The 25 best Classic Rock comeback albums

14 April 2026, 19:00

When Classic Rock artists go away and reinvent themselves, sometimes they can return bigger than ever. Here are some of the finest moments where stars made a huge splash.

1. Fleetwood Mac - Tango In The Night (release date: 13th April 1987)

   The band had a Top 10 hit in 1982 with Oh Diane, from their Mirage album, but it was a full five years before Fleetwood Mac returned with Tango In The Night. The record was their first chart-topper since 1979's Tusk and went on to sell 15 million copies worldwide, spawning the singles Big Love, Everywhere, Little Lies and Seven Wonders.

   

2. Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy (release date: 12th September 1989)

   Dylan's 80s had seen a number of twists and turns, beginning with a run of albums that reflected the folk legend's conversion to Christianity (Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot Of Love), while 1983's Infidels prompted the NME to call Bob "culturally a spent force" and Rolling Stone calling him a "hateful crackpot". Collaborations with The Grateful Dead and George Harrison as part of The Traveling Wilburys saw Dylan's stock rise and he saw out the decade with the acclaimed Oh Mercy, which peaked at Number 6 on the UK chart and has since been certified Gold by the BPI.

   

3. George Harrison - Cloud Nine (release date: 2nd November 1987)

   The Quiet One's commercial success fell off a bit of a cliff in the late 1970s, and it was only the tribute to his fallen comrade John Lennon, All Those Years Ago, in 1981 that saw any chart action for the ex-Beatle. 1987's Cloud Nine album was a huge success, with his cover of James Ray's 1962 hit Got My Mind Set On You taking Harrison into the UK Top 5 for the first time since My Sweet Lord, 16 years earlier.

   

4. The Rolling Stones - Steel Wheels (release date: 29th August 1989)

   The Stones have had their share of career ups and downs, but the mid-1980s was a low-point as the relationship between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards was at an all-time low, with the bad vibes soaking through into their somewhat duff album Dirty Work. Jagger briefly tried a solo career but the rock 'n' roll olive branch was extended and the resulting album Steel Wheels saw the Stones reinvigorated and hitting the road once more, regaining their title as the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world.

   

5. ZZ Top - Eliminator (release date: 23rd March 1983)

   1983's Eliminator was a huge international hit for the Texan trio, as the band swapped their blues roots for a slicker light rock style. Lead single Gimme All Your Lovin' was aided by a memorable video featuring the legendary Ford Coupe car and made Number 10 in the UK - the band's first chart entry this side of the pond. Other singles had similar success, including Sharp Dressed Man, TV Dinners and Legs all.

   

6. David Bowie - The Next Day (release date: 8th March 2013)

   Bowie was known for reinventing himself and reconnecting with audiences, but nobody else made a comeback like this. The album was announced on Bowie’s 66th birthday and his first new music in a decade was available immediately. No fuss, no hype, just a solid LP that paid tribute to the legend’s past work and yet, as always, looked forward. Tracks included Where Are We Now? and The Stars (Are Out Tonight).

   

7. U2 - Achtung Baby (release date: 18th November 1991)

   Three years isn’t a lifetime in music, but the gap between 1988’s Rattle & Hum and 1991’s Achtung Baby saw U2 make a leap of light years in terms of style and content. Out went the Americana, big hats and epic guitar anthems; in came Berlin, Zoo TV and an experimental vibe. This didn’t alienate the Irish band’s fans; in fact, with songs like The Fly, Even Better Than The Real Thing and One, the record made them more popular than ever.

   

8. John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy (release date: 17th November 1980)

   A tragically short-lived comeback, this was Lennon's first new material since his album of covers, Rock 'N' Roll, in February 1975. (Just Like) Starting Over was seen as the best Lennon song in years and peaked at Number 8 in the charts - until the former Beatle was murdered outside his home in New York on 8th December, 1980. The single shot back up to the top and made this collaborative effort with wife Yoko Ono heart-breakingly poignant.

   

9. AC/DC - Back In Black (1980)

   When Acca Dacca singer Bon Scott died following a drinking binge, it was felt that it was game over for the hard rocking Aussies. But with a new singer, Englishman Brian Johnson, they pulled an absolute classic out of the bag: the title track, Hells Bells, You Shook Me All Night Long... this wasn’t the sound of a band on their last legs.

   

10. Neil Young - Freedom (release date: 2nd October 1989)

    Like Bob Dylan, Neil Young's attempt to branch out in the 1980s met with limited success. After the Vocoder-heavy electronic pop outing Trans (1983), the same year's Everybody's Rocking was a rockabilly and the original version of 1985's Old Ways was pure country and rejected by Young's label Geffen. This experience manifested itself in 1988's This Note For You, which was a blistering attack on the commercialisation of rock. Luckily for Young, the rest of the world had come round to his way of thinking, and with a return to his old label Reprise, he issued Freedom, a hard rocking record that appeared just as grunge began to break in the US. With an iconic opening and closing track in Rockin' In The Free World, the album peaked at Number 17 in the UK and made a respectable Number 25 in the US.

