Songs that revived dead careers?

[Private Dancer]

Jun 21, 2020 10:29:51 GMT -5 collegedropout said:

Jun 19, 2020 21:16:26 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Although their careers may not have been dead...After the good girl gone bad era I remember Rihanna was forgotten about until Rude Boy came out. Rihanna released 3 singles prior to Rude Boy and they didnt make much of an airplay impact or chart impact. Even though "Hard" did crack the top ten it wasn't huge. When Rude Boy came out it exploded and Rihanna was back on the map. She was falling off slowly but Rude Boy helped her get back up.


As for Beyonce, after the Sasha Fierce era the mainstream audience was not playing Beyonce or listening to Beyonce at all. When drunk in love came out Beyonce was back on mainstream top 40 radio.

To sum it up, their careers may not have been dead, but there was a time when both Rihanna and Beyonce were slowly falling off, but got lucky and got a refresher.

Beyonce was not looking good during 4. Run The World bombed. However, the Self Titled release "revived" her. DIL while a hit, was just riding off that momentum.

Exactly! That's what I was trying to say in so little words

[Deleted]

Too many variables in this that need to be defined:

1) Are belated breakthroughs really 'revivals'? Janet's What Have You Done For Me Lately, for example. Janet wasn't returning to a former point of glory there - she was reaching an entirely new level of success she'd never come close to touching before. Revival, to me, implies that one had already achieved a certain degree of success before losing it and then coming back. Same for Alanis/You Oughta Know.

2a) how long must a career be in a slump to be considered 'dead'? I see a lot of people essentially treating one album as enough to declare an album dead. By that logic, Kelly's My Life Would Suck Without You qualifies...but personally I think you need to have more than one consecutive off album to have a truly dead career. One-album slumps are fairly common.
2b) how badly must an album (or consecutive albums) perform to be considered 'dead'? I wouldn't call an album that sold 1 million+ within a year and produced 4 top 10 hits at its core format 'dead'...but that's just me.

3) How long must the comeback last to be a true revival? Just as one-album slumps are common, one-off 'comeback' hits are also somewhat commonplace.


Ray of Light felt like a revival. Madonna's public persona took a pretty severe hit in the early 90s. But IIRC Madonna never had a true 'dead' period where she couldn't still pull off a double platinum album or at least one top 10 hit from each release so I don't know if that counts. I guess that's something else to consider, 'dead' in one decade wouldn't necessarily be the same definition as it is in another.

I'd actually argue that I Know What You Want was what revived Mariah's career more so than We Belong Together/TEOM era in general - that feature eased people into the idea of embracing a Mariah comeback later. But I can see the argument for WBT specifically getting the credit.

[Enigma.]

Most of these are easy answers from the artists that are/were constantly in the spotlight. I think part of Mariah's comeback was due to pop trends favouring her again, same with Mary J. Blige (Be Without You).

Beyoncé's "flop" releases like Run the World and Formation made huge impact despite not being radio hits.

Tina Turner, Cher, Jonas Brothers and others getting second winds a decade(s) after their breakthrough are far more interesting and these minor slumps with one era.

[Private Dancer]

Jun 21, 2020 11:10:22 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

Too many variables in this that need to be defined:

1) Are belated breakthroughs really 'revivals'? Janet's What Have You Done For Me Lately, for example. Janet wasn't returning to a former point of glory there - she was reaching an entirely new level of success she'd never come close to touching before. Revival, to me, implies that one had already achieved a certain degree of success before losing it and then coming back. Same for Alanis/You Oughta Know.

2a) how long must a career be in a slump to be considered 'dead'? I see a lot of people essentially treating one album as enough to declare an album dead. By that logic, Kelly's My Life Would Suck Without You qualifies...but personally I think you need to have more than one consecutive off album to have a truly dead career. One-album slumps are fairly common.
2b) how badly must an album (or consecutive albums) perform to be considered 'dead'? I wouldn't call an album that sold 1 million+ within a year and produced 4 top 10 hits at its core format 'dead'...but that's just me.

