3 of the Best Late-Career Albums by Iconic Artists

Releasing an album under the shadow of iconic work isn’t easy. For some, say, if you’ve already recorded Highway 61 Revisited, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Born To Run, the task gets even harder. Yet Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen each recorded great late-career albums that proved they weren’t finished.

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Bob Dylan: ‘Time Out Of Mind’

Before Time Out Of Mind, Bob Dylan had released 29 studio albums since 1962. But he’d been in the creative wilderness following the critically acclaimed Oh Mercy (1989). Though the songs didn’t arrive as quickly as they once did, Dylan slowly regained his footing and recorded a masterpiece with producer Daniel Lanois. His comeback album blended the organic depth of old records with the slacker grooves of Beck.

So Dylan entered the studio with a massive band and confronted mortality over a sprawling hour-plus of haunting music. Lanois layered the mix in waves of echo and reverb, leaving Dylan’s voice sounding as though it was beamed in from another dimension. Time Out Of Mind won the GRAMMY for Album of the Year and remains one of Dylan’s most emotionally moving records.

Paul McCartney: ‘Chaos And Creation In The Backyard’

When Nigel Godrich agreed to produce Paul McCartney, he challenged the former Beatle. Godrich wouldn’t record a song he didn’t like, a bold move against the guy who wrote “Yesterday”. Moreover, the producer convinced Macca to perform nearly all the instrumentation, which brings to mind McCartney’s 1970 homemade solo debut.

Guiding McCartney through a true solo album, Godrich treated the production with the kind of grittiness heard in his groundbreaking work with Radiohead and Beck. “Jenny Wren”, the album’s highlight, feels like the long-lost musical twin to “Blackbird”. It sits near the top of McCartney’s post-Beatles output.

Bruce Springsteen: ‘Magic’

Bruce Springsteen begins his 15^th studio album with a guitar riff more akin to a battle cry. “Radio Nowhere”, an apocalyptic hymn about one desperate for a connection, spoke to the political despair Springsteen felt in 2007. And you cannot separate the despair from Springsteen’s optimism in the idea of America. “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” is a warm, gorgeous meditation on fleeting innocence, where the darkness on the edge of town gets illuminated by a neon sign. The butterflies of young love, even when the money’s tight. The sign spinning ’round “like a cross over the lost and found.”

Then there’s “Long Walk Home”. Powered by The E Street Band, Springsteen sings about someone returning home only to realize the place and its people are completely unrecognizable. However, even within the album’s melancholy, Springsteen’s weary characters push on with glimpses of hope.

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