10 songs that shot artists back into the limelight

‘Dreams’ – Van Halen

Replacing a singer is always the biggest hurdle for any band to overcome. The guitarist might get their fair share of eyes of them, and there are even a handful of bands where the drummer is an absolute powerhouse, but if you lose the singer, you lose a core part of the band’s identity any time you come out with a new song. So for Van Halen, losing David Lee Roth should have been a deathblow, but it turned out the best way forward was to take things in the opposite direction.

Since Roth already had concerns about Eddie playing keyboards more often, getting a more melodic singer in Sammy Hagar gave them a new lease on life once ‘Dreams’ hit it big. Some fans may have been bummed that Eddie wasn’t shredding in the same way that he used to, but this was a far more mature version of the band that had more things on their mind other than tunes about drinking and hosting one of the biggest parties that the west side of Hollywood had ever seen.

Although ‘Dreams’ is far from the heaviest offering in the band’s catalogue and might have taken some getting used to from fans, it was more of a message than anything. No, they weren’t going to keep up the party band image for the rest of their career, but as long as they still had the tunes, there was nothing that they couldn’t accomplish as long as Eddie had the right idea at his fingertips.

‘Handle With Care’ – Traveling Wilburys

No one in the Traveling Wilburys really needed a pick-me-up when they first formed. Most of them were happy to have lived lives as rock and roll legends, and if they were going to make any music together, it would be for the fun of it rather than any kind of residual checks. But if there was one thing that ‘Handle With Care’ did better than anything else, it was give everyone a chance to hear what Roy Orbison’s voice sounded like at its peak.

Although Orbison was only known for a few songs by the general public by this time, hearing him sing opposite George Harrison was the perfect way to offset the band’s first tune. If anything, the fact that it was so good gave Orbison the opportunity to one-up himself once they made the full album, to the point where ‘Not Alone Anymore’ sounds like a mini-opera taking place over the course of three minutes.

Every member of the band was in awe of what Orbison brought to the table, but since he wouldn’t get to see the success of The Wilburys for long before his death, this was a great way to close the final chapter of his life. He had been seen as one of the lost icons from days gone by, but given how enthusiastic Tom Petty remembered him being towards the end of his life, he felt like he did a great service by being involved in getting Orbison back to platinum status in his final hours.

‘One Little Victory’ – Rush

It’s complicated talking about Rush coming back into the limelight when there was hardly any limelight on them to begin with. Geddy Lee always referred to them as one of the most popular cult bands of all time, but the ravenous nature of everyone who sees them feels like it deserves a spot among the Grateful Dead in terms of absolutely obsessed music lovers. But even for those clinging to their copies of Moving Pictures, there came a time when it seemed like the Canadian icons were about to fall silent.

After getting hit with two personal tragedies within a year, Neil Peart was lost and didn’t think he would have the drive to play drums again. When he finally stopped a mammoth motorcycle ride around the country, though, he found it best to turn to music, eventually making baby steps back into the studio before he finally rediscovered his love of writing music again. And despite some minor production problems, ‘One Little Victory’ was as good a reintroduction as anyone could have asked for.

The volume had to be adjusted when fans were listening to it, but this was less a song and a statement of defiance from the band that they weren’t going to let anything slow them down. Life had caught up with one of their leaders, and it was going to take a long time for them to get used to carrying on in the same way, but in those rough times, music isn’t only a companion for everyone. It’s what helps heal the wounds when things feel the most grim.

‘Back to the Shack’ – Weezer

For anyone listening to Weezer in 2010, their last few records felt more like an autopsy than a body of work. They had started out as one of the greatest nerd-rock acts to come out of California, and yet here they were trying to make songs with Lil Wayne work and making the kind of bids for pop stardom that would have had 2010s-era Ke$ha telling them to tone things down. Every album felt like Cuomo trying to shoehorn them into a different ill-fitting suit, but sometimes it takes a few screwups to figure out what fits someone the best.

