I am a big fan of tribe called quest and a few months back there where rumors of a comeback album. I was very excited because, as I said, I am a big fan and an album release of such a talented group would motivate other rappers to put in a lot more effort into their craft. That’s what I thought then….

Since that time I have realized something; the majority of comebacks just do not work. It is unfortunate but it is very true and the further back the artist is the harder it is for them to make a revival. It is all based on one key factor, relevancy. When I use the term I don’t simply mean relevant to today’s music but relevant to the society as a whole.

Let me use an example; let’s say a great and popular artist from the mid 90’s is motivated to release an album and he is expecting the same success from the time he reigned supreme (which what a lot come backers do). Well on average artists from “back then” do not gain that much commercial success because they are not relevant in people’s mind, not just because they are old but because the material is. Usually when an artist decides to comeback (despite all the “I love it” talk) it is for financially reasons, and because there main objective is to make money they don’t take the time to research and adapt but rather they use similar material that had used during there time expecting to experience the same results. Then we have other artists that do the research, but instead of applying their style to make the material unique they just copy whatever is working at the moment.

After a failed attempt, and a lost investment the artist and the record label (The deserve some blame as well) should realize that music is not a cash cow and just like any art, for it to be successful both uniqueness and innovative factors have to play a role, so if an artist relies on the same old formulas it cross out the innovative factor and if an artist relies on what is already out there it crosses out the uniqueness factor.

To conclude; if an artist has a strong legacy in the past and he or she left on a good note, it is not the greatest idea to try to revamp that forgotten career. Even Michael Jordan suffered from that, after leaving the NBA on a positive note he came back to play for the wizards and I am pretty sure we all forgot how he left that team. I mean if an artist wants to come back it’s on them, but the risk is very high and from experience there is a good chance the attempt would yield negative results.

ALEX