24-05-2009, 12:10
rocknrollchick Wrote:It's kind of a lose lose situation...If you change then you"re not staying true to your roots and if you don"t change then you"re not creative or "up with the times".
Given that most bands cannot be infinitely creative, I'd say I have the most respect for those who stay true to their own sound, and keep providing a quality product. In my opinion, Slayer is a good example of this: All of their albums are basically the same since they reached their creative peak in the mid 80s, but they still put out a listenable product (assuming you like their sound), and haven't lost their edge. You can only listen to Reign in Blood so many times; but you don't have to, because any one of their subsequent albums is close enough.
Open up a new Slayer album, and you know what you're going to get. Open up a Metallica album after 1991, or a Rush album after 1982, and you don't know what the hell you're going to get; and there's a pretty good chance it will be significantly below the standard of Master of Puppets or Moving Pictures, respectively.
As for someone like Rod Stewart, God bless him for staying out there and doing what he loves. But saying I have the same respect for his lounge lizard music--or whatever the hell he's doing these days--as I do for his Faces era material would be lying to the old bastard.