Over the last few weeks we’ve been discussing the wonder of the cover song. We started with a few tips on how you can pick the best song to cover, and then how to make it your own. We followed that up last week with a few of our favourite Christmas covers to help us ring in the season. This week we’re going to switch things up a little, while also staying in the general topic of “artist surprises.” This week, instead of talking about artists’ unique rendition of others’ work, we’re going to take a look at 10 of the most surprising artists to fully cross genres and produce a song, or even a full album, in a musical style they are not famous for. Some of them might surprise you!

Willie Nelson – Country/Jazz

Most people know Willie Nelson as a country legend. And rightfully so; his career has spanned over 50 years. And yet, even though he has spend those decades carving out a legendary body of work for the county genre, he has not been without his wandering. Over the years Willie has dabbled in both pop and jazz, though he seems to enjoy jazz a bit more. To date, he has released at least 5 albums with a jazz influence. The video above is “Caldonia,” from his 2007 live collaboration with Wynton Marsalis, Two Men with the Blues. The album held the top spot on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart for 4 weeks.

Katy Perry – Pop/Christian

Before she was Queen of the pop world, Katy Perry, then Katy Hudson, was the humble daughter of two pastors. She grew up in a strict Christian household, where MTV and secular pop music was forbidden. Following in her parents’ righteous footsteps, she released a Christian pop album in 2001. The album was greeted with good reviews from the community, but she wanted more. Inspired by Queen’s “Killer Queen” and Amy Grant, she studied under the pros in Nashville, and got the help of producer Glen Ballard, who co-wrote Alanis Morissetts’s Jagged Little Pill. Eight years and a name change later, and she made the full crossover to pop.

Kenny Rogers – Country/Psychedelic Pop

Like Katy Perry, Kenny Rogers didn’t start out in the genre he would eventually come to be known for. The country star, probably best known for the classic “The Gambler,” actually started his career in what can only be described as an experimental music band. Before his country success, Rogers was known as “Kenny the Hippie” in the late ’60s, and fronted a band called First Edition. The group experimented with jazz, rockabilly, and strange, psychedelic pop, showcased above, with “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Most people were unaware of Rogers’ earlier musical stylings until this song appeared in the dream sequence of the film The Big Lebowski.

Snoop Dogg – Rap/Reggae

After a visit to Jamaica in 2012, Snoop Dogg announced he had converted to Rastafarianism, complete with a new name: Snoop Lion. Under this new pseudonym the California rapper released a reggae album titled Reincarnation. He has cited Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, and others as inspiration for the album. Reincarnation is full of guest appearances, and remains heavily influenced by Snoop’s career in hip-hop, but it is still a shocking departure from his earlier work.

Gwen Stefani – Punk/Pop

Depending on when you started paying attention to her, Gwen Stefani was either a punk rocker who ditched her band to go pop, or was is a pop powerhouse who went back to her punk roots. The fact is, Gwen Sefani started out her career as the lead singer for garage rock/punk/SKA/whatever kind of rock they wanted group No Doubt. After a string of successful albums throughout the ’90s, Stefani decided to switch it up in 2002 when she released her first solo pop album Love Angel Music Baby. Now she bounces back and forth between her own poppy music, and once again collaborating with No Doubt.

Darius Rucker – Country/Alternative

Today, Darius Rucker is constantly at the top of the country charts, but for those of us who remember the ’90s with fondness, he’ll always be the lead singer of the strangely named alternative band, Hootie and the Blowfish. Thought Hootie saw a fair amount of commercial success, Rucker decided to release a solo album in 2001 and surprised his fans with its R&B influenced sound. But the real surprise would come in 2008 when he fully shifted into country. He’s certainly happier there, saying “That’s what I need to be doing, going country more than anything else. I’m happiest when I’m doing that.” You do you, Darius.

Neil Young – Rock/Synth-Pop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhS5WG9QbLM

After a string of classics throughout the ’70s, Neil Young decided it was time for a change when the ’80s arrived and he signed with Geffen. In 1982 he released Trans, an experimental synth-pop album, which included the song above, “Computer Age.” Rumours swirl concerning what was going through Young’s head at the time, but it is a fact that in the few years before the album was released he was spending much of his time in a therapy program for his young son, Ben, who was born with cerebral palsy and couldn’t speak. It’s not hard to imagine how that might colour his creative efforts.

Garth Brooks – Country/Rock

A self proclaimed lover of rock music, Garth Brooks once took on the fictional persona of “Chris Gaines,” and attempted to release a rock album. The Life of Chris Gaines was released in 1999, and fans really didn’t know what to make of it. As a matter of fact, the video above is literally the only version of the single “Lost in You” I could find that isn’t someone else’s cover. Brooks had hoped to bring the character to life in film, but his fans just couldn’t take him seriously as anything other than a country star.

Beastie Boys – Hip-Hop/Punk

Before performing their first hip-hop track in 1983, the Beastie Boys were a hardcore punk band. In 1982 the band recorded their first EP, Polly Wog Stew, which is widely considered one of the earliest recorded examples of New York hardcore. It wasn’t until a year later when a song based on a prank call was an unexpected hip-hop success that the group decided to change direction. The rest, as they say, is history.

Bob Dylan – Folk/Rock

Possibly one of the most controversial genre switches in musical history came when Bob Dylan picked up an electric guitar in 1965. To his older folk fans, this change was heresy. But, on the other hand, he successfully created a new genre of music, blending folk with rock. This new style of music was made popular by the Byrds and their cover of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and is still going strong today with acts like Mumford & Sons, Frank Turner, and the Lunineers. Dylan would go on to reinvent himself several more times throughout his career, but none would be met with the same controversy and backlash as this first change.