It’s not often that we disagree with F. Scott Fitzgerald (arguing with a corpse being fairly one-sided and all that) but history has proved him wrong on his assertion that ‘there are no second acts in American lives’ – and, by extension, all lives. And nowhere has this been more thoroughly refuted than in the sphere of popular music where comebacks have become romantic common currency.
Granted, many comebacks these days are merely cynical marketing ploys and blatant attempts at grabbing some more filthy lucre. But we’re not interested in them – and time will only tell how Pulp’s reformation is judged. No, we’re here to praise those return-to-forms that are not only noble, they’re heroic. Those Lazarus-like comebacks that see faded greats returning to their former glories…
The comeback by which all others should be judged. Heck, his comeback was even titled the 68 Comeback Special. By 1968, Presley’s sobriquet as the ‘King of rock’n’roll’ was looking inappropriate. A decade swanning about in anodyne Hollywood musicals had seen Elvis lose his edge to the Beatles, the Stones et al. However, aged 33, and looking cooler than ever, he underwent a spectacular rebirth with his televised special. Of course, his comeback was short-lived, and less than 10 years later he was dead on his Graceland toilet seat, but while it lasted – and this is the period that gave us In The Ghetto and Suspicious Minds – it was marvellous.
Frank Sinatra
Elvis was not the first to master the art of the gallant return though. A decade previously, Frank Sinatra had managed to reclaim the crown he’d lost when the Bobby Sox era had ended a few years previously. His youthful charm might have been tempered, but it was replaced with a much more satisfying and stylish maturity as his triptych of mid-50s albums (In The Wee Small Hours, Songs For Swingin’ Lovers, Come Fly With Me) attested.
Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron was rap before the term had even been coined. His spoken word militant activism in the Seventies and Eighties, which reached its apogee with the classic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, was the blueprint for the likes of Public Enemy. However, drug problems and a spell inside looked to have ended Scott-Heron’s career in the new millennium. Which, of course, made his superlative return in 2009 with the awesome I’m New Here so remarkable.
Paul Weller
By the end of the Eighties, Paul Weller was all but washed-up. His record company had rejected the last Style Council album and they were subsequently dropped. Going solo didn’t pay immediate dividends either. There was some interest in his first self-titled album (a legacy of the residual affection felt for the erstwhile punk firebrand), but it wasn’t until Weller got in touch with his inner hippy and recorded Wild Wood in 1993 that the Modfather was back on top.
Kylie Minogue
Hitting 30 is a dangerous age in the world of pop. No longer the new kid on the block (no pun intended), you find yourself competing against young whippersnappers nearly half your age. This was the scenario Kylie Minogue experienced in 2000. Without a hit to speak of in six years (an eternity in pop) and aged 32, not many would have bet on the diminutive Aussie hitting the number one spot again. However, a pair of alluring hot pants can work wonders, and so it proved with her smash hit Spinning Around. Kylie was reborn and she owed everything that followed – Can’t Get You Out Of My Bed, iconic pop status – to this single.
Roy Orbison
By the mid-Eighties The Big O’s career had been in the doldrums for a good 20 years. Yes, respect was paid within the rock’n’roll canon, but the hits had long since dried up. However, not long after David Lynch used In Dreams in Blue Velvet something miraculous happened. Working alongside Jeff Lynne on a new album, he was roped into the Travelling Wilburys alongside Lynne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. Revitalised, the songs he recorded for his comeback album, Mystery Girl, were among the best of his career – You Got It, She’s A Mystery To Me – but, tragically, he didn’t live to see its release, dying of a heart attack in December 1988.
Doves
Like most inquisitive youngsters in the late Eighties and early Nineties, Jimi Goodwin and the Williams twins, Andy and Jez, were seduced by the manifold charms of acid house. Living in Manchester they were regulars at The Haçienda and formed their own band, Sub Sub. In 1993, their dancefloor slayer, Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use), reached the top end of the charts. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. After their studio burned down in 1996, they cast aside the hedonistic thrills of dance music and pursued more sober (though no less rousing) musical pursuits as Doves. A curious comeback then, but a comeback nonetheless.
Fleetwood Mac
The Fleetwood Mac story has enough drama in it to shame the likes of EastEnders Coronation Street and co, but their second coming in the mid-Seventies was a real return to form. Having gone spectacularly off the boil after the departure of original band leader Peter Green, you’d have got astronomical odds on them becoming one of the biggest selling outfits of all time. But when singer-songwriter Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks came on board in 1975 they executed a stunning reversal of their fortunes as their Fleetwood Mac (from which this track, Rhiannon, is taken), Rumours and Tusk albums attest.
Beastie Boys
Upon the release of Licensed To Ill in 1986, the Beastie Boys became hip hop’s first cause célèbre. Their behaviour ‘shocked’ UK tabloids, while kids lapped up their juvenile antics and began swiping Volkswagen badges from cars so they could ape the New York trio who wore the badges around their necks. However, upon deciding to play it straight for their second release, the frankly awesome Paul’s Boutique, the media lost interest. It wasn’t until their fourth album, Ill Communication, that Mike D, Ad Rock and MCA’s comeback was complete. Led by the modern classic, Sabotage, it was some return.
Kate Bush
As the 20th Century ticked over into the 21st Century even the most hopelessly optimistic Kate Bush fan could have been forgiven for thinking the game was up. After all her last album, The Red Shoes, had received a lukewarm response upon release in 1993, and she was now well into her 40s. So it was a big chinking of glasses all around when the magnificent Aerial, a double no less, hit the shops in 2005. Spellbinding, almost Balearic, art pop rock, it endorsed the old adage that while form is temporary, class is permanent.