    

11. Aerosmith - Permanent Vacation (release date: 18th August 1987)

    After being one of the hottest rock bands of the 1970s, Aerosmith's commercial fortunes had a downward trend as the 80s dawned, with founding members Joe Perry and Brad Whitford both leaving around the turn of the decade. Both Rock In A Hard Place (1982) and Done With Mirrors (1985) stalled outside the Billboard Top 30, and it wasn't until the huge success of Walk This Way with Run DMC that the band were back on everyone's radar. The subsequent album, Permanent Vacation, saw the classic line-up back in the saddle (to coin a phrase) and gave the world the hits Dude (Looks Like A Lady) and Rag Doll.

    

12. The Kinks - State Of Confusion (release date: 24th May 1983)

    The iconic British band;s last Top 20 hit had been with Supersonic Rocket Ship in May 1972, but it was Come Dancing - Ray Davies' tribute to the dancehalls of his youth - that saw the band back in the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic a decade later. The accompanying album peaked at Number 12 on the Billboard chart.

    

13. Slade - We'll Bring The House Down (release date: 13th March 1981)

    One of the biggest British bands during the glam rock era, with six Number 1 hits in the period between October 1971 and Christmas 1973. But as tastes changed as the decade went on, Slade's appeal began to wane - that's until the Wolverhampton lads stole the show at the Reading Festival in 1980, bringing them to a new rock audience.

    

14. Tina Turner - Private Dancer (release date: 29th May 1984)

    The Al Green classic Let's Stay Together was instrumental in relaunching Turner's career in the early 1980s, when she collaborated with the British electronic outfit Heaven 17. This paved the way for Tina's first album in five years, recorded in Britain and going three times Platinum here and five times Platinum in the USA.

    

15. KISS - Lick It Up (release date: 23rd September 1983)

    Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and co were more popular in the US than they were over here, and their albums didn't break the British Top 20 until the once-glam stars dropped the make-up and reinvented themselves in the 80s. Lick It Up went to Number 7 in the UK and spawned the singles Heaven's On Fire and the title track.

    

16. Van Morrison - Into The Music (released August 1979)

    1970's Moondance was a huge hit for the Belfast-born musician and his Tupelo Honey album from '71 was warmly received, but Morrison's final album of the decade was felt to be transformative. The singles Bright Side Of the Road and You Make Me Feel So Free indicated the way Morrison would head in the 1980s.

    

17. Marianne Faithfull - Broken English (release date: 2nd November 1979)

    After the success of the English ingénue in the 1960s with her Rolling Stones connections, the 1970s were something of a bleak time for Marianne in terms of music. Her first album in nine years had been 1976 collection of country cover versions called Dreamin' My Dreams, but she rounded out the decade with a genuine masterpiece, which tapped into Faithfull's years of drug abuse and homelessness. Her cover of The Ballad of Lucy Jordan and Lennon's Working Class Hero were standout tracks.

    

18. Lou Reed - New York (release date: 10th January 1989)

    Years of post-punk bands namechecking The Velvet Underground hadn't translated into commercial success for Reed, with his last Top 20 album in the UK being 1973's Berlin. By 1989, Reed's reputation was assured when the critically-acclaimed New York made it to Number 14 and Number 40 in the US.

    

19. Alice Cooper - Trash (release date: 25th July 1989)

    The American shock rocker reinvented himself for the MTV generation with this collection that included the huge international hit Poison.

    

20. Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers (release date: 29th October 1984)

    The British rock band's first album since 1975's Come Taste The Band saw a return to the classic line-up of Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Roger Glover and Ian Paice. It would be their biggest-selling album in Britain since Stormbringer a decade earlier.

    

21. Paul McCartney - Flowers In The Dirt (release date: 5th June 1989)

    Like a lot of 60s icons, Macca had found the 1980s to be a tricky nut to crack - his only UK Number 1 album in the decade was 1982's Tug Of War and his 1986 outing Press To Play had stalled at Number 30 in the US, with Spin calling it "too much conventional McCartney". The follow-up, three years later, featured the ex-Beatle collaborating with another famous Scouse songwriter, in this case Elvis Costello. While the partnership was given much publicity around the album's release, it wasn't to last, but Flowers In The Dirt renewed interest in McCartney and he sailed into the 90s with his first world tour since the Wings days of 1976.

    

22. Iron Maiden - Brave New World (release date: 29th May 2000)

    The British metal band's twelfth studio album saw the return of vocalist Bruce Dickinson (who'd left in 1993) and guitarist Adrian Smith (who'd been absent since 1990) to the fold. Brave New World would be Maiden's first Gold-certified album since Fear Of The Dark, some eight years earlier.

    

23. Black Sabbath - Heaven And Hell (release date: 18th April 1980)

    After Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of the band parted on bad terms in 1979, the world was surprised when new vocalist Ronnie James Dio gave the veteran rock band a commercial boost, resulting in the most successful Sabbath album since 1975's Sabotage.

    

24. Johnny Cash - American Recordings (release date: 26th April 1994)

    One of the finest comeback albums saw the Man In Black work with producer Rick Rubin on a series of stripped-back songs and cover versions, including tracks by Nick Lowe, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. The result was an acclaimed album that reminded the world of Cash's unique interpretive style and paved the way for six volumes of similar collections, including his memorable take on Nine Inch Nails' Hurt in 2002.

    

25. Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl (release date: 30th January 1989)

    The Big O's first album of new material in 10 years was helped along by his Traveling Wilburys pals Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, giving the Texan-born singer his all-time biggest hit in the UK. The album was completed in November 1988, a month before Orbison's death at the age of 52.