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Don't Call It A Comeback

by enrico

Too many times lately has the phrase "making a comeback" been
thrown around when referring to the return of a barely missed pop
act. A boy band that realised the game was up five years ago
whose members find that acting in soap operas or sitting on the
sofa doesn't pay as much decide to get up and lip-sync to the
same old songs and claim to have become a "man band" is hailed as
a comeback.

A pop star who's spoilt tantrums alienated those that wrote
their songs for them 2 years ago has found someone else willing
to turn out a song and patches together a new album that hits the
top five is similarly dubbed a comeback.

Does it matter that the musical world didn't suffer from their
loss? That without them the radio was a tad more enjoyable?
Probably, and, evidently, actually not. Doesn't someone have to
be gone long enough to be missed before making a comeback?

A true comeback is a rare thing and examples can probably be
counted on digits without removing your socks. When an artist or
act that defined and exemplified their chosen medium fades in the
wake that they created and ends up in the 'Where Are They Now?'
file the genre is marked by their absence. Be it drug-fuelled,
burger-fuelled or even caused by anti-Semitic comments, the fall
of a great artist is a sad thing. Thankfully though, if they're
truly great they can master a well executed comeback.

The first to do many things, Elvis Presley was the first to
create a major comeback. After burning into the minds of the
world's youth in the 1950's, Elvis was struggling in the 1960's.
A turn in the U.S Army had taken the sting out of his tail and
his manager had skewered him into so many movies of little to no
success that the King was seen as a relic. In 1968 he couldn't
even get a Top 40 single in the U.S and he was six years past his
last Number One single.

Unhappy with his career and feeling the threat of new musical
trends - the Beatles were riding high across the world - and even
Tom Jones, Elvis was initially reluctant when his manager Colonel
Tom Parker signed him up to perform a 'Special' on NBC.

Presley's manager intended the broadcast to be nothing more than
the King singing a couple of Christmas carols but director Steve
Binder had other, grander ideas and wanted to re-establish Elvis
as the King.

Appearing on stage was daunting for Elvis, his last concert had
been in 1961, but he worked hard to prepare and when he did took
the stage clad in black leather Elvis wowed everyone.

The show was a huge success and revitalised Presley's career.
Chart successes returned for Elvis and so too did the touring and
stage performances with the passion that had gained him fame in
the first place.

Another one-time legend that emerged from Sun Records only to
find his career faltering, Johnny Cash was struggling to achieve
success before he began a rejuvenation in the 1990's that
heralded a huge comeback.

Initially seen as an outlaw type figure, famed for kicking out
the lights at the Opry, Cash had achieved a small comeback of his
own in the late 1960's by playing a concert in Folsom Prison but
by the 1980's the once mighty Cash was releasing songs such as
"Farmer's Almanac" and "Chicken In Black" that charted poorly if
at all.

With a poor decade of television films and health issues behind
him, the early 1990's found Johnny Cash without a record label
and in need of fresh ideas if he was to return to his former
glory. Two wise decisions sparked Cash's comeback.

The first was singing on The Wanderer from U2's  album Zooropa
and the second was signing to Rick Rubin's American Recordings
label which, at the time, was better known for rap and hard rock.
Neither decision seemed an obvious one for a County musician but
the introduction to a new audience worked wonders.  After two
critically heralded American Recordings albums, Cash found
himself adored by a new and slowly growing audience and, in 1994,
performed at Glastonbury Festival.

Rumours of a fatal-diagnosis of Shy-Drager syndrome in 1997
caused Cash to cease his touring but re-invigorated his recording
career. The albums that followed, still on American Recordings,
were some of the biggest selling and greatest received of his
career and re-established him as a major recording artist and,
when he sadly died in 2003, Cash was enjoying the greatest
success of his career since the late sixties.

Linked to Johnny Cash via a version of Girl from the North
Country on his Nashville Skyline album, Bob Dylan has managed not
one, but two comebacks in his long career.

Following his early career-defining Blonde on Blonde album,
Dylan was sidelined by a motorcycle accident. When Dylan returned
to recording it was with the country-tinged albums John Wesley
Harding and Nashville Skyline which were received well though saw
dwindling returns. Six years and five poorly selling (in Dylan
terms) albums later Dylan found himself in trouble of a marital
nature and captured it in an album that has since been hailed as
one of, if not the, greatest albums of his career.

Blood On The Tracks was released in 1975 and marked a return to
form in terms of song-writing, commercial and critical success;
one reviewer stated "finally, we have our Dylan back" in
reference to the largely acoustic arrangements. Dylan would
follow the success of Blood on the Tracks with the equally well
received, though musically different, Desire and a long and
fruitful tour.