3) How long must the comeback last to be a true revival? Just as one-album slumps are common, one-off 'comeback' hits are also somewhat commonplace.


Ray of Light felt like a revival. Madonna's public persona took a pretty severe hit in the early 90s. But IIRC Madonna never had a true 'dead' period where she couldn't still pull off a double platinum album or at least one top 10 hit from each release so I don't know if that counts. I guess that's something else to consider, 'dead' in one decade wouldn't necessarily be the same definition as it is in another.

I'd actually argue that I Know What You Want was what revived Mariah's career more so than We Belong Together/TEOM era in general - that feature eased people into the idea of embracing a Mariah comeback later. But I can see the argument for WBT specifically getting the credit.

1) I can see the point with Janet and Alanis. Those hits didnt revive or refresh them it only jumpstarted their career.

2. To be considered "dead or in limbo" your era doesnt feel/isnt as huge as your others. It's a point where your career is starting to go down a little but you pick it back up. Yes, the Kelly reference does apply here. Her career was in a limbo in 2007-2008. People at this time thought it was it. But when MLWSWY came out. It refreshed her and brought her out of career purgatory.
2b) If the album produced top ten hits then it's not an issue. The album isnt a slump. It's the reign of the ers that matters. For example: Nelly Furtado's Loose sold only 1M in the USA but the presence of the ers was huge and everyone knew "Promiscuous" and "Say It Right".

3) It doesnt have to last very long. If you were flipping and your eras weren't as successful and hugely felt as your others were and you have a hit that refreshes you for a year then it doesnt matter. For example: Believe had Cher in the mainstream for just 1999. After that year, people moved on from Believe but it refreshed her career to the point where she can continue to tour.

With the Madonna thing. Yes, Madonna could pull double platinum albums, but when you look at the others at the time Madonna wasnt quite doing as well in the late 90s until Ray Of Light. Madonna was seen at the time as a "dying" artist but people changed their tune when they say the success of Ray Of Light.

[leonagwen]

Run DMC feat Aerosmith- Walk This Way.This song revived Aerosmith's career.

[Private Dancer]

I Have Learned To Respect The Power Of Love- Stephanie Mills

[bjordan]

Mariah Carey “We Belong Together”

[Deleted]

Never Really Over?

[netti]

didn't Shaggy have a hit song recently?

[SPRΞΞ]

Jun 19, 2020 21:17:50 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Madonna-Frozen

But she literally had a Top 10 the year before with DCFMA, and an Oscar nomination for YMLM.

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2020 21:50:30 GMT -5 ♛ The Manticore ☯ said:

I wouldn't say dead for this but regarding the U.S. charts Kylie Minogue. The Loco-Motion was top ten in the late 80's and then made a U.S. comeback with 2001's "Can't get you out of my head" which was also a top ten.

She was still doing well in her native Australia and several european countries throughout the 90's and early 2000's but "Can't get you out of my head" was huge reaching number one in a lot of countries.

Its only a shame that we in the US let her career die again after Fever era, with Slow being her last song to do anything here

Especially given how much great music Kylie went on to since then, she deserved so much better it hurts.

[when the pawn...]

The biggest examples I can think of are "Smooth" and "Believe"

I generally disagree with the Madonna, Beyonce, and Rihanna examples.

For Madonna, ROL may have been a re-up in terms of critical acclaim and artistic reach but she was only one era/three years removed from the biggest radio single of her career.

The singles off 4 didn't perform well on the Hot 100 or Top 40 radio but her 2011 VMA performance, 2013 super bowl performance, and 2013 tour were all huge for her, not to mention 4 was her best received album at the time, critically. There was huge hype for Beyonce, even before we knew it existed (in the form it did). Therefore "Drunk In Love" itself did not revive her career.

