Best comeback albums

[bathory]

One thing that's interesting and notable is that this is NOT a long list of albums. Most people put one album or a handful at the most in their posts. It seems that comebacks are incredibly hard to do. Obviously the success rate with it is NOT high. What's the lesson to be learned? If you're a band putting out quality material, don't take a several year break or make a shitty album, because chances are you'll never get back to the level you were at before again.

 

dude, plenty of albums got named. prog and psych don't represent all of music

[rushgoober]

One thing that's interesting and notable is that this is NOT a long list of albums. Most people put one album or a handful at the most in their posts. It seems that comebacks are incredibly hard to do. Obviously the success rate with it is NOT high. What's the lesson to be learned? If you're a band putting out quality material, don't take a several year break or make a shitty album, because chances are you'll never get back to the level you were at before again.

 

dude, plenty of albums got named. prog and psych don't represent all of music

 

not a lot of albums really did get named, and most people didn't have that many in their lists. i'm just saying in general, it's hard to make a really good comeback album in any genre...

[nappy2112]

Lots of good ones already named , so I will add Kiss - Revenge.

[bathory]

One thing that's interesting and notable is that this is NOT a long list of albums. Most people put one album or a handful at the most in their posts. It seems that comebacks are incredibly hard to do. Obviously the success rate with it is NOT high. What's the lesson to be learned? If you're a band putting out quality material, don't take a several year break or make a shitty album, because chances are you'll never get back to the level you were at before again.

 

dude, plenty of albums got named. prog and psych don't represent all of music

 

not a lot of albums really did get named, and most people didn't have that many in their lists. i'm just saying in general, it's hard to make a really good comeback album in any genre...

 

true

[Presto-digitation]

I think comeback seems VERY loosely defined here.

[bathory]

make up your own definition then

[Presto-digitation]

Well, I'd say either by a band who's been away for a considerable time (more than just what's normal between-album amounts), re-formed outright, or just sucked to high holiness prior to said glorious return and sucked for a good while at that... Edited June 23, 2013 by Presto-digitation

[bathory]

read my first post

[Del_Duio]

Somebody's going to say "Presto", I just know it :D

[invisible airwave]

I forgot to mention Diamonds And Pearls by Prince. After Sign O The Times, Lovesexy got mixed reviews and those two soundtrack albums he did weren't really good. He came back with a bang in the 90s with another lyrically raunchy classic like Gett Off.

 

Too bad he went downhill after that when he changed his name to that symbol.

[custom55]

Van Halen x2.

 

1. w/Sammy --- parachute pants and all... They fell apart in the 90's IMO.

 

2. w/DLR Their latest album with Dave Lee is great too.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WsSqhNi6yY

 

 

Rolling Stones Steel Wheels -- Since both Jagger and Richards had solo albums just before Steel Wheels and there was a lot of bad blood between them, I consider this album a comeback.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loNey3n6uuE

Edited June 25, 2013 by custom55

[Jake2112]

Ace Frehley - Anomaly

Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way To Blue

Asia - Phoenix (First album with the original lineup after the John Payne years)

Black Sabbath - Heaven & Hell

Black Sabbath - 13

Blink-182 - Neighborhoods

Cheap Trick - Rockford

Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King

Iron Maiden - Brave New World

King Crimson - Discipline (After breaking up after the terrific, "Red", KFC releases a fantastic 80's album)

Kiss - Sonic Boom

Megadeth - The System Has Failed

Metallica - Death Magnetic

Primus - Green Naugahyde

Queensryche - Queensryche (2013)

Rush - Vapor Trails

U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind

Van Halen - 5150

Van Halen - A Different Kind Of Truth

Yes - 90125

Yes - Fly From Here

ZZ Top - La Futura

[Rutlefan]

ReRush beat me to Graceland and XTC's Apple Venus, but here's a couple:

 

Wire - Send (after a second career hiatus, returned to the direct approach of their early, classic material)

The Wedding Present -- Take Fountain (after running out of gas in the '90s and releasing three great lps as Cinerama, they went back to calling themselves TWP and released a modern classic).

