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

I'm talking about established bands releasing somewhat late in their career an album aiming to recapture historic fans that they might have lost via dubious experimentations: e.g. The Cure's 'Bloodflowers'

Metallica - Death Magnetic
Jay-Z - American Gangster

U2 - All That You Cant Leave Behind.

Anything Bowie's released since/because of Tin Machine.

ouch.
though surely Earthling was still 'experimenting' and not pampering to the true fans.
I'd suggest that it was Heathen that really hit this thread topic.

http://www.recordstore.co.uk/images/covers09/03.2009/journal-200.jpg

Yeah I was gonna mention 'Earthling'

REM's Accelerate certainly billed this way.
Beatles' Get Back/Let It Be maybe the origin of this?

(not so much "lost fans" as "back to what made us great" coming from within the band though)

Abbey Road surely?

How about "Let It Be"?

...because "Abbey Road" is still a bit experimental, while on LIB there isn't a song longer than four minutes

Bruce Springsteen - The Rising

I don't Bruce panders much. But his new one is only for true fans the way that some people have a face that only a mother could love.

i don't THINK

Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions by Killing Joke
Beat'em Up by Iggy Pop

Back to the Known by Bad Religion

this type of thing can be classic and dud -- Ragged Glory, for instance, is a Neil Young & Crazy Horse album that totally pandered to fans. And it worked out beautifully -- great record.

Prince - MPLSOUND

madonna - confessions on a dancefloor

abnd .. here's hoping : the next Devo album

cuban linx 2

the new Devo songs don't sound like old Devo at all, but they are awesome

Prince - MPLSOUND

? I don't think Prince is doing a good job of giving his fans what they want w/this one

Grinderman

J0hn did you notice the word "designed" in the subject line

we're talking about intent, not reception

No examples of bands satisfying the core by going back to weirdness after dabbling in pop?

No examples of bands satisfying the core by going back to weirdness after dabbling in pop?

Wire ?

Eardrum Buzz was definitely their Pop era.

Dick's Picks Vol. I through infinity

smashing pumpkins - machina

Every Ramones album except End Of The Century, maybe?

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell 2 : Back Into Hell. Part 3 too I guess, but the charm was wearing off by then commercially speaking. Any sequel album actually - Tubular Bells 2, Oxygene 2, any more? Didn't Rick Wakeman record a follow-up to Journey To The Centre Of The Earth or was it just a new version?

Didn't Rick Wakeman record a follow-up to Journey To The Centre Of The Earth or was it just a new version?

it was a follow up, 'return to the centre of the earth'. never heard it though.

playing the angel

;_;

next Blur album please!

NO their next album MUST take off from where 13 left off otherwise I shall be >:|

you could easily argue that a return to analog synths and certain production techniques pleased more "true fans" (geir for one), than exciter, or even ultra did. this isn't a bad thing (and of course doesn't refer to martin's songwriting, he's always very consistent in his writing style)

Q Tip - Renaissance

No examples of bands satisfying the core by going back to weirdness after dabbling in pop?

Pere Ubu after Story of My Life?

dinosau jr's 'beyond'? i don't know what i'm talking about tho, i haven't even heard it

country matters: don't make me do a "I'm a bigger fan!"-off with you! I have signed t-shirts, japanese imports and a love for even 13 and think tank…

dinosau jr's 'beyond'? i don't know what i'm talking about tho, i haven't even heard it

― mark cl, Wednesday, May 6, 2009 2:45 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i don't think reunions of original lineups should be in here per se, especially since Beyond sounds as much like 90s Dino/J Mascis as it does the first 3 records.

http://www.theartwolf.com/imagenestAW/Neil_Young_Harvest_Moon.jpg

Lots of weird picks. "Machina", "Grinderman"?!

ac/dc - black ice

Machina was a pretty overt "return to rock" after a poorly received un-rocky album, why shouldn't it fit? unless you're in the same boat as J0hn where for some reason you think this thread should be about audience reaction and not how the artist pitched it.

xpost - i don't see how any AC/DC album hasn't been designed to please AC/DC fans. i think you have to throw a curveball first to make an album that would be in this thread.

Anvil - This is Thirteen

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)

x-post

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.