We’ve seen it many times, some group starts out doing well, the rock & roll lifestyle (at least the “drugs” part) becomes too big a part of their lives and they start to go right down the crapper. Then they go off, get sobered up and come roaring back with an extremely good album.
Let’s name a few. My first two:
“Permanent Vacation” by Aerosmith
“Dr. Feelgood” by Motley Crue
St. Anger by Metallica.
Just kidding. That album sucks.
Well, I am struggling with this right now. An obvious recent choice is Wilco (the Album) by Wilco. Jeff Tweedy has battled his demons and is apparently both sober / clean and trying to swing for the commercial-success fences.
It is being hailed as a truly great album. I have heard bits of it, but a lot of the single You Never Know (the chorus of the song is “I Don’t Care Anymore”).
I find the song and the album kinda meh. The song is a total rip-off of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, even down to the little guitar riff used as spice on top of the chorus - and since Harrison was sued on that song for ripping off “He’s So Fine” I find the similarity in Wilco’s song particularly ironic…
But the song itself? Well, it’s limp - the song is a nice little smile up at a sunny day where the narrator is letting go of the problems they have had and now they don’t care anymore…I am glad he’s figured stuff out, but it leaves us with a so-so lyric…
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. My $.02, YMMV, etc.
Now, on the other hand, **Steve Earle **has fought his share of demons, but his latest, Townes, is excellent…
David Bowie’s album Scary Monsters was made after he got cleaned up I think. The song “Ashes to Ashes” is about getting out of a drug addiction and is based on personal experience.
The only other one I can think of is Lou Reed’s The Blue Mask.
I know very little about Wilco but my girlfriend is really into them; she thinks Wilco’s post-sobriety work is inferior to the stuff they did when Tweedy was all fucked up, that it’s somehow less soulful and interesting. I can’t really comment on this sentiment one way or the other but I do think that, for better or worse, a lot of great music is made during the course of severe drug addictions. Most of the early work of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was recorded when Anthony and Hillel Slovak were both deep into heroin and cocaine, literally unable to function without constantly using; I think that is the best stage of that band’s catalog, musically.
Empty Glass by Pete Townshend. IIRC, the liner notes say something like, “And special thanks to Remy Martin for saving my life by making the bloody stuff so expensive.”
I think “Sentimental Hygine” by Warren Zevon was one of his best efforts.