10. Johnny Cash, American Recordings (1994)
Of course, Reed wasn't the only performer who had trouble in the '80s. Virtually everyone more comfortable with a guitar than a drum machine had a rough time of it. And veteran country singers had it even worse than rock stars, after a new class of fresh-faced pop-striving stars virtually exiled them from country radio. Guided by Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash bucked the trend and simply sang. Discarding production frills, American Recordings lets Cash work through 13 tracks of originals, old favorites, and some truly odd covers (Danzig?) that sound like they were written for him. It set the pattern for his artistically triumphant final decade as a recording artist.
11. Steely Dan, Two Against Nature (2000)
Consummate studio rats, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker made a semi-shocking return to the road in the '90s before releasing Two Against Nature after a 20-year Steely Dan gap. They'd finally aged into the disaffected middle-agedom they'd long affected, and it sounded as if mere months had passed. The duo took Album Of The Year honors at the Grammys and released the even-better Everything Must Go in 2003.
12. U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
It may seem that U2 only put fans through a one-album dip—1997's lumbering Pop—but some devotees of '80s U2 felt distanced from the band throughout the '90s, while Bono and company dabbled in electronics and irony. All That You Can't Leave Behind didn't generate much pre-release excitement until "Beautiful Day" started popping up on the radio, with its retro sincerity and soaring chorus. The album fulfilled the single's promise, restoring The Edge's trademark needle-threading guitar to the center of songs that spoke of pain and redemption, instead of postmodernism.
13. Electric Light Orchestra, Zoom (2001)
The recent revival of interest in Electric Light Orchestra came a few years too late to save Zoom, Jeff Lynne's barely heard attempt to revive the classic ELO sound. Beginning with the revved-up "Alright"—a "Don't Bring Me Down" for the '00s—Zoom brought back all the rockabilly twang and disco sparkle of the late '70s, and with songs like "State Of Mind" and "Stranger On A Quiet Street," Lynne produced a couple of gems worthy of inclusion on any ELO mix. The album made little impact commercially, but it was part of an early-'00s wave of albums by exiled-from-radio classic rockers (most notably Fleetwood Mac) who abandoned contemporary relevance and returned gleefully to the style that made them stars.
14. Mission Of Burma, OnOffOn (2004)
Plenty of modern rock legends have regrouped after a long layoff to play for the young fans who missed them the first time, but Mission Of Burma is one of the few that returned even stronger than it was in round one. OnOffOn featured scorching new recordings of songs that had popped up in demo form on Burma rarities collections, but the fresher songs were just as good, and surprisingly loud, given that the reason the band broke up in the first place was because of Roger Miller's chronic tinnitus. Mission Of Burma repeated the trick this year with The Obliterati, another excellent album of beautifully noisy art-rock, as bracing now as it would've been 20 years ago.
15. Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose (2004)
Following the Johnny Cash/Rick Rubin model, Jack White shepherded a long-overdue comeback for Loretta Lynn in 2004. Country purists might argue with some of White's musical choices, but the heartfelt sentiments and unmistakable personality are pure Lynn. As with the best comebacks, it's an album that sounds like she'd wanted to make for years, and she didn't miss the opportunity to make it right.
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