Quantum leaps
Many artists get stuck in a rut - especially if they have garnered some success. Why change a winning formula and all that? However there are artists out there who have made quantum leaps that have also reaped commercial success:-
Joni Mitchell was still a folky on For the Roses - acoustic guitar and solo piano ballads were thrown out the window and replaced by a sophisticated jazz backing for Court and Spark which set her on a completely new career path from which she has not looked back.
Elvis Costello introduces harpsichords and stylish chamber pop for Imperial Bedroom following the visceral punk leanings of his early trio of My aim is true, This years model and Armed Forces. It could be said the producer Geof Emerick put his fingerprints all over this album but given the subsequent chamelon nature of Mr.MacManus it is hard to imagine he didnt have some involvement with the finished result.
Steely Dan finally ditch any pretence of being rockers - last seen on The Royal Scam - and come up with the mega seller Aja which relies solely on jazz stylings and session musicianship of the highest order. The songwriting remains strong but the whole feel goes off in a different direction.
Which other artists have dared to enter a Brave New World??
- More from Steve Turner.
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Tom Waits
is the most obvious one I can think of.
And of course Spinal Tap.
Status Quo
And I'm not joking either.
REM
3 modes, many albums, millions of $
normally I would be ostracised for this, but I already am
Nay lad
You're loved in the bosom of the Word Massive.
Er...
dare I say, once again ( and somewhat inevitably perhaps )...The Fabs?
Genesis
And Then There Were Three - goodbye prog, hello pop.
Miles Davis...
with 'In A Silent Way', though he hinted at what was to come in his previous outing 'Filles de Kilimanjaro'. However, I don't think that anyone was prepared for 'Bitches Brew', and the outrage it caused among jazzers!
a quantum leap being
really a very small change.. yeah I know I think we've lost this linguistic battle.
Quite right
This point of linguistic correctness is the only reason I haven't mentioned Richard Thompson in this thread so far.
The fightback starts here
The misuse of quantum leap has been one of my bugbears for years. I do believe it was used by one of the Word writers not that long ago.
Mr Ellen, you are an educated man. Can we stop the misuse now please? Be the first magazine to coin a new term for a big change (and please ignore that horrible one, beloved of politicians, "a step change").
But hang on... it's not actually wrong
Although 'quantum' is normally used to mean the smallest descrete unit possible, 'quantum leap' refers to an instantaneous change of an electron from one energy state to another, so it's entirely reasonable to use it to imply an abrupt change.
All this science
I don't understand.
I just fly rockets and stuff.
( I work five days a week you know ).
any good?
I'm seriously thinking of a career change
Dunno.
Ask Elton.
All together now...
'Rocket Ma-a-ah-ha-ha-han
rocket man...'
No?
Ok. Carry on.
The leap
The leap is moving to the higher orbit around the atomic nucleus after absorbing a photon.
Indeed
I think I'm right in saying it can be emitting a photon too and isn't only to a higher orbit, but yeah, you're right.
So, as far as I can see, it's perfectly reasonable to use the term in the vernacular sense.
I think the problem
is that sub atomic changes are tiny and discreet where what most people mean by "quantum leap" is a huge unexpected, unpredictable, unseen change. The lack of precision in the use of scientific language is as annoying to the scientifc mind as the reverse is to arty types. Imagine the uproar if people labelled the Zep as "goths" or similar. But genes and chromosomes can be used interchangebly, evolution is largely mis applied and food is every day in the press pronounced tainted because it's full of "chemicals".
Goth!?
we don't do that round here ~ genre that time forgot and all that
Prof Pedantic writes
I think you meant "discrete".
Your definition is also correct
I didn't want to turn this into a New Scientist column. However in the vernacular I'd say most people mean a large change rather than a sudden change. I'm still cogitating on sudden change as a reasonable definition.
Do we win a prize
for most tedious pair of grammar policemen on the block?
I hope so
A strange quark for me and a charm one for you.
If all that's true then...
when do I get to awake to find myself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that are not my own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better?
How do you know
that it didn't happen this morning? The alternate universe would be unlikely to subscribe to the conditions you desire.
Keane
according to Jude Rogers in today's Grauniad.
I know !
Neil Young
surely deserves a mention here. Electronica, rockabilly, rhythm and blues...
David Bowie
The Dame in his mid seventies pomp switching from glam to soul to electronic soundscapes in the space of three albums must surely rate a mention.
Plugging his guitar in...
...effected a few changes on the strange young man with a voice like sand and glue. And on one or two others.
And...
... his move to "country" and "gospel".
Best of both worlds?
I suppose we could unite musical appreciation and scientific accuracy here by mentioning a few artists who have only made the tiniest gestures towards change, album after album. Those not feeling the need to introduce radical changes at any point, ever.
Van Morrison?
AC/DC?
Belle and Sebastian?
And could I emphasise, I love all three.
REM
see above
Belle & Sebastian
I don't agree with you there. They have changed, not dramatically, but the last two albums have been choc full of 70's kitch sounds and 80s-white-band-soul (sh1te, in other words), while the early years were indie-lush. And far far better for it.
