Favourite late period release by a "legacy" artist/ band

Amy Grant's late period releases are great, even How Mercy Looks From Here is great and is still great vocally. Post House of Love, her masterpiece is Behind The Eyes though. Her prime years commercially are from 1977-1994.

 

Damn near everything Bowie did from Outside and after, is pure gold.

With the lone exception of Hours (meh), my personal all-time favorite Bowie list of albums starts with Blackstar at #1, The Next Day at #2, and it goes pretty much in reverse chronological order from there...

Reality and Heathen are tied for #3, Earthing is #5, Outside is #6, and I think Toy is probably #7. Then BTWN is #8.

IMHO, Bowie did nothing but get better with age, after about 1988.

 

The Next Day / Blackstar
Love & Theft
New York
Post Pop Depression
Blue & Lonesome
Chaos & Creation / Memory Almost Full / New / Egypt Station

 

Bryan Ferry’s last 2 albums Avonmore and Olympia are a great return to form

 

Amen to late-period REM!! My #1 favorite REM album is New Adventures, followed by Reveal (which is my wife's #1), and then Monster.

I sill like earlier REM some, but I rarely reach for anything before Monster all that much.

 

David Bowie - ★
Black Sabbath-13
Robert Plant-Carry Fire
Donald Fagen-Morph The Cat
Tom Petty-Hypnotic Eye

 

Gordon Lightfoot's best post 70s albums are his 3 80s albums: Dream Street Rose, Shadows and Salute, especially Dream Street Rose and Shadows.

 

Bob Lind - Finding You Again
Released 40+ years after its predewcessor!

There was also a followup album, Magellan Was Wrong, but I don’t think it’s as good.

 

Agreed. Blackstar, untitled/unmastered, and The Life of Pablo was the soundtrack to a LOT of people's early 2016, mine included. That album is timeless, but also quintissential 2016 - not bad for a guy who was supposed to have peaked somewhere between 1972 and 1983. I love 90s Bowie, but I don't know if anything he did then bore itself into the musical zeitgeist the way Blackstar did (than again, I was too young to be part of the conversation in the 90s...)

Runners-up for me are Devin Townsend's 2009-2011 Ki/Addicted/Deconstruction/Ghost cycle (he was a very unknown quantity after dispanding SYL, getting sober, and taking some years off - at the time lots of people saw 1996-2001 as his apex) and Scott Walker's post-"Nite Flights" work (where the post-legacy eventually became the legacy itself).

 

Wagonmaster - Porter Wagoner (2007)
The Grass Is Blue - Dolly Parton (1999)

 

Odd, I’ve always liked the cover art. Thought it was funny and had that extra something that makes a decent sleeve.

Never thought it one to complain on, so perhaps I’m missing something and of course to each their own

 

Zooropa was the first blip for me but tbey rescued things with the next album. Funnily enough, All That You Can't Leave Behind was the start of their bona fide duffer period IMO.

 

An Appt with Mr Yeats would be my pick...but I love a fellow Waterboys fan.

Todd Rundgren’s Liars was pretty fantastic.

Also I’d vote Sonic Youths Washing Machine as their best (15 yrs in) but could consider Murray St and Sonic Nurse as strong competition.

Tom Waits continues to amaze with each record...his most recent Bad As Me is as good as any, even if it’s not my pick for his best (Rain Dogs) I could see an argument.

 

You are aware that he was far more than just REM's drummer, right? He played more instruments than just drums, plus though I'm not sure if he always was an equally contributing songwriter, if not he at the very least over time became an equally contributing songwriter with Mills and Buck, who would then hand their (collectively and separately written) music over to Stipe for lyrics.

In fact in one of the interviews the four of them collectively did to announce/explain Berry's departure when it happened, Stipe credited Berry with being the writer of, among many other songs, 'Everybody Hurts', and added something along the lines of 'how can we possibly replace that!?'

 

Wow. That was beautiful. So moving. I'd always thought Vee's career was terribly mismanaged during the years he was on the radio and marketable -- roughly 1960~1966 (though the hits stopped after 1963). He had a warm, resonant voice and was equally adept at the roots rockabilly he started out with very early in his career (before the hits) as well as that incredible ballad Small Town America. Thanks for posting this. I'm going to seek his later work out.

 

I'm debating if I should mention They Might Be Giants.

Saying "post-legacy" implies they left the phase of their career where they were most relevant, but perhaps other than a brief moment in the mid-90s, they were always innovating, changing, and making headway with new audiences. Every few years they re-embed themselves in the public consciousness with a theme song, an album, a video, or something. I don't think anyone pines for the days of "Flood", or of "Here Comes Science", or "Boss of Me", when they won their most mainstream plaudits. TMBG always is.

That said, I adore their 2011-2015 run of "Join Us", "Nanobots", and Dial-a-Song '15. It was like a whole new band had grown under my nose that I hadn't noticed. I think it's the first time they transformed while I was into them (I got on board during the "Spine" era - some came in through Tiny Toons, I found my way in via Homestar Runner) and it's so amazing to see your favorite band turn into your next favorite band!

 

Cover art never bothered me.

This is an incredible album IMO. It ranks with All Things Must Pass for me.

 

Rush - Clockwork Angels

 

I found REM's Collapse Into Now to be a surprisingly good album... and I'm not an REM fan by any means... quite frankly I've always been perplexed by the group's massive levels of critical and commercial success.

Another favorite late period release of note is Judas Priest's Firepower.

 

New Order-Get Ready 2001
The Church-Uninvited Like The Clouds 2006
The Romantics-6149 2003

 

U2 No Line On The Horizon
Motley Crue Saints Of Los Angeles
a-Ha Foot Of The Mountain

 

A few of mine -

Mike Oldfield: Return To Ommadawn



Marillion: Marbles



Porcupine Tree: Fear of a Blank Planet

 

So pleased you like this. I think a lot of us have a hope that when we post something that someone will appreciate what we hear from our favorite artists, so thanks for that! I agree with your comments and I certainly find Bobby always had a sincere presence in his voice and an incredible ability with phrasing that still draws me in. I think Bobby was popular at a difficult time. He always wrote songs, but they were not given the attention they deserved, especially because he was only 16 when he started having hits. His own band toured with Bobby even very early on but they were not used on his well known recordings.

I have pretty much everything by Bobby, some being real rarities. There were hundreds of recordings actually, and I really love his late career recordings. If you want any help in finding things, message me! I could help you sort through all that is out there!

Here is another later song written by Bobby, I Wouldn't Change A Thing, from an album by the same name. This song was used at the end of the play about Bobby's life that was written by 2 of his sons, and which premiered in 2016. Very bittersweet and emotional song.

 

Surely the masterpiece that is the Beach Boys' "From There To Back Again /Summer's Gone", from the more recent That's Why God Made The Radio album is worthy of mention... so I did...

 

Kate Bush's 'Before the Dawn' 3-disc concert album is absolutely spectacular! Also, her comeback album 'Aerial' from 2005 and the piano-focussed '50 Words for Snow' are breathtaking listens.