10 Bands That Saved Their Career With One Album

No one likes a band that gets too big for their own good. Throughout music history, many groups have let ego and pride get to them and released some of the worst music they would ever create. Any sensible fan would abandon them without hesitation, but everyone also loves an underdog story.

A lot of these bands had made some very poor choices in the past that left them dead in the water. These include everything from losing band members to overcoming a shift in direction or just letting the rockstar lifestyle get to them. Regardless of how they got there, these albums are the greatest examples of bands picking up the pieces of their broken legacy and building themselves back up again. It may have been a long road back to where they were, but these albums show how determined these guys were to go for broke no matter the consequences.

These songs may have had traces of the band's original sound inside them, but going back to their roots was just what these musicians needed to rediscover their love of their craft. Things may have seemed grim for a number of these acts, but it's that much sweeter when you can prove your worth all over again.

At the end of the '70s, KISS had started to create gaping holes in their musical legacy. After years of being at the top of the hard rock sphere, the band's flirtations with styles like disco and power pop had culminated in Music from the Elder, a concept record that fell into obscurity. With half of the original band long gone at this point, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley needed a miracle if they wanted to click with rock fans again.

When Creatures of the Night finally arrived in the early '80s, the band had reignited that initial fire they had with new drummer Eric Carr, whose style was more in line with metal music. This album also showed the band embracing their hard rock glory days, with Stanley writing fantastic riffs on the title track as well as his most dynamic vocal performance on the ballad "I Still Love You." Given that the band would take their makeup off soon after this, Simmons' "I Love It Loud" is one of the final great character pieces the hard rock world got from his Demon persona.

Though the album was a true return to form, it had a bit of a lukewarm reception from fans who had jumped ship after the disco years. It may not have sold like gangbusters, but this album reminded the rock world why KISS were the almighty lords of rock.