ZZ Top
...about whom I have waxed enthusiastically lately in anticipation of their new Rick Rubin record, definitely leapt on the Eliminator record both sonically and in hiring the video director.
Ill-advised changes of direction
ABC turned themselves from lounge entertainers into space cartoon characters (like Bleep & Booster or indeed Toot and Ploot) in the mid-80's. This was greeted with angry yawns and very little success. So it was back to the sparkly suits for "When Smokey Sings".
Queen went all electroDisco on our collective asses with Hot Space, causing Freddie to tell a booing audience "For f***'s sake, it's only one album". And then Brian May was given his sixpence back and everything went back to normal.
Quantum Leap
made a 'leapette' themselves when they scored a major hit with 'The Lone Ranger'.
Jumpette
Quantum Jump
A term I find more apt
"Sea-Change"
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
- The Tempest, Shakespeare
To me, more evocative and "right" than "quantum leap". Maybe even -- dare I say -- poetic?
Sharp lefts
Stevie Wonder went from funky soul crooner to funky soul spaceman with Talking Book, while Johnny Cash went all alt.country in his Rick Rubin period. Which mention of those two giants reminds me of Billy Connolly's 70s gag : 'In America they've got Bob Hope, Johnny Cash & Stevie Wonder. In Britain we've got no hope, no cash & no bloody wonder'.
Sorry I can't contribute to the quantum physics debate. It just goes to show that if you put 3 scientists in a room the result will be 4 conflicting theories.
Johnny Cash went alt country?
Don't you mean that a genre was created around his late career?
Point taken, Lucas
Alt was the closest genre I could think of. Has the Cash/Rubin genre got a name?
Don't think so
I just think that "alt. country" is lazy 90s music journalism for "country music that it's ok to like". In which case, it's probably the right label for the American Recordings material...
Johnny Cash & alt.country
My interpretation is that things get labelled alt.country when they have a relationship to country / bluegrass / blues / folk roots and don't fit into the Nashville mainstream. Emmylou summed up the Nashville mainstream some years ago by saying it was all about bare midriffs and hats.
Johnny Cash had been dropped by Columbia. Others like his daughter Rosanne, former son in law Rodney Crowell and Emmylou and many others had all been dropped by their labels. They made records that didn't fit into the Nashville mainstream and so got labelled alt.country although I think they would all argue they were only doing pretty much what they had always done.
Wrecking Ball provides a good example. It was a massive digression and much as I love it, it's not one I'd label country (alt or otherwise) but at the time Emmylou said she'd been playing the music long enough that she felt she'd earned the right to call anything she made as country.
Also
There was a movement of bands such as Uncle Tupelo and Whiskeytown that - in the case of the former - covered songs by both The Carter Family and The Stooges, and seemed to take the country roots/rock star excesses of someone like Gram Parsons as their starting point. It certainly has an identity as a genre; but to call it alt. country just seems, as I said, lazy. Ryan Adams was just as influenced by George Jones as he was by The Replacements: but to dwell on the more traditional aspects of country music in the 1990s was deemed by some as unfashionable. Cash's Rick Rubin albums contained covers of songs made famous by by Dean Martin and Eddy Arnold, but the music press jumped on the fact that there was also Danzig and Beck in the mix. Hence "alt". But it's bollocks. It's all bloody music, for Christ's sake. Uncut magazine probably did more to fuel the labelling of that particular genre than anyone else.
Lucas i agree with you
but, and here is the rub, when you tell people who don't know any better that you listen to country music they automatically think you mean the grand Old Opry Rhinestones and cowboy hats stuff that doesn't really appeal to me. That is the problem with classifications as one size certainly doesn't fit all. In my thread I cited Steely Dan as an example of a band that had made a significant change in direction (sorry i can't use Quantum leap anymore). There first 3 or 4 albums certainly cast them more in a Rock camp than their later jazz stuff but having said that Pretzel Logic their 3rd album included a stunning cover of East St.Louis toodle-o so I guess the jazz influences were there all along. By the way I would suggest that Ryan Adams was as much influenced by Bruce Springsteen as any country star.
This may sound harsh, but...
...to all those who don't know any better and think all country music is big hats and people going "yee-haw".....fuck 'em. You know? Their loss.
Couldn't agree more
I don't particularly like rap but Gangsta Paradise by Coolio is a bloody great record. It's a case of keeping your ears and mind open to all sorts of possibilities.
Back on topic
It took a while, but Scott Walker's move from teenybop crooner to avant-garde industrial noisemaker remains hard to beat.
And in the reverse direction, though it seems quite natural in retrospect, Bryan Ferry's move from Roxy Music's cutting-edge future pop to big band crooner in the early 70's was very daring.
Oh yes, Scritti Politti - one minute squat-dwelling John Peel favourites with a "freeform" approach to songwriting and musicianship, the next, bright shiny New York-based syncopated pop/funk monsters. I love both phases actually, but I still remember being knocked sideways after hearing "Wood Beez" for the first time and being told who it was...
Joe Jackson
Made the change from accidental punk to big band Jumping Jive and subsequently went in all sorts of directions.
Status Quo from psychedelia to what can only be described as Status Quo?
Oops
Someone mentioned the Quo at the start... all the quantum physics discussions must have confused me.