As it’s spring, the theme is “Reinvention and Renewal”, to give people a bit of flexibility it can be either:
Any song by an artist/band who significantly reinvented themselves at some point during their career. Depending on whether you thought the reinvention was good or bad you can choose either from before or after the reinvention, if you want to briefly explain the nature of the reinvention and/or reference a contrasting song from the other part of their career that’s cool (I’m thinking that the contrasting song won’t go in the playlist but let’s see). Chameleon types like Bowie who were constantly changing are eligible but pronounced changes are the order of the day if possible.
Or
You can simply nominate songs that are themselves about reinvention or renewal.
I’m going for three of the former and two of the latter.
Tom Waits – Rain Dogs
At the start of the 80’s Tom Waits went in the space of one album from fairly standard 70’s piano balladeer (albeit interested in the seedy side of town) to well, erm… Tom Waits. It would be fair to say Swordfishtrombones was a bit ‘different’. As brilliant as it is I’ve gone for the title track from the second album after he found himself/lost the plot depending on your point of view. Rain Dogs took the experimentation of that previous album and melded it into a great set of songs still in the style of the new him.
Queen Latifah - I Love Being Here With You
For many in the UK, especially if you were only familiar with her 1989 debut album All Hail The Queen, you’d probably think of Dana Owens as a hip hop artist and that’s certainly how she got famous. Listen to ‘Dance For Me’ the opening track from that debut album and you’d assume any later discussion about her career would be how she compares against the likes of Missy Elliot. Except by 2007 she had released an album on the iconic Verve label that spent three weeks at the top of the Jazz charts. That said, technically her reinvention isn’t really a reinvention, she’s always been as much a very handy jazz/blues singer as she has a rapper, it’s just that it wasn’t until later in her career she decided to record that music. I find her very likeable, beyond her good film work, I’ll even watch some of the crappier B movies she occasionally stars in that end up on Channel 5.
Everything But The Girl – When All’s Well
A band who were accidentally reinvented by someone else. Dropped by their record label for being sales useless, Todd Terry remixed the song “Missing” and they went from jazz/folk tinged indie underachievers to dancefloor cool mega sellers. This is the opening track from Love Not Money their second album where they jangled many years before they pulsed. I like both versions of them. If Tracey Thorn wants to sing A to D in the Yellow Pages that's fine by me.
Pretenders – Pack It Up
“What I can’t carry, bury” - a great attitude but one I’ve never been able to replicate which is probably why Chrissie Hynde is an international rock star and I’m posting on BM. Hynde also found herself having to undertake emergency reinvention of Pretenders in the aftermath of the death of Honeyman-Scott and sacking/death of Farndon. Ironically the resultant third album was her biggest commercial success but arguably the various subsequent line ups never reached the heights of the first iteration of the band playing on this.
Beethoven – Violin Sonata #5 ‘Spring’ (Perlman and Ashkenazy)
If you think of violins and Spring you automatically think of Vivaldi’s Spring from Four Seasons, so instead let’s have Beethoven. This allegro movement was only given the name ‘Spring’ after his death which may or may not have pissed him off, but the cap does fit. Thought about going with Ann-Sophie Mutter playing but Ashkenazy pushes Perlman over the line for the win.
Honourable mentions to
The Bee Gees for a highly successful but completely ‘boo hiss’ reinvention going from the writers of classics such as I started A Joke, To Love Somebody, How Do You Mend… to resurrecting their careers as disco pop gods with the likes of Night Fever and Stayin Alive
Andre 3000 – For debut solo album New Blue Sun – not sure anyone was expecting a rerun of stuff like The Love Below but I’m also pretty sure they weren’t expecting an album of experimental traditional flute music with titles like “That Night In Hawaii When I Turned Into A Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Noises That I Couldn’t Control” . Not sure if he’s just the ultimate wum or simply as mad as cheese but it’s actually quite good music to work to.
Darius Rucker – Long before Beyonce decided that her stash needed some country dollars, the ex Hootie and The Blowfish frontman had decided to trade in mediocre light rock for introducing more diversity into country. He’s pretty good at it in a way that
@Coatigan would absolutely hate.
