3 of the Biggest Rock Album-To-Album Reinventions

If you’re fortunate enough to break through with a successful album, the last thing your record label wants is for you to start tinkering or radically changing the sound of your rock band. But that’s exactly what happened below. Rather than continue with a reliable formula, the artists on this list undertook album-to-album reinventions and emerged with masterpieces.

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Metallica: ‘…And Justice For All’ (1988) to ‘Metallica’ (1991)

Metallica’s “One” upended conventional wisdom around what record labels thought music fans would tolerate. The song’s dark theme and complex arrangement, with its austere music video, became an unlikely hit. When the band followed up …And Justice For All with the self-titled Black album, Metallica and producer Bob Rock simplified the music’s complexity. For the most part, the band discarded thrash metal and recorded slow, heavy rock grooves that were more AC/DC than Motörhead. The lead single “Enter Sandman” was inescapable, and The Black Album remains Metallica’s biggest seller.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: ‘Mother’s Milk’ (1989) to ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ (1991)

Rick Rubin convinced the Red Hot Chili Peppers to hole up inside a (supposedly) haunted mansion in Los Angeles to record their fifth album. Guitarist John Frusciante took on a larger songwriting role within the band and transformed the funk metal heard on Mother’s Milk into a culture-shifting mix of alt-rock, folk, funk, and rap. Blood Sugar Sex Magik fast-forwarded the meteoric rise of alternative rock, and songs like “Give It Away” and “Under The Bridge” dominated MTV alongside ubiquitous grunge hits by Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Anthony Kiedis was reluctant to show the band his journal entry for “Under The Bridge”. Too personal, he thought. But Rubin changed the singer’s mind, and it changed the band’s career.

Radiohead: ‘OK Computer’ (1997) to ‘Kid A’ (2000)

There’s a song on The Bends called “My Iron Lung” where Thom Yorke openly disavows his band’s biggest single, “Creep”, by singing: “This, this is our new song / Just like the last one / A total waste of time.” By the second album, Radiohead made it clear this was a group fully committed to ignoring outside expectations. On OK Computer, Radiohead began its turn away from alternative rock and toward jazz, classical, and experimental electronic music. Then Yorke completely abandoned the idea of writing choruses or even traditional melody. And Kid A forever changed the limitations of a rock band.

Photo by Michel Linssen/Redferns