Reunited and it feels so good: 16 acts that came back strong after a long hiatus or breakup

1. Dinosaur Jr.
Although singer-songwriter-guitarist J Mascis is Dinosaur Jr. for all intents and purposes, the seminal grunge band lost a little something when Mascis had a falling-out with original bassist Lou Barlow, and later with drummer Murph. And though the post-Barlow and post-Murph Dinosaur Jr. albums are generally good—and in a couple of cases, great—they don’t have anything like the ferocity of Beyond, the 2007 record Mascis recorded with Barlow and Murph following a reconciliation and successful world tour. Returning to a more basic sound—with more Neil Young-style crunch and twang and less symphonic embellishment—Dinosaur Jr. reminded longtime fans how satisfying a ringing in the ears can be. Then, having reestablished how Dinosaur Jr. is supposed to sound, the band recorded Farm, which applied that brute force to a more fully realized and catchy set of songs. The best that can be said about most reunions is that the band in question didn’t sully the memory of its early work. But with Farm, Mascis and company made an album almost as good as any from their original incarnation.
2. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
When Bruce Springsteen decided to spend some time away from his ace sidemen The E Street Band following the Born In The U.S.A. tour, he wandered in the creative wilderness for about 10 years, recording some worthy material—and continuing to put on electrifying live shows—but losing some sense of purpose. Following the release of the 1998 rarities box set Tracks, Springsteen reconvened The E Street Band (including Steven Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren, who’d been his guitarists in different E Street eras) and went on a lengthy world tour that saw him using the concept of reunion as an inspirational theme. The message proved timely. After 9/11, Springsteen and The E Street Band recorded The Rising, a collection of songs about loss, faith, and community that marked their first full album of new material since Born In The U.S.A. They went on to record the more modern-sounding (not always successfully so) Magic and Working On A Dream, while wowing new and old fans in epic concerts that show how touring together off-and-on for nearly 40 years can hone a band into a magnificent music machine.
3. The Feelies
Burying the hatchet may be tough, but try getting a band back together after one member disappears. After drifting apart and reforming several times, The Feelies took their longest break when guitarist Bill Million abruptly moved to Florida, leaving no forwarding address and putting the band on a 17-year hiatus. Singer Glenn Mercer cut a solo record heavily redolent of the band’s loud-quiet-loud take on the Velvet Underground, taking several former members on tour with him; it was The Feelies in all but name, but absent the fugitive Million, it seemed destined to stay that way. Luckily, Sonic Youth came calling in 2008, pulling Million out of the ether and initiating a surprisingly durable reunion that will pay off in June with the release of Here Before, the band’s first album in 20 years. The new songs that have slipped into live sets, like the aptly titled “Time Is Right,” stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the band’s best, so until Million does another runner, consider The Feelies back.
4. The New York Dolls
In the early ’70s, The New York Dolls came, saw, conquered, and quickly imploded. The fact that the cross-dressing band helped lay much of the groundwork for punk and glam metal earned the group a spot in the history books, but all leader David Johansen and crew were able to squeeze out the first time around were two (admittedly epochal) studio albums. Johansen went on to limited success as a solo artist, then a bit more with his cocktail-addled persona Buster Poindexter, but guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan died in the ’90s, more or less laying to rest any possibility of a reunion. Then, in 2004, Johansen, guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, and bassist Arthur Kane announced a reformation—although Kane died soon after. In spite of the odds against them, though, Johansen and Sylvain came through with a 2006 album, One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This, that did justice to the band’s trashy legacy. They followed up with the recent Dancing Backward In High Heels, which did the same.
5. Steely Dan
During the time Donald Fagen and Walter Becker spent not being Steely Dan, they worked on each other’s solo albums, toured together, and watched from a distance as Steely Dan’s reputation improved in the critical and musical communities. A band once dismissed by some as airless West Coast studio-pop was reevaluated, as younger musicians—many of them British—cited Becker and Fagen’s pristine sound and acerbic lyrics as an inspiration. In 1993, the duo toured again as Steely Dan for the first time in 20 years, then spent the last few years of the decade periodically working on the album that would become 2000’s Two Against Nature: a set of witty, sophisticated songs in the band’s clean-burning jazz-rock style. The record became a surprise double-platinum-selling hit, and shocked even the band’s fans when it won the Grammy for Best Album in 2001, beating out Beck, Eminem, Radiohead, and Paul Simon.