The comeback he started in 1975 carried Dylan all the way to the
1980's before religion took hold of his music and his conversion
to born-again Christianity stalled his career for the second
time.

The 1980's where a cruel decade to Dylan, attempts at infusing
different genres into his music and different producers all
failed to reverse the damage ironically caused by his own
religious salvation at the start of the decade and while some
albums from the era did well with the critics, the record buying
public simply weren't listening anymore.

A comeback was sorely needed and, in the same way as it had for
Johnny Cash three years prior, a strip-it-all-down approach
proved to be a winner. Released in 1997, Time Out of Mind began a
resurgence in critical and commercial revery that Dylan is still
riding. A starker and darker album than anything he'd done for
twenty years, Time Out of Mind went on to win three Grammy awards
and referred to by critics in the same breath as his early career
highs of Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and, his first
comeback, Blood On The Tracks.

Perhaps it was the aftermath of Punk, perhaps it was the
slaughter of Disco, but the early eighties proved a hard road for
many artists and all but finished the career of those of other
masters of the comeback, Aerosmith. Though the era isn't as much
to blame as the band itself.

The seventies had seen Aerosmith rise to stadium rockers of the
highest success perfectly willing to enjoy all the trappings that
came with it so it was small wonder when it started haemorraging
members at the end of the decade only to reform in 1984. Their
first post reunion effort, Done With Mirrors, failed on every
level imaginable; it was critically mauled and sold poorly and
the tour, though still a big attraction, was hampered by the
bands drug addictions.

Following effective interventions and even more effective rehab
stints, the band emerged free from drugs and with an album
perfect for the MTV era of 1987 that went on to sell 5 million
copies in the U.S alone and see the band score success on the
singles chart that they had never before enjoyed, following a
tour and reinvigoration of their creative efforts, the band
released Pump in 1989 which went on to sell even more copies and
often be cited as one of their greatest efforts.

More popular than ever, Aerosmith went through the nineties
selling millions of records and even scoring number one singles
truly capturing the essence of a successful comeback.

For some bands comebacks are more short-lived and for no purpose
other than saying "we still can." Pink Floyd's reunion for Live 8
was a comeback for a band that had not played together since the
departure of founder member Roger Waters in 1985. Though the band
continued without Waters and under the lead of David Gilmour, the
band played its last show in 1995 and the music industry lost a
band that were the masters of their form.

After what can only be imagined as a lot of arguing and
convincing, Pink Floyd took to the stage at Live 8 in 2005 to
perform a set just under half an hour in length that marked the
first time they'd performed together for 24 years. A stunning
display that left audiences amazed, the show stood to reawaken
appetite for the band that saw sales of their Echoes: The Best Of
album shoot up by over 1000%. To refute any suggestions of being
in it for the money, Gilmour donated all the extra royalties to
the cause.

Though there has been no subsequent activity from the band the
show stood to stir interest in Pink Floyd and rumours of reunions
persist as much as the resurgence in album sales.

A similar effect followed one of music's other big comebacks in
the form of one-off shows; Led Zeppelin. Following the death of
drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin closed shop in 1982. In the
years since there was constant clamoring for a reunion of the
three remaining members but to no avail, though Robert Plant and
Jimmy Page would work together on occasion, John Paul Jones was
reluctant.

In 2002, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones reconciled and the
rumours of reunion once again started only to be squashed by the
individual members. In 2007, though, Led Zeppelin did reunite,
for a one-off show in memory of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet
Eretgun, with John Bonham's son Jason on drums. Demand for
tickets were so great that a ticket-lottery had to be set up.

An astounding success, the reunion once again sparked sales in
the band's back catalogue and recent compilation and showed that
the band was as sharp as they were in their prime, some even
argued that they were sharper still.

Once again interest in one of rock's most influential bands is
at a high and with members confirming that practice sessions and
jamming of new material has taken place in 2008, rumours of a
full-scale comeback are set to ring true.

Presley, Cash, Dylan, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd and Led Zeplin while
from different walks of the musical life were all gone long
enough to be missed before heralding a comeback. They are also
artists that contributed to the musical skyline from which they
fell, some less graciously from others. Their comebacks also
amounted to more than a single that bought them back into the top
five ringtones chart for a week.

There is another lesson here; drugs, poor films, religion, dodgy
haircuts and even death - a well timed comeback can conquer them
all. There are somethings a comeback won't conquer though so
don't expect to see a Gary Glitter or Michael Jackson comeback
any time soon.

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