4 Career-Saving Rock Albums That Kept Their Artists Relevant

Maintaining a steady trajectory in one’s music career is no easy feat. Even the greatest artists of all time have experienced lulls in their careers. It’s just part of working in the industry. Fortunately for the following famous rock bands, a few albums made a big difference and ended up being career-saving releases. Let’s take a look! A few of these albums are real throwbacks.

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‘2112’ by Rush

Rock band Rush struggled a bit toward the end of the 1970s. They just couldn’t break through into the mainstream rock world, and the album Caress Of Steel produced no charting hits. Their label told them to hit the studio and write radio-friendly hit songs. 

The band lied, of course, and said they’d try. They came back with 2112, an enormously well-constructed concept album about a dystopian future. Not listening to their label ended up working in their favor. 2112 wasn’t a commercial smash hit, but it did draw in one of the most dedicated fanbases in the genre. For future releases, their label gave them more creative freedom.

‘Band On The Run’ by Paul McCartney and Wings

Band On The Run by Paul McCartney and Wings came at an important time in the former Beatle’s career. The Beatles had just broken up, and public opinion of the somewhat controlling McCartney wasn’t doing his solo career any favors. The process of putting together Band On The Run was miserable (McCartney was robbed at one point), but the end result was a career-saving record that put McCartney and Wings back on the map.

‘Alive!’ by KISS

Legendary hard rock band KISS ran into a few roadblocks in their career. And each time, they managed to come out alive. (Ha!) 

The first of those roadblocks happened early in their career. Three albums in, and the band was mostly known as a live act with no real fan dedication to their recorded material. They decided to roll with that and capture their live essence with the album Alive! It ended up being just the right kind of album to secure the band’s place in rock and roll history.

‘Foo Fighters’ by Foo Fighters

The death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain shook the rock world, but it shook the remaining band members even more. Their friend had tragically died, their band was no more, and the future was disorienting. Dave Grohl didn’t want to give up on music, so he formed Foo Fighters. And their debut self-titled album was a surprising hit. 

Not surprising in the sense that it was bad, though. This entry on our list of career-saving rock albums is incredible. Moreso, it’s surprising that fans didn’t aggressively try to pigeonhole Grohl as “the Nirvana guy.” With Foo Fighters, he proved that he had the potential to blaze his own trail. And he certainly did just that.

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