"Their earlier stuff is better"

"Their early stuff was better"

I suppose youth is associated with rock music, but this doesn't explain why artists less interested in appealing to sixteen year-olds later records are normally rubbish.

some of the covers johnny cash did right before his death seem like ending on a great note to me. (not a pinnacle... but...)

popular music isn't allowed to change as much i think. the formula is chiseled into granite by recording execs and grand deviation hurts the brand name aspect of the music. it's then disowned and buried under the marketing blitz happening for the next big thing. (madonna and radiohead feel like exceptions to this tho.) there's always those artists who want to keep on plugging away yet seem to have been hopelessly screwed out of renewing their relevancy because of this cycle. left sternly out of the lime light, they're embarassed to be slumming it and working the small gigs again. it's a shame. perhaps the lifestyle as a popular musician can only be taken for so long.

classical music can support a career and a lifelong movement amongst the art and academic circles. perhaps it's a little more dignified as well. having a rockstar mom or dad has got to be weird.

perhaps with diy music finally aging, we'll see elderly punks actually doing good things with non-classical... (bruce gilbert?)...
m.

I mean, I too like "terror twilight" alright, but only 7 years separate it from "slanted & enchanted." now compare, say, "bridges to babylon" to "aftermath."

Deerhoof
Ted Leo
The Loud Family
Mirah
The Mountain Goats
Mouse on Mars
Wrens

Primal Scream
CVB (Key Lime Pie is also my favorite)
My Bloody Valentine
Outkast
CCR (up until the last record anyway)
Sonic Youth - actually I think their mid-period stuff is the best!

I'm sure there's more

Somehow none of these seem as odd/likely as say the Rolling Stones coming away with something like "Let it Bleed" in 2004.

I don't see classical music as being any less tied to 'inspiration' (which is itself a myth) than pop is. In fact, the most successful pop is quite calculated and often accused of being uninspired (Max Martin, Diane Warren for extreme examples). Meanwhile, while we're speaking in mythic terms, Beethoven is portrayed as a recluse that composed nothing for years, and then suddenly is "hit" with the 'Ode to Joy' as we know it.

To the above two posts: Listing bands that defy the rule don't help explain why there is a rule in the first place.

shostakovich's opus 1 and 147 are separated by 56 years.
beethoven's first and last compositions span approximately 32 years.
even someone who died young like schubert composed for ~17 years.

and so on and so on.

I suppose I'm mainly pointing out the timespan here, not the rate at which albums/compositions are released.

better tho?

what about patti smith? did greatness. became a mom and chilled. now she's back rockin.

t-model ford? captain beefheart? (i prefer his last couple.)

xpost, the boredoms have definitely taken it to the next level in my humble o.
m.

It's funny that you bring up bands renoun for drastic style changes in their careers - that's certainly one way of sidestepping irrelevance (throw Bowie in there too) ;)

Richard K: it's not a theory I happen to subscribe to either

you're certainly right. but I suppose the question is: how often does it work?

and what would be the classical equivalent, and does it work there?

stravinsky, krenek, crawford-seeger come to mind, but for everyone else, it seems as if the change was always progressive and was never the aim in itself.

This whole theory breaks down when you see classical professors, musicians and historians who would be only too happy for things to never change, and if possible revert back about 100 years.

shostakovich's opus 1 and 147 are separated by 56 years.
beethoven's first and last compositions span approximately 32 years.
even someone who died young like schubert composed for ~17 years

There are some huge differences in how music was consumed before the LP, CD, whatever. Not to mention radio. So that's probably a huge factor. Also, put the two huge genres into perspective. The beginning of classical music is a gray area, but even beginning with the first of the Bach dynasty, it has been around for more than half a millenia. Pop as we are discussing it is maybe 50 years old, if you want to go by when recorded music and radio emerged, it's been barely a century now.

I'm being really vague about the dates, and I'm probably way off, but the point is that classical is about 5 times as old as our version of pop. We've got a long way to go. We may not have even experienced our Bach, or, more likely, our Beethoven.

stevie wonder
david bowie
u2
the kinks
minutemen (who for my money were still on the way up when d. boon died)
prince
the rolling stones
guided by voices

in stevie wonder's case it may just be that he started so damn young. his best records came a decade into his career -- when he was in his early 20s.

if you count "low" and "heroes" as bowie's peak (i'm not sure i do myself, but it's the common assessment, i think), those are more than a decade in for him.

if prince's best is "sign o' the times," that's about a decade in, too.

but on the other hand, they all had pretty short spans (five, six, maybe seven years) in which they were doing their major work. if they hit their stride 10 years in, they were probably going into decline mode 15 years in. i don't think it's automatic that pop guys have to burn out young, but it seems that it's close to automatic that they're going to burn out within a few years after getting really good. there seems to be a limited window of genius.

Oh yeah. A good analogy would be The Kinks "Top Of The Pops".