Band Who Blew Artistic/Commercial Comebacks?

Both of those albums are dogs. Black Moon was no comeback in this fan's estimation.

 

Sinead O'Connor - How About I Be Me (And You Be You)

It's somewhat hard to say that this 2012 comeback attempt was exactly "blown" as it seemed to be more of another sad victim of Sinead's emotional struggles. This album was her first non-genre album in twelve years, the last one being 2000's Faith And Courage. Since then, she'd released albums that dabbled in Celtic Folk, purely spiritual songs, and reggae, as well as releasing a couple of compilations. However, just around the time the album was being released, she had an unfortunately well-documented mental breakdown that resulted in the accompanying tour and promotional activities being canceled and generally being replaced by ugly tabloid headlines and Twitter rants. Hopefully, she'll be able to have another shot at a decent comeback, she's way too talented IMHO.

 

How does this, in any way, fit the thread profile? Endless Wire was neither an artistic nor commercial comeback. It was presenting Pete and Roger as "we're the 2 left standing."

 

Echo & The Bunnymen.

After their initial run petered out with the bland (if quite commercially successful, in the US) self-titled album, Mac's solo career didn't take off the way he had obviously hoped. 3 largely listless commercial flop albums with variable artistic merits found him coming cap in hand to Will Sergeant to ask him to form the louder more energized Electrafixion. Some good shows and a decent but unspectacular album failed to arrest the commercial decline and found them looking at a record deal-less future. At that stage The Bunnymen's legend had started to get burnished in the press and new bands were namechecking their original first 4 classic albums from the early 80's. There was an allegedly stolen album recorded with Johnny Marr that never saw the light of day and things looked unpromising for Mac. Rather cynically he realised that his only way out of beckoning obscurity was to finally reform The Bunnymen. Having Will already on board for Electrifixion meant they needed to get Les Pattinson back on bass to give it legitimacy. Olive branches were duly tendered and Les pitched in to add some bass to the Evergreen album. With a new record deal, loud patronage from Liam Gallagher and a big hit single in Nothing Last Forever, The Bunnymen were back. It wasn't a great album (IMO) but they were on magazine covers again, on TOTP's, filling decent sized concert venues and success was theirs again. However the legendary Mac EGO was also back again in an instant; and he apparently reverted to the coke fuelled megalomaniac tool that he had been towards the end of the first incarnation of the band. Les bailed at the end of the tour for Evergreen citing family commitments ( he has recently stated that was a lie and at the time he just couldn't bear to be in the same room as Mac and his huge ego) and they were down to a duo. Will cut his losses and decided to tough it out as it was a paying gig but ceded almost all control to Mac. He immediately reverted to his crooner style of his solo career and they (well Mac; as Will's input is negligible)made a spectacular flop of an album (which is actually a good record funnily enough) and all the commercial momentum was lost. After that it was diminishing returns as Mac's ego and coke habit ran the band into the rocks on a conveyer belt of average duo albums; smaller record deals and commercial decline. Shambolic gigs, losing it onstage,them admitting Will doesn't even come into the studio with Mac and he just adds parts to tapes sent over to him at home. Mac has apparently admitted he has had to clean up his act in the past 2r yrs but they are absolutely a band that had a commercial comeback on a plate and totally and utterly blew it.

 

Probably one of the most tragic stories and one that defines perfectly what the OP is looking for: Badfinger. They were a "sure thing". The first to be signed by the Beatles ill-fated Apple label and even warrented the personal attention of Paul McCartney. The song writing was solid. Ultimately, they feel victim of Apple's death throes and went to Warner Brothers where mismanagement and misappropriation of funds beset this beleaguered band till they were left virtually broke and without good management.
Just goes to show how important a good manager is. All that talent, even receiving the blessing of a Beatle couldn't make their star rise at Warner Bros.

 

Maybe it was a spectacular fail in the UK, but not really so in the US. Evergreen wasn't a big commercial success here, but it did well enough and the band played clubs, then played the same clubs for each of the succeeding albums, so there was no downward swing. And as you note, the albums continued to be pretty good. In Boston on the recent tour, they even moved up from their usual club (the Paradise) to a much larger place (the House of Blues). Mac was indeed drunk ( or something), but that was no shocker.

 

Squealy said: ↑
Which album are you thinking of ?

"I stopped liking them after Album X" doesn't have anything to do with the band blowing a comeback.
Click to expand...
Of course it does; they made several bland albums that didnt' do well either commercially or artistically, hence blowing comeback opportunities to be at their earlier peak, both artistically and commercially. Also, there was some missed opportunity with Peter Hosapple.

Tgreg, Today at 6:40 AM Report

 

He didn't follow through with a tour while Cloud Nine was out with a number one single.

