Please tell us about an amazing comeback album by a notable rock-music artist or band who lost their way for a while but then got their mojo back!
Bonus points if you want to give a little background “behind the music”…
Permanent Vacation by Aerosmith
Meatloaf was down for the count until Bat Out of Hell II, Back Into Hell came out.
Long Distance Voyager, by the Moody Blues.
The Moodies had taken a break from 1974 through 1977, due to burnout, after years of constant touring and recording. Their first new studio album after reuniting, Octave (1978), performed modestly well, but the follow-up, Long Distance Voyager (1981), was a major success – it was a top-10 album in both the U.S. and the U.K., and had several hit singles: “Gemini Dream,” “The Voice,” and “Talking Out of Turn.”
Maybe Some Girls by the Rolling Stones, in 1978.
Exile on Main Street (1972) was a masterpiece, not to mention that it capped off a brilliant run that also included Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers. But after Exile, we got the the string of Goat’s Head Soup, It’s Only Rock 'n Roll, and Black and Blue. Each had its moments, but those albums were a definite slump (not to mention the decidedly lackluster Love You Live sandwiched in there).
They seemed “revitalized” with Some Girls, and perhaps not coincidentally, it marked the first album that Ronnie Wood contributed to as a full-time band member.
“Freedom” by Neil Young. He had a strange and very uneven string of albums in the 80s, each going to another extreme of electronica, country, rockabilly, soul and plain boring contemporary pop (Landing On Water), but not a sign of the greatness of his seventies albums. It was so obvious that his own record label boss David Geffen sued Young for making uncommercial albums. Then in 1989, “Freedom” came out, a rather typical Neil Young collection of folk, rock and even hard rock songs, even picking up the concept of beginning and ending the album with acoustic and electric versions of the key song of the album like on his classics “Tonight’s The Night” and “Rust Never Sleeps”. And “Rocking In The Free World” was a killer single and soon became one of his classic songs. “Freedom” was the album that totally restored his reputation, and there still were many great albums to follow. It helped that the developing grunge scene that would explode only two years afterwards took him as their godfather.
Bob Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind, produced by Daniel Lanois, was hailed as a late-period masterpiece after at least 10-15 years (depending on how you reckon his 80s output) of subpar — and sometimes outright lousy — material. Critics loved it, it sold well and even won a Grammy for Album of the Year (which Dylan had never even been nominated for before).
Roy Orbison’s Mystery Girl would probably have been a great comeback album if he hadn’t died just before it was released.
John Fogerty’s Centerfield. He had a contentious breakup with his ex-CCR bandmates. After a couple of solo albums under the Blue Ridge Rangers moniker, Centerfield brought a revitalized Fogerty back to the recording and touring circuit.
Did I hear correctly that his former manager/record company sued him to get the album pulled because they claimed they owned his “signature sound?”
I’d still consider it such, even if Roy wasn’t able to capitalize on the success. It was very well-received by critics, was a top-10 album in a number of countries, and the song “You Got It” was Orbison’s first top 20 hit since 1964.
The Doors, Morrison Hotel, after Soft Parade.
Dylan, New Morning, after Self Portrait.
Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, after Neil Young (first solo album).
Van Morrison, Veedon Fleece after Hard Nose the Highway.
The Band, Northern Lights, Southern Cross after Cahoots and Moondog Matinee.
Yup. That’d be Saul Zaentz, owner of Fantasy Records; he had Fogerty had a long-running feud, including several lawsuits related to the Centerfield album.
Speaking of Mystery Girl, producer Jeff Lynne had performed a similar career resuscitation for George Harrison when he produced Cloud Nine for him in 1987. Harrison even got a fluke number-one single out of it.
Plus, a Weird Al spoof!!
Eliminator by ZZ Top. Prior to that, their best performing album was “Tres Hombres” in 1973.
Eliminator came along a decade later, and became a global hit. Eliminator provided their first top-10 hit as well (“Legs”) Furthermore, it restarted their career. ZZ Top had always been a niche band for people who liked American southern blues-based rock. After Eliminator, they were a global pop sensation and their next several albums were all hits.
Rush with 2112. In their Behind the Music documentary they mentioned they were getting pressure from their label after the poor sales performance of their prior, conceptual album Caress of Steel - essentially, they had one more shot to repeat the success of their first album Rush, before getting dropped. Rather than backing-down from their ideas, they doubled-down on the whole concept thing, against the label’s wishes, with 2112. They figured they’d go out with a bang, but at least on their own terms. After the success of 2112, they determined they could do whatever they wanted, musically.
I may get pushback on this, but one of the biggest contrasts between quality, sales and impact of successive albums for any rock group is between “The Who Sell Out” and “Tommy”.
“The Who Sell Out” had a handful of great songs, but was uneven in quality and the concept part was more than a bit lame.
The following album, “Tommy” was brilliantly executed without the kind of drop-offs that plagued “The Who Sell Out”, providing the basis for successful live performances for years, launching The Who into the category of a major rock group with a reputation approaching that of the Rolling Stones and Beatles.
Speaking of The Who, their 2019 album Who – their first studio effort in 13 years – was fairly well-regarded and did pretty well in the charts the week it was released. (But I wouldn’t argue the album was anything like their work in their prime)
Along the same lines, After a 20 year hiatus, The Monkees’ 2016 album Good Times! got good reviews from almost everyone.
Not only was “Zanz Kant Danz” retitled, but the video was pulled from MTV. IDR if it could be played on “Night Flight”.