 

Surprised no one's mentioned Heart's self-titled 1985 #1. Not a huge fan of that '80s radio-friendly power pop myself, but you have to give them credit; supposedly they were having trouble finding a label and they respond by putting out a #1 album chock full o' hits. 2010's Red Velvet Car was yet another great comeback and more my style (love "Hey You").

Edited June 28, 2013 by Rutlefan

[ReRushed]

ReRush beat me to Graceland and XTC's Apple Venus, but here's a couple:

 

Wire - Send (after a second career hiatus, returned to the direct approach of their early, classic material)

The Wedding Present -- Take Fountain (after running out of gas in the '90s and releasing three great lps as Cinerama, they went back to calling themselves TWP and released a modern classic).

 

Surprised no one's mentioned Heart's self-titled 1985 #1. Not a huge fan of that '80s radio-friendly power pop myself, but you have to give them credit; supposedly they were having trouble finding a label and they respond by putting out a #1 album chock full o' hits. 2010's Red Velvet Car was yet another great comeback and more my style (love "Hey You").

 

Send is a kick in the balls. It's ferocious. It's a musical razor slicing through younger competition's efforts. It's among Wire's best releases, but the comeback really began with the Read & Burn EPs. In fairness, Send just padded those earlier efforts.

[Steevo]

Surprised no one's mentioned Heart's self-titled 1985 #1. Not a huge fan of that '80s radio-friendly power pop myself, but you have to give them credit; supposedly they were having trouble finding a label and they respond by putting out a #1 album chock full o' hits. 2010's Red Velvet Car was yet another great comeback and more my style (love "Hey You").

 

The S/T album was great and definitely should be in this thread. RVC was a pile of drivel, I much preferred JD which is vastly underrated.

[Rutlefan]

ReRush beat me to Graceland and XTC's Apple Venus, but here's a couple:

 

Wire - Send (after a second career hiatus, returned to the direct approach of their early, classic material)

The Wedding Present -- Take Fountain (after running out of gas in the '90s and releasing three great lps as Cinerama, they went back to calling themselves TWP and released a modern classic).

 

Surprised no one's mentioned Heart's self-titled 1985 #1. Not a huge fan of that '80s radio-friendly power pop myself, but you have to give them credit; supposedly they were having trouble finding a label and they respond by putting out a #1 album chock full o' hits. 2010's Red Velvet Car was yet another great comeback and more my style (love "Hey You").

 

Send is a kick in the balls. It's ferocious. It's a musical razor slicing through younger competition's efforts. It's among Wire's best releases, but the comeback really began with the Read & Burn EPs. In fairness, Send just padded those earlier efforts.

 

I grant the point re the EPs but have kind of considered it all the same effort, like I considered the MBV EPs released with Loveless (the one with Don't Ask Why is actually my favorite MBV release) part of the same.

 

I'll be seeing Wire at the Black Cat in DC in a couple weeks (Sunday the 14th I think). It will actually be my first time seeing them, even though they (and the offshoots; esp Colin Newmans Singing Fish and Bruce Gilbert's AC Marius) were my favorite music of the mid/late '80s. The first opportunity I had to see them was the tour supporting Send. On that they were playing at the 9:30 club. In one of the strangest, gut-wrenching coincidences imaginable (for me), it was the same night that The Wedding Present was playing at Black Cat. Two extremely rare events, same night. That's like Haley's Comet passing by the same night the Cubs win the World Series. My concert buddy was/is a big WP fan (as am I), whereas he's not much into Wire, so we went to WP even though I'd seen them a couple times before and was dying to see Wire. At least I'll get to see them finally, though Gilbert isn't with them anymore, unfortunately.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Rutlefan

[Rutlefan]

Surprised no one's mentioned Heart's self-titled 1985 #1. Not a huge fan of that '80s radio-friendly power pop myself, but you have to give them credit; supposedly they were having trouble finding a label and they respond by putting out a #1 album chock full o' hits. 2010's Red Velvet Car was yet another great comeback and more my style (love "Hey You").