 

How about The Human League? They've had several comeback bids (namely in 1986 and 1995) but end up letting the momentum slip away by staying away too long. Crash totally revived them from Hysteria and put them back at #1 with "Human", then fans waited 4 years (which was a much longer gap in 86-90 compared to now) and bombed with Romantic. Then again in 1995, Octopus provided them with a massive comeback in the UK, and Tell Me When also went top 40 in the US, becoming their biggest album since Dare worldwide, then again, endless nostalgia circuit tours and not another album until 2001 when all the momentum had dried up.

 

George was actually moderately active in the years after "C9". He kept in the public profile with the Wilburys, had some other tracks released - like "Cheer Down" - and did the short Japan tour in 1991.

I agree that a true follow-up solo album circa 1989 or 1990 would've boosted his profile, and a US tour in 1988 or 1989 would've been helpful, too.

But did George care about having a "prominent public profile" at that stage? Probably not!

 

Nelly Furtado is another more recent one. She had a successful debut in 2000-2001, the followup didn't perform as well largely due to shifting musical preferences, but then relaunched herself with Loose in 2006 and had two #1 smash singles and was a strong presence in 2006-2007..... then waited until 2012 to release another album in English which ended up selling 20,000 copies in the US and not much better elsewhere, all in countries that Loose topped charts in. Justin Timberlake was also part of the Timbaland wave of the mid-2000s but he was able to take 7 years off because he never actually went away and kept making movies and staying in the public eye while Nelly vanished for several years, returning to an audience that long moved on

 

Deep Purple made a much publicized and successful comeback with the Perfect Strangers album and tour. The follow up, The House of Blue Light was a bomb, and combined with the constant infighting, the band imploded again.

 

He was making music obviously for the art of it. Seems to me not wanting to be 100% back in the game.

 

Beat me to it!

Awful, awful, awful.

See also Pixies...

 

Well you are right he was active in the immediate years following Cloud Nine with the Wilburys and everything, but after 1992 or so he basically vanished outside of the Beatles Anthology.

 

I'm sure it's been documented by someone, but I was never clear what George's intentions were in 1987. Did he record again because he just felt like making music? Did he hope to have more hits? Did he still owe WB an album?

 

The two original instrumentals on that album are superb and very worthy of their legacy.

 

Definitely, but I don't think that period "counts" for this thread. By 1992, GH had already "blown" his comeback - "Cloud 9" was old news by that point, so whatever momentum "C9" gave him was long dissipated.

I think it would've been interesting to see where GH's career would've gone if he'd really jumped back into the business big time...

 

I think Elvis sustained his "mojo" through "Aloha". It also started with the "Guitar Man" stuff in 1967. Even if you don't include the pre-'68 stuff, I would say his "comeback period" was '68-'73.

In '71 he put out a great Gospel album and a really good Christmas album, then in '72 he had "Burning Love" and the success of the MSG live album.

The last gasp was "Aloha". After that, he really let go of the steering wheel. He blew a GREAT opportunity there. Imagine if he had put out a really good studio album in the fall of '73.

 

Here's my two:

Journey, Steve Perry lineup in 1996. The Trial By Fire album was a big commercial and critical hit but the tour would have been monumental if Perry had gone ahead with it.

Journey have done well enough without Perry in the intervening years but with him they could have been in the absolute top tier of touring bands, in the USA at least.

Page & Plant: a bit harsh to say they blew it but interest for the MTV show and the tour was stratospheric, and then Walking Into Clarksdale turned out to be the odd beast it is. Tour was popular but just another attraction through town that year. I think it was more Plant backing away from it all than anything. It hurt Page's career more than Plant's, as he seems unkeen to work on anything that might end up being less than the smash hits of his past, commercially; indeed, he's not released a single album in the intervening years.

 

Liz Phair

Never super big/popular but seemed like she was going places...shifted gears and never recovered??

 

I have to respectfully disagree. You may think everything they did after "LRP" was substandard, but they're artistic and commercial fortunes rose tremendously up through Monster, their first, probably, widely considered misstep, but "New Adventures" is considered an artistic triumph, commercially only hurt by the fans who left after Monster.

For a "comeback," it feel like the basic idea we're talking about here is a new release after a period of inactivity or reaching an artistic nadir. That point was "Around The Sun" and their actual "comeback" was "Accelerate," which was an artistic and commercial success, as well as "Collapse Into Now," their final album - so, imo, R.E.M. did not blow their artistic/commercial comeback - they were one of the few bands who actually achieved it.

And as for them quitting after "LRP" securing their legacy as one of the best bands off their generation, while many people prefer their work with Bill Berry (who was on 5 more albums after "LRP"), I think R.E.M's legacy is doing just fine and their place in rock history is secured.

 

Fair enough. However, if that be the case, Black Moon would still be a Chihuahua compared to the Great Dane of Hot Seat.

 

Yvonne Elliman. She gets a huge gift with a song in Sat Night Fever, puts it on a lackluster album, follows that up with a worse album (had one fantastic cover song, tho), then drops out of sight.

 

Oh God yes. Black Moon was not in my house long before it was sold.