Pandering to the base: albums designed to please "true" fans - C/D? S/D?

Machina was a pretty overt "return to rock" after a poorly received un-rocky album, why shouldn't it fit?

I'm not that familiar with the Pumpkins but I had the impression they embarked on some new metal direction on this one.

I think there's a difference between the back to basics fanpleasing album and the "our shitty new direction didn't work out and if we don't do this the label will drop us" album.

The word "pandering" is what gets me here, since it somehow suggests a band that everyone else wants to do one thing, but is somehow beholden to satisfy some hardcore fan contingent ... whereas yeah, a lot of the examples here seem to involve bands who'd spun off into some tenuous position of not really exciting any contingent, so they sit down and say, well, okay, people liked us back when we did X, so maybe we should stick with those basics?

every Too $hort album

I'm trying to imagine, like, let's say a metal act that clearly wanted to go pop, and successfully went pop, and everyone loved them, but then they had to occasionally throw out some old-school 80s-style metal just so their old fans didn't get too pissed off at them -- some of these scenarios actually get close to that dynamic, but it seems somehow rare.

(^^^based entirely on Too $hort's own assertion in that Wax Poetics interview that in his mind he only has "one fan" and every time he makes an album his sole concern is whether that fan will like it)

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arguably this is what ZZ Top has been up to recently, after the pop years of Eliminator etc.

Slayer - Divine Intervention
(failing miserably)

this is like a lot of the old bluesmen who dabbled in soul and r&b who then returned to really lo-fi garagey blues (buddy guy, for one)

The word "pandering" is what gets me here, since it somehow suggests a band that everyone else wants to do one thing, but is somehow beholden to satisfy some hardcore fan contingent ...

I don't think it suggests this, unless by "everyone else" you mean the members of the band.

whereas yeah, a lot of the examples here seem to involve bands who'd spun off into some tenuous position of not really exciting any contingent, so they sit down and say, well, okay, people liked us back when we did X, so maybe we should stick with those basics?

The thread title suggests this more.

robyn hitchcock - "eye" seems to be exactly the sort of thing this thread is refering to, no?

Talking Heads NAKED maybe? Was a kind of return to smart afro-influenced stuff after the 2 AOR pop albums. But it's debatable what a 'true' fan of TH would be.

Whiney's Metallica answer is the first thing that comes to mind that is a recent example.

Brian Eno with Wrong Way Up

The promo campaign for Alan Jackson's Good Time was all about how it was like the albums he used to record before he went gospel and then arty with Allison Krauss.

Joe Jackson attempting to recapture past glory with Night & Day II and Volume 4 following the arty Night Music and Heaven & Hell.

Syro?

Beach Boys - That's Why God Made the Radio

Arguably even 20/20 was partly an attempt to appeal to the OG fans, despite a few country and soft-rock detours.

Tom Waits - Bad As Me is definitely one, I mentioned it on the Syro thread.