Although Everything Will Be Alright In the End took much longer to get off the ground than the rest of their albums, hearing them open things up with ‘Back to the Shack’ made people start paying attention again. From the first word out of Cuomo’s mouth, the song comes off as one big apology to the fans for fucking around for so long, and given the massive guitar hooks on the record, they seemed like they were finally prepared to make the kind of record most people had been waiting for since Maladroit.

Did it manage to live up to the hype? Actually, yes. Judging by the band’s inconsistent discovery, there’s a place for this album next to classics like Pinkerton and even The White Album, if only for their promise to move away from played-out schtick. It may have been a bit disheartening to see them start working their way into pop soundscapes all over again in the 2010s, but at the time, this felt like a hug from an old friend who has finally learned the error of their ways.

‘The Rising’ – Bruce Springsteen

There’s no conceivable way that Bruce Springsteen ever had an off-period in his lifetime. His music is what built heartland rock as we know it today, and even if some fans weren’t showing up for some of his records, he knew there was always a way to show his stuff during his live shows. But after dialling things back and making songs that were more lowkey than usual, America started suffering, and it was time for one of the biggest musical symbols of Americana to rally everyone together again.

As everyone was still in mourning from 9/11, ‘The Boss’ was the face everyone wanted to see when he first appeared on TV to perform songs like ‘My City of Ruins’. That helped put everyone on steady ground a bit more, but with the smoke still heavy in the air, ‘The Rising’ is the kind of solemn prayer that the word needed to hear at the time, as Springsteen preached that all we needed was to use love as a way to process grief and someday manage to overcome it.

And while many of the gun-toting Americans of the world would have much rather gone into another country with fire in their eye and a chip on their shoulder, this is the perfect retort about how that form of anger isn’t going to solve anything. It’s okay to be angry and wanting to find some way out of the darkness, but if you don’t surrender to some higher power like Springsteen’s doing, that anger will only fester and create an emotional wound that will never fully heal.

‘American Idiot’ – Green Day

However, Springsteen wasn’t the only one with something on his mind circa 2003. The entire American people were still reeling from the effects of those attacks in 2001, and while Green Day were certainly not known for their political ideologies, Billie Joe Armstrong knew better than to go along with George Bush’s plan to lead troops into a foreign country to fight. The public may have wanted them to stick to songs about smoking weed and masturbating, but Armstrong was angry, and all great punk songs are built off using anger as an energy.

The band initially had ideas for what they wanted their next album to be, but as soon as their masters were misplaced, Armstrong knew that he was onto something big with ‘American Idiot’. This was the kind of rebellious song that Joe Strummer would have been proud to have written, and when everyone heard them flipping off the President’s actions, it perfectly summed up what people were feeling in those days when it felt like everything could go to hell at any moment.

While the accompanying album had even more surprises beyond anything that pop-punk seemed capable of at the time, ‘American Idiot’ was the only point they needed to hit. They had finally had enough of being told what politics were supposed to be about, and after becoming the goofy punks in 1994, they had grown into the leading voice of rock and roll a decade later.

‘Clint Eastwood’ – Gorillaz

The entire tenure of Britpop ended with a whimper instead of a bang. The whole point behind the movement was to make everyone appreciate the kind of music England had to offer, but the minute that Oasis’s Be Here Now started to become reviled among casual fans, it felt the door had finally closed on the genre’s time in the sun. But Damon Albarn was looking at the bigger picture, and the only way for him to get back into the limelight was to hide his likeness altogether.

Blur were already going their fair share of shakeups at the time, so the next logical move was for Albarn to hide behind Gorillaz as his side project. The whole point of the band came from him wanting to create some imaginary group that could critique the way that MTV used to show artists, but in doing so, ‘Clint Eastwood’ became a big enough tune to rival what Blur did in America, to the point where Gorillaz could be considered a parallel project to what Albarn does in the background.

