It’s hard to believe, but nearly 10 years will have passed between Bruno Mars’ last solo studio album and his upcoming release. When 24K Magic arrived, Barack Obama was still in the White House. Now, Mars is preparing to return on Feb. 27 with The Romantic, his long-awaited follow-up.
He’s not the only recent album of the year winner staging a comeback. Harry Styles will drop Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally on March 6, marking three years, nine months and 15 days since Harry’s House. For today’s music landscape, that gap is fairly typical.
Mars, however, will have taken nine years, three months and 10 days between solo albums — undeniably a long break. Even so, it’s not the longest pause ever taken by an artist following a Grammy album of the year win.
We compiled a rundown of artists who waited four years or more before releasing a studio follow-up to their winning album. Four years may not sound extreme, but it spans an entire U.S. presidential term — a detail highlighted by the fact that Obama was still president when Mars last released a solo record.
A few notes before the list:
- Simon & Garfunkel and Daft Punk disbanded after earning the award and never released a follow-up album.
- John Lennon’s final studio album, Double Fantasy, became his last due to his death shortly after its release.
- Ray Charles passed away before the release of Genius Loves Company.
- And perhaps most famously, Lauryn Hill has yet to issue a studio follow-up to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998). If she ever does, she would immediately top the list for longest gap.
In earlier decades, artists worked at a much faster pace. In 1963, Barbra Streisand released her debut and its follow-up just six months apart. Carole King turned around the successor to Tapestry in under a year. While some artists today still move quickly — Taylor Swift dropped Evermore less than six months after Folklore — long waits are far more common.
