What Are the 'Big 4' of Comeback Albums?

LL Cool J very famously instructed us not to "call it a comeback," but comebacks have been part of the classic rock album landscape for decades.

It's part of the nature of the proverbial beast, of course. Any act that's going to be around a long time will have career ebbs, sometimes deep, and flows, occasionally triumphant. It's nearly impossible to maintain a high altitude forever, for any number of reasons, so the cycle simply dictates the inevitable highs and lows.

Plus there's always the adage of how can you miss something that doesn't go away.
Rock 'n' roll, therefore, has scores of comeback albums, many of which came as surprises. It's easy to write someone, or something, off and move on to the next thing, only to be blindsided when they come charging back into prominence.

Choosing the Big 4 among these is another kind of challenge, however. The truly elite comeback is one that took the act from seemingly finished back to its previous peak -- or beyond -- in one fell swoop. It's not just a return to form; it's a return to existence.

That's the difference between what's listed below and other noteworthy but less dramatic returns to grace such as, say, Bruce Springsteen's The Rising in 2002, AC/DC's Razor's Edge in 1990 or Neil Young's Freedom the year before.

Considering that, we select these as the Big 4 of returns from musical perdition...

John Fogerty, Centerfield (1985)

John Fogerty tried to strike out on his own after the dissolution of Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1972 -- first under the one-man-band moniker of the Blue Ridge Rangers and then with his John Fogerty album in 1975.

But the next decade saw him disappear -- dispirited in particular that, by contract, he did not own his CCR songs and that he'd had no support from his former bandmates in the fight to get them back. "They had sold their souls to be in a league with (Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz), which I viewed as such a betrayal," Fogerty told us in 1986.

"I felt really empty. I couldn't see the point in trying to do anything new." He had, in fact, recorded another album, Hoodoo, during the mid-70s that he considered "dreadful" and, in concurrence with his new label, Asylum Records, spiked.

During the early 80s, however, Fogerty started writing again and played a half-dozen new songs for Warner Bros.' Lenny Waronoker; the executive's enthusiasm, Fogerty said, "gave me a real charge to go and write more and finish the album. I got excited again."

So did the world that heard Centerfield; self-produced and performed almost entirely by Fogerty, it had the crisp, taut attack of vintage CCR and a contagious joy in "Rock and Roll Girls" the title track, which has gone on to become a sports anthem.

It hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and went double-platinum in the U.S., and was nominated for a Grammy Award. The silver lining's cloud was a lawsuit from Zaentz claiming that the lead single "The Old Man Down the Road" plagiarized CCR's "Run Through the Jungle" (which, er, Fogerty also wrote); Fogerty prevailed and countersued Zaentz for attorney feels, but he did have to re-title the caustic "Zanz Kant Danz" to "Vanz Kant Danz" on subsequent pressings of the album.

George Harrison, Cloud Nine (1987)

With Gone Troppo in 1982, George Harrison's career had gone, well, crappo, and after a series of sub-par and under-performing albums he put music aside to focus on moviemaking with his successful Handmade Films.

The muse did not leave him, however; he placed five new songs in the soundtrack to Handmade's Madonna and Sean Penn-starring Shanghai Surprise, and, feeling inspired, Harrison recruited Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne to produce a new album for him (as well as co-write three songs).

Recorded at Harrison’s home studio in England, Cloud Nine found Harrison back on point as a songwriter and a performer, with his strongest batch of tunes in many years -- among them a chart-topping cover of Rudy Clark's "Got My Mind Set On You," the nostalgic "When We Was Fab," "Devil's Radio," "This is Love" and the title track.

Cloud Nine gave Harrison his first Top 10 in the U.S. in 12 years, and his first platinum-seller since All Things Must Pass in 1970. The success even got Harrison back on the road for the first time since 1974, touring Japan with Eric Clapton and his band at the end of 1991.

During the interim he co-founded the all-star Traveling Wilburys with Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison and would record one more album, 2002's Brainwashed, before passing away in 2001.

Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993)

Sure, Meat Loaf has albums between 1977's Bat Out of Hell and this sequel.

Name one.

It had been pretty much flop city for Mr. Aday during the interim, with a loss of focus and label support, as well as a psychosomatic voice loss. He was performing, but far away from the arena circuit, and he was most visible via appearances in films such as Americathon, Scavenger Hunt, Roadie and Wayne's World.

And the initial Bat... sequel became songwriter/producer Jim Steinman's 1981 solo effort Bad For Good. Upon Bat II's release, Loaf told us that, "If I would've gone ahead and done (a sequel) in 1979, it would've been huge, enormous. At that point in time, Bat Out of Hell was the biggest record in the world, and I said, 'I don't like this. I don't want this. This is not the life I choose.' I lost sight of what I wanted to do. There was too much going on around me to keep that focus. So I made a conscious decision to leave it. I wanted to keep my sanity, keep my love of what I do."

Bat II was indeed huge and enormous; reconciled and reunited with Steinman, it hit No. 1 in 28 countries, sold more than 14 million copies worldwide and scored a No. 1, platinum single with the epic, Grammy Award-winning "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)."

Meat Loaf, meanwhile, would return to the Bat box again for Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose in 2006, this time with Desmond Child joining he and Steinman on the creative team. The Bat II return also helped the singer, who passed away during 2022 at the age of 74, get meatier acting roles, most notably in 1999's Fight Club.

Santana, Supernatural (1999)

Santana was still around and playing regularly by the late 90s but seemed to have devolved into a kind of oldies act.

The band -- which hadn't seen the Billboard Top 40 since 1982 -- was inactive on the recording front since Milagro came out during 1992, while Carlos Santana released a Santana Brothers album with sibling Jorge and nephew Carlos Santana the following year.

But it was seeing Santana perform at Radio City Music Hall in New York that inspired Clive Davis -- who'd signed Santana to Columbia Records in 1968 and was now running Arista Records -- to set his friend up for a comeback.

The idea; pair Santana with some all-star and mostly contemporary collaborators, among them members of the Dave Matthews Band, Everlast, Eagle-Eye Cherry, the Product G&B, Lauryn Hill and CeeLo Green and, on the smash single "Smooth," Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas.

Angelic voices, Santana told us at the time, "told me...'We're going to open the door for you.' They said, 'We're going to hook you up...we're going to get you back onto the radio. All you have to do is be patient, gracious and grateful.'"

They did not lie; the Diamond-certified Supernatural was Santana's first Top 10 album in 18 years and first No. 1 since 1971. It spawned two No. 1 singles in "Smooth" and "Maria Maria" and won a then record-breaking nine Grammy Awards, including the first Album of the Year honor for a Hispanic artist.

It also spawned a couple of less but still successful sequels. Almost lost in the success story, too, was the closing track "The Calling," a first recorded summit meeting with Eric Clapton that Santana described as "like two warriors facing off on a mountain top, pushing each other."

13 Awesome Rock Comebacks

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Gallery Credit: Dave Lifton

Source: What Are the ‘Big 4′ of Comeback Albums?

Filed Under: John Fogerty, George Harrison, Santana, Meat Loaf, UCR