Retro Mania: The Most Surprising Comebacks
Humanity tends to feel romantic about what once was. It’s a fallacy, of course – our brain tends to dampen the edge of the negative experiences and enhance the positive ones. That’s why, for example, we love to remember the movies we saw as children but find them overly dumb when we see them as adults.
When it comes to music, though, our memory does a much better job: it mixes the feelings we had when listening to a song and brings them back whenever we hear them again. This is probably why old music, in general, never goes out of style. It is not surprising for bands and artists with an extended discography to re-emerge after a hiatus of years and go on another successful “farewell tour” around the world. It can be surprising, in turn, when one-hit wonders and long-forgotten teen stars make a comeback, riding the retro bandwagon – like the artists and acts below.
New Kids On The Block
The band “New Kids On The Block” was a major pop sensation in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, earning the prestige of two American Music Awards and numerous certified platinum albums. Things went great until 1994 when they transitioned to a more mature look and sound. After years of filling stadiums, the band promoted their album “Face the Music” at smaller venues, then ultimately disbanded shortly after the tour.
The band was non-existent for more than a decade. Then, in 2008, they re-emerged, recording a new album that topped the Billboard Top Pop Albums Charts. Then, after a surprise one-off collaboration with another massively successful boy band, the “Backstreet Boys” in 2011, they decided to stay together for a year and go on tour around the world for a total of 80 shows. The band is active to this day, releasing their last EP in 2017.
Aerosmith
In the 70s and early 80s, Boston’s Aerosmith was a radio-ready rock act. Coming up in the smoky bar room scene and eventually earning a top place on the charts, Aerosmith had some huge hits. Lead by sexy frontman Steven Tyler and the catchy guitar riffs of Joe Perry, Aerosmith had tremendous success with songs like Dream On and Toys in The Attic.
All this success cursed the band with the major trappings of rock n’ roll. Sex, drugs and…. more drugs eventually started taking its toll on the band. It went from bad to worse in the mid-1980s and most people wrote Aerosmith off. However, the band sobered up, and put aside their personal differences to create a string of memorable, MTV-friendly, rock hits, including Love in an Elevator, Ragdoll, and the 1991 hit, Living on the Edge. Later in the 1990s, Aerosmith would once again top the charts with the love song I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing from the action movie Armageddon.
No bad for a bar band from Boston.
Backstreet Boys
One can’t speak of boy bands without mentioning Backstreet Boys, perhaps the most successful formation ever. The band formed in 1993 in the US and took the world by storm, melting the hearts of girls all over the world for years. For nine years, to be exact. The band went on a two-year hiatus in 2002 and struggled to return to the spotlight for years to come. Needless to say, they were never the same, especially after Kevin Richardson left the band. Richardson finally returned to the band in 2012, followed by the band’s 20th anniversary and the indispensable world tour. This year, the band has released its ninth studio album (they are currently on tour promoting it) and they are working on their first holiday album. For boy band fans, this is easily one of their most surprising comebacks of its kind.
Guns ‘n’ Roses
GnR was perhaps the most iconic rock band of the late 1980s and the early 1990s pushed into the spotlight by the unmistakable voice of frontman Axl Rose and lead guitarist Slash. The band was on a roll until 1994 when they toned it down a bit, recording only sporadically. Most original members left the band – Guns went on recording material with Axl as the only original member in the lineup.
The following years were a turmoil for the band. They were still popular in some circles but a shadow of its former self, releasing albums, touring, and not shying away from controversy. Then, the band reunited Axl, Slash, and Duff McKagan for a one-off show on the stage of the Coachella festival in 2016, with AC/DC guitarist Angus Young also joining the gig (Axl later joined AC/DC as a touring vocalist after singer Brian Johnson stopped touring due to health issues). The Coachella one-off was followed by a tour that was a major success (the fourth highest-grossing tour of all time). Today, GnR is back in the studio, recording a new album that will finally reunite Axl, Slash, and McKagan.