Greatest Comeback

Aerosmith went on to sell more records (new ones, with new songs) after their comeback than prior to it, didn't they?

Also, Roxy Music, if their 1979-82 period counts as a comeback.

But anyway, I guess Frank Sinatra is the true owner of this thread. He was all but forgotten when he was resurrected by Capitol/Nelson Riddle and ended up having a 50s so commercially and artistically successful that he became a legend.

This dude:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Juan_de_Flandes_001.jpg/429px-Juan_de_Flandes_001.jpg

"if you were my wife, madam, i'd drink it" ... oh, hang on, i see what you mean. carry on.

I'll make the obvious nom for Elvis '68.

Interesting question. Have to balance commercial/critical aspect of it. Aerosmith became an even bigger band but no critic would rate Pump over Rocks.

OnOffOn and Obliterati are probably better than anything that came before, though.

Roy Orbison
INXS

Yeah, I thought of Mission of Burma, but it's not like those records brought them a much bigger audience or anything -- did they?

Ozzy

Rod Stewart!

Tom Jones

William Shatner

Six comebacks come to mind (aside from those already mentioned): Paul Simon (Graceland), Johnny Cash (American Recordings), Bob Dylan (Time Out Of Mind), Tina Turner (Private Dancer), Green Day (American Idiot) and Morrissey (You Are The Quarry).

Morrissey??

"Time Out of Mind? More like Head Out of Ass!" Def. one of Mark Prindle's better lines.

Yeah, I thought so. Morrissey had been out of the limelight for, what, 10 years? Then came Quarry, which was -- for the most part -- really well receieved. Maybe my memory is faulty.

As to Time Out Of Mind, I didn't like it much, but I think it was the disc that kick-started Dylan's late-career comeback, wasn't it?

Dylan's late-career comeback commenced in 1990 with Under the Red Sky, imo.
i'll take the Go-Betweens and Wire as being great comebacks

Modern Talking must be the commercially most succesful comeback since Tina Turner.

Duke Ellington, Newport '56. A year earlier his band was operating at a loss and they were reduced to playing for ice shows. With one concert (or one song, "Diminuendo & Crescendo In Blue") (or one solo, by Paul Gonsalves) his career turned around completely.

Jane Dark sez Marianne Faithfull and Linda Perry.

There's no new material or anything that I know of, but I've got a soft spot for the Rok. Warmed my heart when I heard he was playing again. Maybe not the greatest comeback, but my personal favorite. For a while I really thought he was done.

Surely someone must have died on stage - got revived - then carried on...

Dave Gahan?

Joe Strummer had a great comeback from total obscurity. And he was just getting warmed up with the Mescaleros. Global-a-go-go is a really strong record.

Neil Young had a great comeback after a lackluster decade with Freedom.

Mekons OOOH is another comeback record of note.

Worst comeback: Big Star, In Space

johnny cash is a pretty big one. gained a whole new generation of fans with the american recordings.

burt bacharach made a big comeback in the late 90's with all those soundtracks featuring him (austin powers, my best friend's wedding, etc).

you could argue that iggy pop made a comeback with "the idiot."

I think Johnny Cash is the winner here.

Deffo Sinatra.

i wouldn't rate this with either sinatra or cash, but one more that hasn't been mentioned: u2.

oh, and bruce springsteen has had a nice little revival too, for better or worse.

oh, and bruce springsteen has had a nice little revival too, for better or worse.

For better and worse, but yeah.

Marc Bolan!

Dandy in the Underworld is soooooooooo damned good.

Lou Reed's "New York" in 1989. Didn't last too long in the limelight though.

What was U2's comeback? And was Joe Strummer really ever obscure?

Lou Reed's "New York" in 1989

I never did understand what was supposedly so go about that album (or, for that matter, his previous "comeback," The Blue Mask). Sure, there's a few pretty decent songs on there, but overall, it's not an album I come back to very much.

Maybe it seemed better in 1989?

(x-post)
i'd say u2 were a basically classic-rock dinosaurs before all that you can't leave behind came out, and that that one completely turned them back into current pop stars, with critical heft and pop-culture heft to boot.

and joe strummer was certainly more obscure than, say, bob dylan or johnny cash or frank sinatra.

YES c. 1983

New York definitely sounded better in 1989.

brian wilson?

Yeah, he is right up there for sure.

i'd say u2 were a basically classic-rock dinosaurs before all that you can't leave behind came out, and that that one completely turned them back into current pop stars, with critical heft and pop-culture heft to boot.

prior to atyclb, u2 went through the commercial embarrassment of pop, where their big abc-tv special was the lowest-rated show in the history of network television, most dates on the tour were half-sold, and the record sold far below expectations. still, "below expectations" for u2 meant about 2 million copies instead of 10 million copies. but in 2000 they weren't thought of so much as classic rock dinosaurs; they were a once-"important" band who had floundered the last time out and weren't being paid much attention to.

I wish Howard Tate could have been an answer to this thread. I was really rooting for Rediscovered to gain some traction a few years ago.

i picked up New York in a secondhand shop the other day. there are some cracking songs on there but it does tail off a bit in the 2nd half. and some of the subject matter sounds a bit dated now since the Giuliani purge of NYC.

Santana?

Justin Timberlake is definitely up there.