 

The S/T album was great and definitely should be in this thread. RVC was a pile of drivel, I much preferred JD which is vastly underrated.

 

I'll take your word for it. I should have said "successful" rather than "great" re RVC as I'm not familiar with the album, though I do like Hey You.

[sdhonda]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sAAHVrTPV60/UbvSZYzBa3I/AAAAAAAAjJ0/q-F_ZIYusiA/s1600/2112_large-01.jpg

 

EDIT: Although, they had only been in a nosedive for about 6 months or so with CoS and the Down The Tubes Tour.

Edited June 30, 2013 by sdhonda

[invisible airwave]

 

Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King

 

 

Haven't listened to them in a decade but I consider Busted Stuff to be their best and a good comeback album after the too radio friendly sounding Everyday.

[invisible airwave]

If any Rolling Stones albums comes to mind, it's Some Girls. After the mixed reviews for their last couple of albums before, they proved they could rock as hard as the punk rockers (When The Whip Comes Down,Lies,Respectable) that had just come out and appeal to the disco crowd with a song like Miss You and still make it a pure RS rocker. It's my favorite album of theirs, truth be told.

[GeddyLeeRoth]

AC/DC—Back In Black. Released within a year after their all-important singer dies and its one of the greatest rock albums of all time.

 

Van Halen—5150. DLR is irreplacable. There is no following that guy. But VH morphed into a surgically tight, radio dominating, hit machine, but still had the VH heartbeat. 5150 had a lot of emotion and urgency, all their following Hagar albums were too commercial on the whole.

 

Van Halen—A Different Kind Of Truth. Well surpassed my expectations. DLR came through and Ed played even better than I expected. Great f***ing album, even if there is no definitive single.

 

Exodus—Tempo Of The Damned. After a band break up, the original singer dying during their reunion, over a decade since being in the studio, and 4 out of 5 members getting off meth to make this album, and they release a instant thrash classic. I considered it to be the best metal album to have been released in the past decade at the time, and still do. Its there best album period. Hail Zetro.

 

Iron Maiden—Brave New World. After 2 subpar albums without Adrian, and 2 dreadful albums without Bruce, Maiden comes back and reminds us who the greatest metal band of all time is. Up The Irons.

 

Ozzy—Blizzard Of Ozz. Just how f*cked up do you have to be to be fired from Black Sabbath in the 70's? Ozzy accomplished this and coming back with two of the greatest metal albums of all time, BOZ being just a bit better than DOAMM, IMO.

[By Tor]

Tango In The Night . Fleetwood Mac .

Hounds Of Love - Kate Bush

[Steevo]

Tango In The Night . Fleetwood Mac .

Hounds Of Love - Kate Bush

 

But both of those have been consistent! :D-13:

[Steevo]

Surprised no one's mentioned Heart's self-titled 1985 #1. Not a huge fan of that '80s radio-friendly power pop myself, but you have to give them credit; supposedly they were having trouble finding a label and they respond by putting out a #1 album chock full o' hits. 2010's Red Velvet Car was yet another great comeback and more my style (love "Hey You").

 

The S/T album was great and definitely should be in this thread. RVC was a pile of drivel, I much preferred JD which is vastly underrated.

 

I'll take your word for it. I should have said "successful" rather than "great" re RVC as I'm not familiar with the album, though I do like Hey You.

 

Well make a concerted effort to listen to Jupiters Darling and RVC albums back to back and maybe reconsider your choice! JD should really be their second comeback album imo. I honestly can't see why RVC gets any praise at all.

 

As much as I love Heart, soooo many stinkers: Private Audition, Passionworks, Bad Animals (mostly), Brigade, Desire Walks On, RVC, Fanatic. When Jupiters Darling was released it was like Hallelujah - FINALLY! Alas, the buzz was only shortlived though :(

[bathory]

wouldn't really call hounds of love a comeback record, it's f***ing awesome and so is the album before it. and the album before that.

 

really all of her albums are great except the red shoes, and that's still got some good songs on it.