One of the implied promises a band makes to its fans is consistency.
You pop in a favorite cassette or hit play on your favorite streaming service, and lean back.
After a few albums or singles, a pattern develops.
You know what you’re getting; you usually aren’t surprised. It’s a somewhat comforting experience, like when an old friend comes a-callin.’
But alternately, some bands decide to ditch their usual and safe route. They opt instead for an hairpin curve detour:
A serious left turn. At their own fork in the road.
Or, if you will:
“In the groove.”
A decision that they will they veer away from the sound that built their reputation, and pivot to something radically different.
Whether it be the forced input of a new and experimental producer, a record company executive decision, or just the whimsy of the band members themselves:
When a band radially changers it’s prior “signature sound,” it can be a musical whiplash so severe you’d swear you’ve tuned into a completely different artist.
Presenting: Four bands. Eight songs. And for those of you keeping count: just about as many different musical personas.
Chicago
Just When You Were Used To:
“Make Me Smile…”
They Took A Fork In The Groove With:
“If You Leave Me Now.”
Over their storied career, Chicago was technically one band, but functionally two.
On one side: the horn-heavy rockers of “Make Me Smile,” with all of the exciting bombast and shifting time signatures. It was like a pep rally choreographed by jazz majors.
On the other: the satin-soft balladry of “If You Leave Me Now.”
Afloat on strings, with Peter Cetera’s ooo-ooo-ooo-oooweooo vocal stylings. Which I am certain could be licensed as a dessert topping.
“Make Me Smile” appeared on Chicago II (1970), showcasing ambitious suite-style songwriting. “If You Leave Me Now” (1976) was their first number-one U.S. single and won a Grammy.
The Billboard Verdict?
- “Make Me Smile” – #9.
Crackling the Top 10 is a respectable achievement. Never reached the summit, but stayed playful.
- “If You Leave Me Now” – #1.
Peak serenity achieved.
The Band Members Verdict?
- “We always tried to stretch ourselves musically. One day it was horns, the next day it was strings. That’s just Chicago”
– Keyboardist Robert Lamm
- “A lot of people were really put off in some ways by our departure from more artistic approaches to the commercial … I think we lost something … we lost a lot of fans.”
- And I probably … became, like you say, basically a ballad drummer.”
– Drummer Danny Seraphine”
The Doobie Brothers
Just When You Were Used To:
“China Grove…”
They Took A Fork In The Groove With:
“Minute by Minute.”
Tom Johnston and the Doobies lit up rock and Top40 radio with their fourth consecutive hit single, “China Grove.”
Rocking down the highway, indeed. It’s got a commanding guitar riff, barroom grit, and, I swear, a faint smell of engine oil. “China Grove” was a memorable track from The Captain and Me in 1973.
But change was in the air, and Johnston’s growl gave way to Michael McDonald’s velvet fog, pivoting from bar band to brunch band in record time.
Any time I’ve ever heard “Minute by Minute,” I almost expect to find a post-it note on my stereo saying, “OK, I’ll be taking over now.”
“Minute by Minute” (1978) won a Grammy and cemented McDonald’s soft-rock credentials.
The Billboard Verdict?
- “China Grove” – #15.
Still plenty of muscle, or at least enough to get this high on the Hot 100.
- “Minute by Minute” – #14.
A soft rock velvet triumph.
The Band Members Verdict?
- “We weren’t trying to sound like ourselves all the time. It was just the music leading the way.”
– Michael McDonald
- “Oh yeah, hyper-aware of that [change in style]. And not in a good way. “
- “I felt like, Oh boy, you know? I’m gonna be the reason this whole thing turns to s**t!”
-Also Michael McDonald. If nothing else, he’s clearly an objective guy,
And now, time make you question whether you left reality, or if it’s just your Zune on total random shuffle. And maybe both:
The Beatles
Just When You Were Used To:
“Love Me Do…”
They Took A Fork In The Groove With:
“I Am the Walrus.”
I’m not exactly providing any earth-shattering revelations, here.
Even casual music aficionados will correctly note that every single Beatles album moves the needle in some form.
Somewhere between a moderate to a quantum leap in style from the prior LP.
When talking about the Fab Four, a proper study of their musical chameleonry would make for a very long and winding read. So for the sake of bandwidth, I’ll need to pick a single example. My musical wheel-o-moptops lands on these two:
- “Love Me Do” introduced Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting.
- “I Am the Walrus”, recorded during Magical Mystery Tour, is John Lennon’s surrealist experiment in orchestral chaos.
“Love Me Do” is sweet, harmonica-forward, and childlike in the lyrical department:
The perfect song to ask Gina for a dance, at the 1962 middle school homecoming soiree.
A scant five years later, Gina is apparently dropping acid as “I Am the Walrus” arrives. Complete with chanting children, surreal lyrics, a pirated radio broadcast snippet of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and string arrangements that feel like an argument.
The same four men, yes. But now in a parallel dimension, where semolina pilchards climb the Eifel Tower.
And really, now, let’s just stop here and agree that one million monkeys with one million typewriters are never coming up with that.
The Billboard Verdict?
- “Love Me Do” – #17.
How quaint. Such nice boys. A humble and polite debut.
- “I Am the Walrus” – #56.
“My HANDS… they’re… LAUGHING at me…”
The Band Members Verdict?
“We just let our imagination run wild… sometimes people thought we’d lost it, but we were really just exploring,”
– Paul McCartney
“The walrus was Paul.”
– John Lennon
And wrapping up our 4+4: a band trades CBGBs for the graffitied vibe of Yo! MTV Raps! :
Blondie
Just When You Were Used To:
“One Way Or Another”
They Took A Fork In The Groove With:
“Rapture”
Blondie could pivot like no other.
“One Way or Another” barrels forward with punk-infused determination—a chase, a snarl, a fearless declaration. Then comes “Rapture”, a lyrical adventure that flirts with disco, funk, and one of the earliest mainstream rap performances in the U.S., proving that Debbie Harry and friends could walk a musical tightrope. Without a net.
“One Way or Another” appeared on Parallel Lines (1978), a relentless punk-pop sprint. “Rapture” (1981), from Autoamerican, expanded their sound into dance floor experimentation and became a number-one U.S. hit.
The Billboard Verdict?
- “One Way or Another” – #24
Believable power-punk energy, minor chart chaos
- “Rapture” – #1
I just listened to it. It holds up. A genre-bending triumph.
The Band Members Verdict?
- “I don’t like to repeat myself. Every song is a new personality,”
– Debbie Harry
- “We were always changing and still discovering who we were.”
– Chris Stein
What links these mismatched pairs isn’t indecision, it’s possibility.
Each of these bands could easily have stuck to a formula… but where’s the fun in that? Instead, they tried on new clothes, crashed other genres’ parties, and occasionally fooled their own fans.
The result: creativity doesn’t stay in one lane, and neither do the best bands.
Sometimes they sound like themselves, sometimes like someone else entirely. Either way, it keeps us listening.
Maybe genre boundaries aren’t divided highways at all. Maybe they’re more like speed bumps.
And if you hit them at the just the right speed, the ride only gets more exciting.
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