Beyonce too, but she sort of segue'd rather than "came back"

ummm

the 3 singles off the last n sync album all charted in the top 20 which directly led into the 3 monster singles off jt's first album

he would be a great candidate for 'greatest reinvention' but he didn't have to come back from anywhere...

Yes, but was jt's first album any decent? I mean, it wasn't like a *BOOM* comeback but, to me, anyone going from N*Sync to FutureSex/LoveSounds deserves a nod.

xp fair enough compromise. I was interpreting "comeback" to encompass not only reunions of positively-"done" bands but someone who successfully made it from - to +

Moving right along here and back to topic: Charlie Rich.

I actually think Geir hit this on the head with ol' Frankie Boy.

elvis 68, sinatra and cash are all strong.

paul mccartney with flaming pie? i know it wasn't huge, but...

McCartney has had "comeback" at various times. "Flaming Pie" was as definite US comeback for him, in Europe, it was with "Flowers In The Dirt" already. And, as he had struggled to sell for a while after "Flaming Pie" (even the excellent "Chaos & Creation In The Backyard" didn't achive the popularity it would have deserved), last year's effort could almost be considered kind of a comeback too.

How about Turboneger. Given the state the band members were in around the late 90s, it is kind of surprising that they would go on and become bigger than ever (in popularity at least) in the oughties?

the best comeback is yet to come, obviously it is mark hollis with his second solo album. anytime soon.

It certainly isn't on par with a Sinatra or a Cash, but Robert Wyatt's nice rise in public profile after last year's album was a pleasant comeback.

Unsane. Came back with their best album then made an even better one in 2007.

Surprised Chxck didn't come here to mention Rick Springfield and Billy Ocean.

Mission of Burma

tony bennett

and yes 90125 otm

Sinatra and Johnny Cash are, as everyone says, going to be hard to beat... some open questions are in play...

What's the distinction between a proper comeback, and just having a sort of weak album and then stepping back up to heights sort of near where you were at before? How long do you have to be a nobody for the comeback to count? Madonna seems like a question mark on both of these...

How long does it have to last to be a comeback rather than a drop-in? I'm thinking of George Harrison on that last one.

U2 probably counts though. Even if they weren't exactly an irrelevant flop act in the late 90s, it's clear that between Achtung and ATYCLB they were a bit out to sea.

Scott Walker too? Never done much commercial success as a soloist, but has received huge critical success from the mid 90s onwards.

And Dion.

Marianne Faithful would get my vote (although Walker would also be a good choice.)

Didn't see a mention for Tina Turner. Private Dancer in '84 was a huge comeback after a hellish time in 70s / early 80s.

edit, Daniel, Esq. mentioned it above. Worth calling out again 'cos it was a great personal triumph for her making the sales comeback all the sweeter.

The Bee Gees

DISCO

lock thread

Revive.

Next theme for record club is 'phoenix from the flames'.

good theme!

Wire's Noughties revival for sheer quality if not unlikelihood

That mbv record was pretty stunning for a band that hadn't released anything for 20 years

also true

it was pretty stunning on any metric imo

Dinosaur Jr made some excellent records in the last few years.

Swans must be a contender. They were pretty much finished in 1997, playing to half-empty houses all over Europe on their "farewell" tour. Since they came back in 2010, Gira's been getting the best reviews of his career and the band are playing to larger audiences than ever.

yeah that's a really good one

really want like chapterhouse or w/e to come back with a work of raging brilliance, any examples of a mediocre band doing this

Leonard Cohen too. Not that he ever went away exactly, but he didn't tour for 15 years between 1993 and 2008. That comeback tour was the biggest of his career and saw him playing arenas for the first time.

Suspect strongly that Tom will play The Chills.

Aerosmith have to be up there. My Mom said they played at her prom!

Sleater-Kinney

^yeah, can't argue that.

Failure's comeback record this year was absolutely incredible too. I didn't even like their 90s stuff that much to begin with, but then they re-formed as middle-aged men and absolutely knock one out of the park.

er, can't argue with that.

I can't believe no one's mentioned it here or on the Facebook post I made - Kate Bush! Aerial!

Best Comeback of all time was James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Show. Dude was done. Down for the count! Nothing left to give. Cape was on, show was over. And he just kept coming back! That's some straight up Lazarus shit.

Did he also hop off a stretcher as he was being taken off stage or was that another show?

I don't remember a stretcher at the T.A.M.I. Show, but it seems logical that it would be worked into the act at some point!

"and your mother too!"

this year the greatest comeback was definitely the apartments "no song, no spell, no madrigal". after 18 years!

Carcass

Van Der Graaf Generator circa Godbluff

It's not New Order, that's for sure.

cibo matto
avalanches
slowdive
(mind if there is a general best comeback albums thread that would be cool)

Tindersticks The Something Rain comes to mind.

dino jr, tho they weren't gone for that long

Jerry Lee Lewis went on to become a big country star in the late '60s after the Myra Gale marriage scandal got him blacklisted 10 years earlier.

A Tribe Called Quest

Avalanches is a good one, not only in that it was a "true" comeback but it also managed to live up to expectations and perhaps even surpass them

Magma dropping perhaps their two best studio albums in 2004 and 2009 feels like it counts here even if those albums are primarily made up of 30+ year old material