I’m not sure the title totally captures what I’m getting at, but I’m talking about an artist you love (or at least like a lot) doing music you don’t like at the same time they are making music that you do like. So, not necessarily an artist who just declined over time or leaves a band for an uninteresting solo career.
The artist who made me think of this is Ethan Miller. I love Comets on Fire and Feral Ohms, but the soft rock hippie shit he does with Howlin’ Rain kind of sucks. I like the Dead, but that is not what I want to hear from him. I also thought Heron Oblivion was pretty meh, but he was only the bassist, and I don’t know how much input he had musically.