeat pop/punk songs with pretty simple lyrics, complimented by two or three slower songs on each record. But by album number three (the same one that seems to be Simple Plan's downfall), they completely changed their style for the most part. Half of the album is too slow to really listen to much, while the other half is still worth the money. But even the good songs are just... different, somehow. And what about their videos? Their earlier videos featured the band jumping around on stage singing "Life is good, eternal life is better" or racing decked-out shopping carts, but their newest video has a story line, during which they "break dance" in spandex and fanny packs. While it may be funny to watch, the band has definitely lost some of the blissful simplicity of a brand-new pop/punk band. But hey, they have cool t-shirts!
After Stellar Kart, Thousand Foot Krutch became my favorite band soon after I bought their latest album "The Flame In All of Us." It was my first TFK CD, so I had no clue what I was missing out on until I bought their second album from 2003, "Phenomenon." It was my favorite CD the second I bought it and I couldn't stop listening to it. It's still one of my favorites after I've bought eleven more albums. Two of those eleven were their first and third albums, "Set It Off" and "The Art of Breaking." After listening to each of them several times, I concluded almost the same thing as with Stellar Kart and Simple Plan. "Set It Off" wasn't exactly their best album. I think the first album being the best is kind of a pop/punk thing. With a little bit harder music, you need a little bit longer to perfect it, and apparently it takes a little bit longer to go downhill... or a lot longer. They started as a punk/rap band with rough vocals and tons of bass in every song. By the next album, they were pure rock... better singing, better instrumentals, but still heavy enough to be insanely likable. On the following album, they seemed to have softened a bit on a few songs, seeing as how "Phenomenon" only had one slow song. There were some slower ones on "The Art of Breaking," but the rock was still there. The album was perfectly laced with insane guitar solos and ended with one of the most awesome rock ballads I've ever heard. Then came "The Flame In All of Us." It's amazing, really, but compared to their other albums, they seem to have lost some of that rock. "What Do We Know", "Favorite Disease", "My Home", and "Wish You Well" pretty much give me musical ADD. The lead singer (Trevor McNevan, my hero!) even talks about "My Home" being their first love song on the special edition DVD. After more than ten years, why write a love song now? They never did before, and they also never had so many songs that slow on one album. But TFK redeems themselves by seriously rocking the rest of the record. Hopefully TFK won't follow the same pattern as I've seen in other bands... I mean, there's a reason they're the best! And they've been around for more than ten years doing this, unlike 5-year-old punk bands who have already experimented with every style of rock and pop out there. But there are those people who think "Set It Off" was the best and by "The Art of Breaking" they were failures. So I guess it's a matter of opinion.
Bands like Pillar, on the other hand, really needed to go through the whole "musical evolution" process. They started kind of like TFK... sort of a rock/rap style, or something along the lines of that. They weren't great in their early years, and they didn't stand out very much. They got better with each album, and did seem to slip into a more mainstream rock style, but it worked for them. Rpb Beckley is better at singing than he is at rapping. They shocked most fans with their release of "The Reckoning" in 2006, because it was so far from their original style. The previous album was mostly singing, with a little bit of rap every now and then and a few songs even had a scream or two at the end. "The Reckoning" was significantly harder and a lot of of the tracks were at least halfway screamed. Fans talked about their parents and other friends and family saying the new record didn't sound "Christian enough" without even listening to the lyrics. Two years later, Pillar released "For the Love of the Game," the album that seems to fit between "Where Do We Go From Here" and "The Reckoning." Now Pillar seems to be the definition of "Christian rock." Maybe it's because they fixed their mistake by going back towards their old style a little more. Not that "The Reckoning" was a mistake--it was awesome, but if they had continued in that direction, they would have turned into Underoath in a few years and probably lost plenty of fans. Or maybe their dedicated fans' musical tastes would have evolved too. Either way, "For the Love of The Game," which portrayed their old style mixed with a few new elements was definitely accepted better than "The Reckoning."
I guess to a certain extent, "musical evolution" can be a good thing, but is it really possibly to keep the same style forever? Probably not, so all music is bound to change at some point (hopefully with the exception of TFK), some much earlier than others. Family Force 5's first album was an amazingly fresh mix of rap, rock, and screamo. Their second album is mostly dance music, some of which shows signs of insanely abused auto-tune. It sounds awesome on some tracks, but "How in the World" seriously did NOT need so much. Both albums still rock, but the first is definitely more creative, diverse, and all around appealing.
But anyway, there are my thoughts on musical evolution. I just thought someone might be interested or just bored enough to read the whole thing. And if you know where I can find some good punk rock, let me know.
--MC
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