10 Musicians Who Came Back From Huge Band Breakups

6. Paul McCartney - Beatles

For a brief period, Paul McCartney was actually looked at as the main villain behind the Beatles' breakup. He was the one who first announced that the band was no more, and the first handful of years after their demise saw him putting out some of the most critically despised material of his career, with critics not really understanding what he was doing until years later. Paul didn't really know how to be in a band after the Beatles, so he built another one from the ground up with his wife Linda.

While the origins of Wings were a bit shaky on records like Wild Life, the '70s would put Macca back in stadiums where he belonged, with albums like Band on the Run and Venus and Mars sparking the very beginnings of the stadium rock movement. This wasn't just the whimsical Paul that you knew from songs like When I'm 64 either, having a healthy dose of rock and roll on songs like Jet and Junior's Farm while also sprinkling in some of the most gorgeous ballads that he would ever create like Maybe I'm Amazed and Bluebird.

There were even a few subtle nods to that other band he used to be in as well, putting songs like I've Just Seen a Face and Yesterday into the concert setlist to give his audience a taste of what those songs could sound like on the live stage. This wasn't Paul using his Beatle days as a crutch though. He had turned himself into a pop superstar, and that meant he could play a concert where Live and Let Die and Let It Be could get equal time.