The classic Deep Purple lineup (Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice and Jon Lord) disappeared in 1974 and the band split up entirely in 1975.
In 1984, they regrouped and made Perfect Strangers, an album I loved… but I don’t have a strong feel for how popular it was or how it went over with their old fans.
The Who’s Endless Wire came out 24 years after their previous album, It’s Hard.
It is not a masterpiece.
Another one:
Testament released The Gathering, their 8th and finest album, in 1999. Work on the follow-up was delayed by, among other things, two band members battling cancer. After 5 years of inactivity and 4 years of production, The Formation of Damnation was released in 2008. It was well-received, but a step backward from The Gathering. So, not a masterpiece, but much better than Endless Wire.
Don’t forget Dylan was badly injured in a motorcycle accident in July 1966, stopped touring, and spent much of his time editing the sequel to Don’t Look Back. During that period he also recorded the Basement Tapes, although they wouldn’t be released for years, so he had other things to occupy his time.
Traffic. The group broke up for two years (after their second album – Last Exit was made up of unreleased and live tracks). Steve Winwood joined Blind Faith and Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Dave Mason went solo, and Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood were part of Mason, Capaldi, Wood and Frog. Winwood then decided to do a solo album, asked Capaldi to do drums and Wood to add woodwinds and the result – John Barleycorn Must Die – was a big success.
Ben Folds Five came out with a new album this year. I’ve already forgotten about it.
I never liked Patti Smith, but she took a long time off to raise her kids with Fred “Sonic” Smith. After the Wave album in 1979, she didn’t make a new album until 1988.
I’ll let her fans decide if the results were any good. All I remember was the mediocre “People Have the Power.”
Based purely on Sturgeon’s Law, I would say ‘more often not.’
Based on Fleetwood Mac’s #Tusk", I’d say most of the time albums that take a long time to make
aren’t good, the artist is short of ideas, and wasting money to try to come up with something that most likely they won’t
One of my all-time favorite bands, Superchunk, went nine years between studio albums. Majesty Shredding, the album they put out upon their 2010 return, was just amazing. They sounded totally refreshed, on top of their game, hooks all over the place. I would probably have to go all the way back to 1995 to find an album of theirs that I liked as much as this one. Another fave, Buffalo Tom, also went away for nine years before coming back with Three Easy Pieces. It felt like a really solid return to form.
Peter Gabriel’s “Up” came out ten years after “Us.” It’s a brilliant album.
Genesis’s “We Can’t Dance” cane out five and half years after “Invisible Touch.” Not a masterpiece but still very good.
Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road album was famously long-gestating (six years) and famously well-received.
Scott Walker’s The Drift. (I suppose he’d kept a hand in the game with film scores and other one-off things, but there were eleven years between that and Tilt, the album he did previously.)
“Short on ideas” is pretty much the last phrase I’d use to describe Tusk! Also, it came out about two and a half years after Rumours - I guess for a pop group in the late '70s that’s a fair amount of time between albums, but since they were also touring and going through all manner of awful interpersonal dramas in the meantime, it doesn’t seem like an especially long amount of time between the two albums.