Bob Seger had kept the world waiting two years by the time he unveiled his 11th studio album Against the Wind in 1980.
Though the industry put mounting pressure on Seger to stick to their formulaic one-a-year release strategy, he stuck with his gut decision to "try and keep the quality up." Not to mention, he was coordinating a hectic schedule of "nine months of touring, six months of writing and then about six months of recording."
As he continued to stick to the 2-year creation process that he had discovered in the late 70's with 1976's Night Moves, Seger found increased satisfaction with incorporating new techniques he learned along the way into his latest work with the Silver Bullet boys.
He reminisced, "Each recording of each album got progressively longer, because as we learned more, how much more we could do, we went slower at it.”
Hanging around the Eagles, one of the world's biggest bands at the time, didn't hurt either. Initially worried about the the line "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then," he played the song in front of Frey and Don Henley, who confirmed "That's the best line in the song," and the rest became history.
Seger unveiled the album in February 1980 but it wasn't until April that he released the iconic title track as a single. The signature tune "Against The Wind," the rhythmic ballad cementing Seger's signature style" flew to No. 5 on Billboard's Hot 100 by June 1980 for a 17-week run. The poetic rocker also snagged the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal with this track.
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