Why do artists suck once they hit a certain age? Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Phil Collins...

Why do artists suck once they hit a certain age? Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Phil Collins, Elton John etc can't make a good song these days even if their lives depended on it. Why do artists suck after a certain age?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=EvuczY7o5I0
youtube.com/watch?v=PamO6obWcQk
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Michael Gira is still good at 63

Because they started making music for the wrong reasons

They become uncool with time

when did iggy pop become an eldritch abomination

seems like your creative side and ability to judge the quality of your own music slows way the fuck down after your 20s. i'm 32 and am already feeling it hard compared to when i was 27. i might have 3 more years left of peak-ish creativity and then i am just going to be composing rpg piano music or some other straightforward shit for the rest of my days.

Paul McCartney did NEW few years ago which I really liked, he's also constantly working and still has a lot of energy.
Phil Collins is borderline dying, haven't made a record since early 2000's.
Elton John is probably trying to enjoy his life now.

Paul and Elton are still good, fight me. Joel is still a good performer he just stopped writing music decades ago. Phil Collins had it rough with that accident. I liked his motown covers though.

People stop caring after they've peaked in success/critical acclaim and no longer have anything to prove. Music either becomes a hobby for them or a vehicle through which they may remain relevant, which typically amounts to watering down their music to keep with the times.

rogers waters just put out a great album at 74

bob dylan's still got it too

it's not that the music is worse; it's just that we don't give old artists a serious listen

you want it darker was really solid, and how old do you consider this ceiling?

It depends on how much the artist stakes their image on youth and sexuality. Obviously Bob Dylan was going to age better than Motley Crue.

Robert Fripp is 71 and is still doing pretty damn good

pic unrelated i assume
youtube.com/watch?v=EvuczY7o5I0

If you were big during a certain era of music you're going to have a hard time adjusting to changes in what's popular or inventions of new genres. Most big 60s/70s/80s artists also don't seem to care about making new music and are content to just play their hits at concerts but if they do want to make new music it's likely they'll try and recapture their past sound which more often than not fails.

Not that this is a hard rule but it's pretty common. You'll probably see the same thing happen with Taylor Swift or other top 40 artists right now in 20 or 30 years.

Classical and jazz composers work well into middle age and beyond. The thing with rock and pop is your main subject matter is love sex and alienation. That tends to peter out as your 20s fade.

>he thing with rock and pop is your main subject matter is love sex and alienation. That tends to peter out as your 20s fade
The first two maybe but how is alienation something only a 20 year old can feel?

Some people just lose their creative energy. Some people have it happen in reverse, ie Scott Walker, and some people it stays consistent, ie Randy Newman, who just recently put out a great record

Randy Newman was 50 when he was 25 anyway, so...

He wasn’t good when he was young on the other hand though

He means the adolescent "Fuck you Mom and Dad!" kind of alienation.

1. They're rich now and don't have the motive to make songs and get radio play anymore
2. They're rich now and don't have any struggle in their life, leading to a lack of drive to channel their feelings into art

Good points, anons.

Most of them do, but I guess it's mostly related to music, since it relies much more in pure inspiration than experience. This is why many filmakers make some of their best films when they reach late 40's or 50's (or even more). Think of David Lynch, Kubrick, Hitchcock-- or painters like Picasso and Rothko.

Anyways, I don't believe it happens to everyone. Michael Gira, Radiohead, David Bowie, My Bloody Valentine, Björk, and many more made great records (some of their best ones, actually) at an old age. Not everyone turns into a Billy Corgan.

It's not, but when your alienation is partly from younger people, younger people don't want to hear it.

Now why would you think a bunch of dads in their 50s like Metallica and Megadeth would still have the same adolescent fury that drove them in 1985?

Not all - only those who sing about puberty shit and suddenly grow up. Sadly they are the most popular ones out there.

Unless they're a manchild like Spielberg who peaked when he was in his 30s.

Filth, Children of God...

>implying

robert plant is 69 and his new album is great.

the last stones album was nice too

Popular music has an extremely limited emotional range.