Someone said everyone forgot about Rihanna after GGGB. That is...not true. Between eras, the Chris Brown incident happened. Not to be crass - I know that isn't music related but she wasn't forgotten. Rated R's first single did disappoint, and "Rude Boy" was a key hit for her that restored some momentum but a revival? No.

[Private Dancer]

Jul 5, 2020 22:06:05 GMT -5 SPRΞΞ said:

Jun 19, 2020 21:17:50 GMT -5 Private Dancer said:

Madonna-Frozen

But she literally had a Top 10 the year before with DCFMA, and an Oscar nomination for YMLM.

Understandable but when that happened Madonna wasnt dominating like she was prior.Looking at her contemporaries Madonna was on a slow decline. When Frozen came out it refreshed her career. It's kinda like when Cher had her top ten and her Oscar nomination her career wasnt really there. But Frozen took her career of a decline.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Her career wasn’t dead though. She didn’t even have a studio album to flop so I agree she doesn’t qualify.

[Ginger Spice]

I was gonna say J.Lo with "On the Floor," but I suppose that was a one off so it wouldn't really count. Still, the fact people counted her out completely only for her to come back with the biggest hit of her entire career is pretty impressive.

[jimijoop]

Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam

[Daenerys]

For Britney two songs came to mind -- Toxic and Womanizer, her career wasn't necessarily dead but both songs marked a clear return to form of health that enabled her to have longevity after long periods of absence and misfires specifically with the Britney and Blackout albums which were not well received commercially, outside of shock-release first singles Slave 4 U and Gimme More. Without those two lynchpin songs it could be argued her career would have continued to flounder.

In a similar vein I can understand why people may see the same could be said with Rihanna during the first half of the Rated R era. With Rated R, Rihanna was seeing significant downturns on commercial success with relatively luke warm receptions of both Russian Roulette and Hard. It was Rude Boy which returned her to the upper stratosphere of hit-making which paved the way for Loud. Her album leader of most #1 hits after Good Girl Gone Bad.

In that context you could say Irreplaceable for Beyonce during B'Day, and of course U & Ur Hand for P!nk

With Madonna it was sort of the opposite -- she had tons of hits and seemed to recover fairly quick even in her downturn eras until the 2010's.

[Janhova's Witness]

Jun 2, 2023 12:40:28 GMT -5 jimijoop said:

Kylie Minogue - Padam Padam

Delete your account

[johnm1120]

Donny Osmond - Soldier of Love

[jdanton2]

The Bee Gees were mostly known for softer Rock music from the late 60's and early 70's which gave them several hits including a #1 song in 1971. after that their popularity faded . in 1975 they jumped on the disco bandwagon and got their second #1 song and continued through the late 70's with 9 in total.

[wjr15]

Elton John - Cold Heart

He was still a touring force at the time but that song brought him chart success again and helped him get a follow up hit, Hold Me Closer.

[avamaxstan]

Moves Like Jagger for Christina, though it was more like a hospital patient being declared dead, momentarily regaining a heartbeat, and then flatlining again.

[tekkenguy]

Jun 14, 2023 20:58:35 GMT -5 avamaxstan said:

Moves Like Jagger for Christina, though it was more like a hospital patient being declared dead, momentarily regaining a heartbeat, and then flatlining again.

This example actually does work for Maroon 5, as Hands all Over had been an underwhelming era for them in terms of chart success, as Misery was its only top 40 hit and failed to go top 10.

[wjr15]

Jun 16, 2023 13:54:05 GMT -5 tekkenguy said:

Jun 14, 2023 20:58:35 GMT -5 avamaxstan said:

Moves Like Jagger for Christina, though it was more like a hospital patient being declared dead, momentarily regaining a heartbeat, and then flatlining again.

This example actually does work for Maroon 5, as Hands all Over had been an underwhelming era for them in terms of chart success, as Misery was its only top 40 hit and failed to go top 10.

If I remember correctly, I think there were rumors about Maroon 5 breaking up around that time and the success of Moves Like Jagger basically stopped that from happening.