10 of Rock’s Greatest ’70s to ’80s Reinventions

The transition from one decade to the next is significant in more ways than just the flipping of a calendar page. For musicians, it can represent a sonic, aesthetic and ideological changing of the guard — and that transition can either be a source of excitement or dread.

All of the artists on our list of Rock’s Greatest ’70s to ’80s Reinventions made changes at the dawn of a new decade. Some of them were already in the midst of an evolution, and they simply needed to stay the course to reap the benefits. Others found themselves in a career tailspin that would require an act of God (or a record label with bottomless pockets) to fix.

Our criteria for a successful rock reinvention is twofold. For one, these changes had to yield commercial success. Secondly, the music an artist made during that period had to be considered generally good by at least some faction of fans and critics. We know a lot of our faithful readers won’t go to bat for ’80s Aerosmith or Kiss over their ’70s periods, but somebody, somewhere had to have enjoyed those records in order for them to sell millions of copies.

Also important to note: Successful reinventions didn’t always last long. Some of these artists revitalized their careers at the turn of the decade, only to make a series of baffling left turns that could qualify them for a list of the worst reinventions. That’s just par for the course in a business as ephemeral as rock ‘n’ roll.