I honestly think you're all wrong.

I think the answer is, simply, confirmation and yes men. If you go unchallenged, not having to prove yourself for a long time, then you naturally lose your edge because you aren't pushing yourself, and there's no one to challenge you when you become idle.

Since the 80s, Iggy Pop has been propped up as a "classic." Everyone has always said he was a genius. Same can be said of the Rolling Stones, and most other musicians.

Now look at people who never lost their edge. Dinosaur Jr. is a classic to a small niche of people, but they've always pushed each other, and they've never been big enough to surround themselves with yes men. Because of that, they've continued to hone their craft. R.E.M. eschewed the rock star crowd and intentionally put themselves in more down to earth environments, plus they always pushed each other. That's why they never lost their edge. Patti Smith is a road warrior, she just never stops moving, so she's never gotten overly comfortable. Behemoth are also road warriors, despite being as big of rock stars as anybody, so they just keep pushing themselves forward.

The idea that people "lose it" at some age is a myth. The truth is, most people just become complacent and overly comfortable at some point, so they lose their edge.

Underground and alternative artists tend to age better than mainstream hitmakers partially because they have more artistic flexibility and aren't as confined to basic radio-friendly ditties about falling in love and whatnot.

>It depends on how much the artist stakes their image on youth and sexuality
As for example, Iggy Pop.

>he thinks REM did anything good after AFTP

Roger Waters, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Jeff Lynne and Iggy Pop all released great albums in the last two years. And god knows what Scott Walker is still up to...

They did. They were a pretty solid band right up until the end. Monster was uneven, but had some great tracks. New Adventures in Hi-Fi is really underrated. The three albums they did in 98-04 were weak, but Accelerate was a decent album, and Collapse Into Now was a great album.

Artists who have genuine talent as Waters or Bowie did age well. The ones who go to shit after 35 usually weren't that good to begin with.

Let me qualify this statement a bit. I don't mean the artist wasn't "good", I meant their talent was intrinsically limited and they didn't have a lot of range as musicians. Think Metallica. They were good at one thing but lacked the musical skill to progress beyond that.

A guy like David Bowie who was an ever-evolving musical omnivore just had more ideas to work with.

This. And plenty of composers.

But it seems to be the case with more pop-based music.

It's only that way with music though. Visual art is a lifelong thing and most artists don't start to come into themselves until their thirties, and really kick ass in their 30s / 40s / 50s and pretty much the rest of their lives.

well yeah, probably, with that attitude.

>Think Metallica. They were good at one thing but lacked the musical skill to progress beyond that.
I'd be willing to bet that James Hetfield and friends never listened to anything beyond entry level classic rock and dadpunk.

Probably not. We know for a fact that David Grohl only listens to entry level classic rock and dadpunk which is also why he only knows how to do one thing.

The Rolling Stones disprove that though.

Mick Jagger is a Bowie-like musical omnivore in a lot of ways--I think it's the rest of the band that held him back especially Keith Richards whose musical vocabulary doesn't extend beyond country rock.

A lot of great music though - whole styles - are the result of generations maturing. The slower, more reflective sounds in jazz coincided with a lot of the young hothead hipsters of bebop getting into their 30s and 40s.

Or similarly a lot of 'dad rock' in the 70s like yacht rock and blue eyed soul, soft rock, prog, fusion, stuff like Fleetwood Mac, etc. etc. were the sound of Baby Boomers hitting new stages of their lives.

A lot of indie since the late 00s has seen a similar kind of development with a more recent generation.

To an extent, yes, post-1974 Fleetwood Mac were aimed at young adults rather than teenagers. There were a lot of baby boomers that MOR albums could be sold to as they grew out of adolescent angst.

People forget that MOR has always been a much much more profitable business than music aimed at edgy teens. I mean, in the 90s, Celine Dion sold quite a lot more albums and got a lot more radio play than Alice in Chains.

That's what I mean, yeah. Post-'74 Mac are grownup music, even if it has turned out to be a sound that appeals to everyone.

