It must be hard being a musical legend. Sure, your bank balance might be rounding up like a taxi meter, you can fill stadia with adoring fans, and if it all gets a bit much, you can always take a few months off to indulge in your hobby of model railways.
But there's a downside.
Every time you want to try something new, the fans are in uproar. "Give us the hits!" they scream. "Play us something we know!" It's all a bit Streets of London.
But not all of the greats fall into this trap. The below artists broke free of their usual genres to deliver something new and exciting, whether it's Roberta Flack going all disco on us, Muse embracing dubstep and classical at the same time, or Beyoncé taking a country turn.
The songs below all came out of left field, but they all hit the mark, establishing their performers as truly versatile artists. They're all guaranteed to flex your system's skills, too. Put them on and enjoy.
Roberta Flack – Lovin' You (Is Such An Easy Thang To Do) (1981)
1981. You're Roberta Flack, and you've already had three million-selling gold singles (The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Where Is The Love and The Closer I Get To You) and won two Grammys for Killing Me Softly With His Song. You're the queen of ballads, and widely regarded as the most significant black female vocalist since Aretha Franklin.
So your logical next step is to soundtrack a Richard Pryor comedy whose plot revolves around the Klu Klux Klan.
That's exactly what she did for Bustin' Loose. Not only was the subject matter way out of her wheelhouse, so was the genre – Lovin' You is a disco foot-stomper with a throbbing bassline, one that Flack's understated vocal performance lends itself to perfectly.
Your system will need plenty of rhythmic drive to keep the track moving, but conveying Flack's almost whisper of a vocal will require the kind of versatility shown by Flack herself.
Words by Joe Svetlik
Muse – The 2nd Law: Unsustainable (2012)
It’s odd to think that Muse were once considered to be little more than Bends-era Radiohead knock-offs. Even if they’re not your particular cup of Darjeeling, the British behemoths have experimented with more styles and genres than Elton John’s had spangly suits.
Sometimes it works, sometimes… less so. But you could never accuse Matt Bellamy and co. of getting too comfortable with any given sound.
For all of this musical gamut running, The 2nd Law: Unsustainable – taken from an album preoccupied with the trivial matters of thermodynamics, human evolution and societal collapse – represents one of the group’s most notable side-turns.
Latching onto the 2010s explosion of Skrillex-inspired dubstep, Unsustainable flits between dramatic strings and distorted dub passages with such jerking swiftness that it can feel like phasing between the Last Night of the Proms and a sweaty Camden rave den.
Add in a glitching voiceover elucidating the nature of the titular second law of thermodynamics (“all natural and technological processes proceed in such a way that the availability of the remaining energy decreases…”) and boy, have you a strange stew going.
Words by Harry McKerrell
Chris Cornell – Long Gone (2009)
OK, so The Guardian called it "lazy, bland and humourless" while NME deemed it "depressingly castrated"... but I liked it. And everyone is allowed to own at least one unpopular opinion, right?
Chris Cornell's third solo album, Scream, marked the Soundgarden main man's departure from guitar-driven rock into hip-hop-tinged pop and, with his hand held by Timbaland, his vocal and penned melodies soared over drum machine beats and synthy soundscapes.
It's nothing if not easy listening, and Long Gone is a very palatable ballad with album-peaking lyrics and an ending guitar section through which Cornell's rock roots sprout.
Its potential for wider appreciation was clearly recognised, as a guitar-led, synth-stripped 'Rock' version was later released, produced by Howard Benson (My Chemical Romance, The All-American Rejects).
Words by Becky Roberts
Beyoncé – Texas Hold 'Em (2024)
The whole Cowboy Carter album might seem like a bit of a curveball, but if you were paying attention, the signs were there. Queen B first released a country track back in 2016 (Daddy Lessons), and has spoken before about her love of the genre since growing up in Houston, Texas.
And she certainly doesn't do things by halves. Musicians lending their hands to the album include Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Nile Rodgers and Jon Batiste.
The whole album was intended to show how the role of black musicians has been overlooked in country music as a genre. How ironic, then, that it didn't garner a single nomination at that year's Country Music Association Awards. Haven't they learned anything?
Texas Hold 'Em sums up the album. It's country, but Beyoncified. There's a banjo, there's whistling, and – crucially – it's not trying too hard to impress. It's more stripped back than your typical Beyoncé production, but the consistent, plodding beat is a good test of your system's timing.
Words by Joe Svetlik
Trent Reznor – Disney/Pixar's Soul (2020)
Trent Reznor's partnership with Atticus Ross has gifted us some superb original scores to films, from The Social Network to Gone Girl to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The Nine Inch Nails' founder and frontman's experimental yet signature brooding, looping, minimal-then-extremely-noisy intensity is present across these scores.
And then he won an Oscar for Disney/Pixar's Soul. The animated film nabbed the best original score trophy at the 2021 Academy Awards, thanks to a collaborative effort of original compositions: Jon Batiste handled the jazz side, while Reznor and Ross composed 23 new-age-style tracks for the film's more abstract and metaphysical story beats.
Spacious, billowing soundscapes are peppered with gently bubbling and twinkling elements that soothe the soul rather than agitate it, like you're at a wellness spa. It's the kind of sound that wouldn't be out of place during the optimistic space age era of the '60s.
It's a world away from the man who gave us some of the most intensely tortured, self-destructive and cynical examples of 90s industrial rock – Closer, The Fragile, The Downward Spiral, Head Like A Hole – and is a stark departure from his usual compositions on David Fincher films. The tracks from Soul are... uplifting. There is hope and peace and levity. If you want a taster, the track The Great Before / U Seminar is a great place to start.
Words by Kashfia Kabir
Nina Simone – Baltimore (1978)
Simone wasn't a fan of this whole album, especially its reggae sound, which reportedly prompted her to ask, "What is this corny stuff?" And to be honest, it kind of shows: her heart really isn't in the vocal, certainly not to the same extent as some of her other masterful performances.
But given her immense talent, even a half-hearted Nina Simone is preferable to most other singers.
The album's title track is certainly reggae-infused, a more cohesive take on Randy Newman's original composition (yes, he of all those Disney and Pixar soundtracks). There's a lot going on, from the strings that simmer suspiciously in the background, to the hither and thither bassline.
Even Simone's doleful vocals are a perfect fit to the track's despairing tone. Maybe that's what she was up to all along.
Words by Joe Svetlik
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