And considering how many people have lined up to work with the band over the years like Thundercat, Stevie Nicks, and Elton John, this subtle critique on the world of Hollywood has been the gift that keeps on giving for years. Not bad for a song that was only built off of a sample from a keyboard.

‘Hurt’ – Johnny Cash

By the end of the 1980s, Johnny Cash seemed content to be considered a living legend of the country sphere. Some of his more embarrassing moments before the Highwaymen will forever be considered some of the cringiest things he ever did, but it hardly put a dent in his reputation as this grizzly version of an outlaw. But right as Rick Rubin brought him back into the public consciousness, ‘Hurt’ was when he got to say goodbye to everyone and left no dry eyes among his audience.

Cash had already been slowly growing momentum thanks to his American series of albums, but where most people could have been on board with his covers of ‘Rusty Cage’ or ‘I Won’t Back Down’, hearing him interpret Nine Inch Nails is heartbreaking. From the way the video for the song is shot to Cash’s frail performance, he seems to be not only singing Trent Reznor’s words but also looking back on his own life and seeing what else he could have done differently had he been given the chance.

Country fans were already paying attention to what Cash’s last chapters were like, but hearing this song crossed genre boundaries in a way few other cover songs have been able to do. Because whereas most people like to do crossover tunes to get a larger fanbase, people weren’t going to Cash’s songs because they wanted to don cowboy hats. All they saw was a man pleading his case for being saved towards the end of his life, and no matter what happened on the other side, there will always be people down there hoping that Cash saw the great beyond that he deserved.

‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ – Tina Turner

The entire story of Tina Turner is still one of the biggest nightmares any entertainer could ever face. It’s always bad news getting into business with family, but as soon as Ike Turner married Tina and started to become her regular arranger, he quickly turned himself into one of the most deplorable human beings that anyone in the music industry had the displeasure to deal with. But leaving an abusive situation is never easy, and while it took a few years for Tina to free herself, that bravery led to one of the greatest second acts of all time.

Then again, the idea of Turner bouncing back in the midst of 1980s fashions may have been strange considering her past. She was ‘The Queen of Rock’, and yet ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ was rocking mainly synthesisers, so how was she in any way credible as an artist? Well, the backing track might be timestamped, but Turner’s voice is immaculate through the entire tune, introducing her all over again as a woman who wasn’t going to take shit off of someone that took her for granted.

And across the rest of the album, songs like ‘Better Be Good To Me’ and ‘Steel Claw’ were as much reminders to Ike as they were to her audience. Not only could she become one of the biggest pop stars of all time on her own, but she could also blow her old hits out of the water when she wanted to. And judging by what she brought to the table here, you’d have thought she never broke a sweat in those years away from the limelight.

‘Walk This Way’ – Aerosmith/Run-DMC

Aerosmith’s end in the 1970s felt like the rock and roll version of a Greek tragedy. The band had been one of the biggest concert draws that anyone had ever seen in the music industry, but once Joe Perry started a massive fight with Steven Tyler after a show, his departure led to the kind of depression that you’d expect out of someone who lost their other half. While Perry was eventually convinced to rejoin the band after years on his own, they managed to get their second wind from a completely different genre of music.

Though Done With Mirrors was great for what it was, it didn’t necessarily translate to album sales like it should have. They needed an ace in the hole, and when producer Rick Rubin suggested working with Run-DMC on a remake of the song ‘Walk This Way’, it almost made too much sense. What Tyler is doing in the original was already a prototype for what early hip-hop was supposed to be, so having Run and DMC trade lines back and forth while the band played the backing track was the greatest transformation they could have asked for.

Not only did it manage to launch a completely new version of Aerosmith, but it also broke down genre boundaries, to the point where kids who wanted nothing to do with rap music suddenly got on board with bands that had a turntable instead of a Marshall stack. It may have been a mixed blessing given the fact that it birthed some of the worst bands in nu-metal later on, but for the time, this was the kind of revolutionary jam session that everyone could embrace.