I'd say a lot of the more sophisticated music in the 70s was music by Baby Boomers for their peers who were now having families etc.

Although at the same time, there are some people who continue to have some of that edgy artist ethic their whole lives - or for quite a while. A lot of the NY 'punks' - or more of the art punk bands and experimentalists - were actually Baby Boomers who were only now pushing music further after a lot of other things had developed. Genesis P Orridge, Debbie Harry, etc. Or look at Lou Reed, Brian Eno, a huge swath of the kraut rock guys...

Yeah, or crooners in the 50s and 60s.

>Although at the same time, there are some people who continue to have some of that edgy artist ethic their whole lives - or for quite a while. A lot of the NY 'punks' - or more of the art punk bands and experimentalists - were actually Baby Boomers who were only now pushing music further after a lot of other things had developed. Genesis P Orridge, Debbie Harry, etc. Or look at Lou Reed, Brian Eno, a huge swath of the kraut rock guys...

>People forget that MOR has always been a much much more profitable business than music aimed at edgy teens. I mean, in the 90s, Celine Dion sold quite a lot more albums and got a lot more radio play than Alice in Chains.

In response to both of these, I think people getting into their mid years certainly can be hardcore experimentalists / boundary pushers still, like a lot of the kraut dudes etc, it's just as to that second point about MOR, remember most people once they're in their 40s, I mean they're now sipping wine with their 40 year old peers and most of them don't WANT to be the edgiest artist in the world, they would rather make like Sting or later Rod Stewart or Celine Dion. It takes a certain kind of all-or-nothing person to still be the edgy artist at that point. But the ones so inclined do. For the rest it's perfectly reasonable to get kind of 'mature' and complacent.

It takes some reminding ourselves that Tom Jones and B.J. Thomas were what normalfags listened to in the 60s rather than Jefferson Airplane. You find mountains of those albums in thrift stores simply because they sold about 10x as many records as any rock group back then. Airplane, the Doors, and Hendrix were by any standard "alternative" music back then even though decades of dadrock propaganda has somewhat distorted people's perception of what was popular back then.

Yeah good point. And before anyone flippantly writes off someone like Tom Jones:

youtube.com/watch?v=PamO6obWcQk

In the strange way that things work, most of the founding fathers of punk rock were in their late 20s and not kids by any stretch (and Debbie Harry was over 30). They were veteran musicians who had to wait until Led Zeppelin and friends had died out before they could have their day.

>Airplane, the Doors, and Hendrix were by any standard "alternative" music back then

There were bands like the Velvet Underground and the Fuggs who were even more alternative but they didn't write catchy singles so you don't see their T-shirts for sale at Hot Topic.

Interestingly though, Jimmy Page was getting a bit older even when he started Zeppelin. In youth music terms (and obv Zeppelin is teenager music), one might have expected Page to emerge in the mid 60s - and he was a very hot session musician throughout the 60s who played on a lot of key albums - but he was a kind of quiet background presence until a lot of that had passed. By which time he now had the perspective to launch his own project which defined a large chunk of the next decade.

Page was only 25 when Zeppelin started and his bandmates were all about 20. They were hardly old geezers although it's interesting how they were mocked as dinosaurs during punk rock when Robert Plant wasn't yet 30.

I'm thinking more like Judas Priest who were Sabbath contemporaries/cross-town rivals from Birmingham but had to wait until Sabbath faded out.

>nick cave

Paul simon made graceland when he was 45
Checkmate cunts

Probably helped that he only made albums when he actually had something to say unlike some guys like Bob Dylan who were lost and clueless in the 80s but the albums kept coming for some unaccountable reason.

Bob Dylan has a deal with the devil, that's why he can't quit. Also, why the fuck won't Iggy Pop wear a fucking shirt? Shit's disgusting.

I see Velvet Underground merchandise around all the time

there are tons of gems in 80s dylan, it just seems like he lost his ability to tell the good songs from the bad. albums are full of shit tracks but if you listen to the bootlegs you realize he could have put together a great album or two if he was more selective with his releases