Sparks had a gap of 15 years in the top 40 from Beat The Clock in 1979 to When Do I Get To Sing My Way in 1994.

Rick Astley in albums

1991-2016 ;)

I realised last night that my second-favourite band ever, XTC, just about did this with 'Senses Working Overtime' in early 1982 and 'The Disappointed' in 1992.

 

Also, the Stone Roses had that comeback hit last year which was their first Top 40 since the 1999 remix of 'Fool's Gold' or if you don't count that, since 'Begging You' in 1995.

Kylie and spinning around surely

No, Kylie had hits in 1998 (and most other years in the 90s).

Kylie and spinning around surely

How's that even close to a 10 year gap? It was just over 2 years after her last era! (although the media were hyping it up as a big "comeback" single, I'll give you that)

Edited March 17, 20178 yr by M4NG0

To be fair I didn't read it properly 😂 I just assumed we were talking about comebacks in general and kylies was huge considering where her career was

The Verve had over ten years between 'Lucky Man' in late 1997 and 'Love Is Noise' in 2008.

Tom Jones had 10 years between 'Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow' in 1977 and 'A Boy From Nowhere' in 1987 - in fact they entered exactly ten years apart so the gap between their T40 runs might have been slightly less, you'd have to check the chart runs.

Train have had 4 top 40 hits and huge gaps between them, Drops of Jupiter in 2001, Hey Soul Sister in 2009, Drive By in 2012 and now Play That Song in 2017

This week Stargate have hit the top 75 for the first time as artists since Easier Said Than Done in 2002 (although they have produced numerous hits in the meantime). :)

Some of the acts listed above split up in the period between their singles being hits.

 

Other acts:

 

Sham 69 had a number of hits between 1978 and 1980 then nothing until 'Hurry Up England - The People's Anthem' (credited with The Special Assembly) in 2006.

 

Shaggy had a 10 year gap between his hit in 2005 (and even longer, almost 13 years from his last top 40 hit in 2002) until he made number 38 in 2015 along with Mohombi, Faydee And Costi

 

Busted had a 12 year gap between their last hit in 2004 and their comeback hit in 2016. Admittedly the comeback hit only reached number 60.

Edited March 18, 20178 yr by Robbie

Some of the acts listed above split up in the period between their singles being hits.

 

As did Steps of course.

 

 

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers had two Top 40 hits in 1977, then a third in 1992. Tom Petty had a solo hit in 1989 but of course even that's a gap of more than ten years.

In fact the Travelling Wilburys is almost like a club for people with long gaps: George Harrison had 'When We Was Fab' in 1988 but nothing until the re-release of 'My Sweet Lord' in 2002, and in terms of new tracks, not until 'Any Road' in 2003. Roy Orbison had almost 20 years between 'Penny Arcade' in 1969 and 'You Got It' in 1989. Even Bob Dylan's last two solo hits were in 1978 and 1995 (he also had a Number 41 single in 2010).

Johnny Cash (whose first hit was a Bob Dylan song) had 27 years between 'One Piece At A Time' (1976) and 'Hurt' (2003)

 

The Kinks had a gap between 'Supersonic Rocket Ship' in 1972 and 'Come Dancing' in 1983.

 

Perhaps most surprisingly, Elvis had a gap between 'I Can Help' in 1983 and 'Twelfth Of Never' in 1995, though he had several T75 hits in the meantime.

 

 

I like this game.

Maroon 5 surely? Career rejuvenation with their new sound post-Moves Like Jagger.

 

Also Sean Paul in the UK twice - Got 2 Luv U (#11) followed by She Doesn't Mind (#2), his first top 10 in 2011 since 2005's We Be Burnin', and then Rockabye, Cheap Thrills, and No Lie since that.

 

A couple of DJ-producers as well - Martin Solveig's two UK hits are 5 years apart, Benny Benassi's UK hits are Satisfaction (2002), Cinema (2011) and Beautiful People (2011), and even David Guetta's first chart hit (Just A Little More Love, 2001) wasn't followed-up until 2006 (Love Don't Let Me Go).

Just A Little More Love was a hit in the UK in 2003

Duane Eddy - 12 years between Lonely Boy Lonely Guitar (1963) and Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar (1975) and then another 11 years to Peter Gunn (1986),a re-recording with the Art Of Noise.

 

10cc - 17 years between Dreadlock Holiday (1978) and a re-recording of I'm Not In Love (1995).

It has just been announced that Chuck Berry has died :(

 

He had a gap of well over seven years between Promised Land (Jan 1965) and the embarrassing My Ding-A-Ling (Oct 1972).

Duane Eddy - 12 years between Lonely Boy Lonely Guitar (1963) and Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar (1975) and then another 11 years to Peter Gunn (1986),a re-recording with the Art Of Noise.

 

10cc - 17 years between Dreadlock Holiday (1978) and a re-recording of I'm Not In Love (1995).

That cost 10CC their place on the very short list of acts with several hits whose final hit topped the chart.

Maroon 5 never stopped having hits though did they? They've been T40 every year since 2004, except 2006 and 2009.

 

A couple more big names: Guns N Roses (from Sympathy For The Devil in 1995 to Chinese Democracy in 2008)

Neil Young (his *only* UK Top 40 singles were Heart Of Gold in 1971 and Harvest Moon in 1993)

 

And a name people might not be so keen to mention these days, but Rolf Harris had an even longer gap between Two Little Boys in 1969-70 and Stairway To Heaven. In fact Led Zep's two T40 hits were 10 years apart in 1997 and 2007, but they weren't new songs.

 

Oh, and Mike Berry from Are You Being Served? also counts, having had hits in the 60s and then in 1980.

yes Maroon 5 never went away, they're more of an example of a band that was very popular, lost it, then regained popularity again, which is not easy task either...

Some good replies to this, thanks.

 

As a matter of interest, I think the biggest gap between hits goes to Eartha Kitt 1955-1983 (28 years)