Bands whose albums sound the same

IQ

Arena

Transatlantic

Flower Kings

Dream Theater

Black Sabbath

AC/DC is a great example. Possibly the best example but Black Sabbath? Nah. There's some variation there. Sure, some of the records sound similar but not all.

Out of the prog world Dire Straits is an example. An Italian singer-songwriter, Antonello Venditti has done it more deeply: not just the same album. He is repeating more or less the same song since the 80s.

I totally agree about Ozric Tentacles and Blackmore's Night.

I tend to think that technology plays quite a big part in 'the sound'. Bands that use technology a lot , in fact embrace it will likely have more variety of sounds on offer. In the 70's I was a massive ELP fan because every album sounded different. They were at the forefront of innovation. On the other hand the likes of Tull and Genesis had minimal interest to me at the time.

A lot of bands though (the vast majority in fact) prefer not to veer that much from the tried and tested. Try and name me a band that changes that much from album to album within Symph and Neo? I doubt there are that many and normally it comes a change in singer as much as anything else. I mean Big Big Train in the Dave Longdon era do sound remarkably samey album to album. Does anyone really care? It's all a bit spurious to me.

 

Hi,

Not sure how this will come out ... here goes.

I find it strange that folks will list TD as sounding the same. If any bunch of folks created that much music, they would be appreciated, and them "sounding the same", is a dead-on comment that the person stating it did not spend time listening at all ... it's akin to saying that all Mozart sounds the same, and all the Beethoven sounds the same ... and it could be true when you look at all the instruments used ... they are the same ... thus thinking a band sounds the same is a poor evaluation of the groups music altogether regardless of who they are!

I might like to joke that something sounded the same, when it comes to so many of the "new" bands being added in the various progressive fields here on PA ... it's actually really sad, because almost none of these groups have any idea what music really is ... or what it means! It's more about being "progressive" than it is about who you are, and the music is!

And this was my biggest issue on one thread with the guy asking about his music ... he, himself, has no idea, and is hoping to find an audience before he even puts something together, and that's an accident waiting to happen, and he's going to find one day that music is just not for him at all! He lacks the inner vision to get past everything outside of his inner self! End of the new music, right there!

It's hard to not say that one band or another sounds the same, though. I like DT, but to my ears it has become really repetitive and not original and the use of the musicians in the band is out of sync ... it's all about the guitar and no one cares about anything else. It's a veritable Berklee graduate, with very poor musical credentials beyond the knowledge of counting to 4, or 8, or 12, or 16 ... and making sure you fit in it. They do not know what improvisation is and are not capable of helping the players develop their intuitive side, instead stating that the intuitive side belongs to the players, not the teachers. They, obviously, have never heard about the many folks in theater that created improvisations to help take the theater further than ever ... but music is a sacred old cow that can't do anything else ... thus is sounding the same is not a surprise. And having a school that lacks the vision to help students go further beyond the notes? 

RIGHT!

You have to have it INSIDE for it to sound different, and I'm not sure that most do, and it shows on the listening lists on a lot of PA threads. Folks simply do not listen to much of anything else except what they know ... otherwise I doubt you would see someone asking for music that is dark and somber, or erotically charged, or sick, or bands that sound like ...  

One other detail ... ALL MUSIC THAT IS BEAT DRIVEN will sound the same to a point. Rap has nice things, but without the drumbeat, it falls flat and the worth of the lyrics is wasted. None of those folks have figured out that the words have to matter, in that kind of music, and most of them don't. The same goes for a lot of music that is beat driven ... I don't dislike THE FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON or that venue of folks that depend on a beat to make you think they are original and clever ... well, some are, but original? More like boring in my book.

Rock music, in general, has to get past the guitar, bass, drums and maybe a keyboard ... that quartet is like Mozart concertos ... how many of those for one instrument? And too many bands are starting to sound like Mozart in that area, sort of a note changed here and there, let's say, for fun! 

Steve had to leave a great gig in order to find room to fully realize all that was trying to burst out of him.

Toby keeps reinventing himself, his sound, his collaborators, in order to express the things that are affecting him

Richard has a familiar sound palette that he works with, and perhaps uses other literary/artistic inspirators, but each album he produces is so different from the others--he keeps evolving, trying new forms for expression. 

Tu comprends? Am I right?