rock geniuses vs rest of the world...

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How come in "rock" (meaning rock n roll, pop, soul, etc), the artists considered to be the greatest mainly produce their best work and chef d'oeuvres in their early days and then mostly "lose it" (mccartney, brian wilson, the stones, dylan, stevie wonder, james brown, etc.) whereas in other genres - like classical music for instance - it's the other way round ?

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Friday, 16 July 2004 11:52 (twenty years ago)

hmm...that's not quite true- at least wrt to much post-war classical- I think Xenakis and Stockhausen were at their best up to late 60s-early 70s, much of the same is true with ligeti and Cage (who threw much of what he worked on early on), Scelsi and Feldman took a while to get to their concepts and worked at these right until the end (def more true for the latter, who realized the compostions he is more known for in the last 10 years of his life - I'd say scelsi was there by the early 60s). Nono had two compositional stages, and carter has written his first opera at 95 but again, different concerns at diff periods.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 16 July 2004 12:07 (twenty years ago)

there are a lot of different rock trajectories - beatles/sonic youth peaked in the middle, mbv got better with every subsequent release (arguably i guess), dylan's trajectory is all over the place - i wouldnt say he peaked early and lost it. anyway, i dont think its necessarily typical of a rock artist to have a meteoric career...

― peter smith (plsmith), Friday, 16 July 2004 12:15 (twenty years ago)

Well, yeah, of course it's not totally true but it's more about the idea that in "rock", somehow, artists seem to create their best work at a very early stage in their career, which is weird considering the fact that even the greatest musical genuises (or considered so) in other genres needed some time and experience to grow their art. I can't think of any great artist in rock who has made his chef d'oeuvre in his old days... anyone ?

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Friday, 16 July 2004 12:16 (twenty years ago)

well, for dylan, although i really like his latest album, i wouldn't say it's his chef d'oeuvre...
for the beatles, it may have been the middle of the career of the beatles... but it was very early in the career (and life) of the members.
sonic youth still release good albums (although i'm not a big fan) but i don't think one would say their latest albums are their bests.
and mbv, well, the last stuffs from shields are ok but still...

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Friday, 16 July 2004 12:21 (twenty years ago)

You could blame a cynical music industry bleeding the cash cow dry before the market moves on giving the artist little time to produce fresh material. Most songwriters have their whole life to write their debut album, and then probably months if not weeks if not days to write the material for their second - if this flops then they are forever in debt to the record company and possibly contractually obliged not to release any more music.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 16 July 2004 12:36 (twenty years ago)

Or they're just lazy after making it.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 16 July 2004 12:38 (twenty years ago)

so there would be an idea of having said it all in the first albums... but then, how come talent can run dry in rock ? I dunno, it seems to me that doesn't happen much in classical music, jazz, painting, sculpture, etc.
are pop stars really artists, then or just marketing products that expire once they're used ? (it goes deep there...).

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Friday, 16 July 2004 13:46 (twenty years ago)

talent is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, dude.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 16 July 2004 13:51 (twenty years ago)

I dunno, does the totty get in the way too much in rock? Are there too many trappings in rock? Classical music, jazz, painting, sculpture don't seem to attract groupies in quite the same way... for some reason.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 16 July 2004 13:53 (twenty years ago)

so that would only be a matter a perspiration ?
the thing is, if one artist is very into his art, it shouldn't really matter if he's already successful or not : the best of them should keep trying to achieve something beyond public success, surely...
for instance, why does mccartney keep making reconrds ? he doesn't need the money. so that would be for an artistic reason. still, one can't say he's increased his art of songwriting over the years.
in what other form of art does an artist...regress ?

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Friday, 16 July 2004 13:58 (twenty years ago)

this is a very good question which i'm positive we've discussed before. but where?

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 14:26 (twenty years ago)

Because McCartney is deluded that he thinks he's any good still?

Didn't he write a (very poorly received) symphony a few years ago. Perhaps because of the overarching themes and knowledge of broad range of intrumentation, but at the same time lack of, not sure how to put this, texture acheivable through production tweaking, mean that the perspiration - so the speak - have to occur over a learning curve lasting for many years. This learning process has to be travelled before being able to undertake score writing?

Or McCartney is so deluded that he thinks he's still good.

Didn't Sickboy in trainspotting cite Sean Connery in his 'Grand Theory' as operating along a simlair artistic trajectory. How about film makers? Tarantino, The Coen Brothers? How about Damien Hurst, Tracy Emin? Perhaps it's just that rock artisits haven't been around long enough to show the true arc - just wait for McCartney's latter renaissance.

No, on second thoughts, McCartney is definitely deluded.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 16 July 2004 14:26 (twenty years ago)

It's because rock artists are dumb and only know 3 melodies/chord progressions and once they've used those up they're like "oh shit"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 16 July 2004 14:48 (twenty years ago)

except that's like not true

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 15:55 (twenty years ago)

actually it's not strictly true, but there is some truth in it. but it'd have to include about 8,000 qualifiers.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 15:56 (twenty years ago)

it has a lot to do with the way the music industry is set up, too, to exploit a musician's talent (i don't mean "exploit" in some pejorative way necessarily) in a certain manner. it often seems that those on the margins of the industry have a better time retaining their talent as they grow older, perhaps because they've taken less risks? i.e. jonathan richman can probably spin out low-key "jonathan richman" albums for another 20 years, but it's difficult to imagine, er, franz ferdinand doing the same.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 15:59 (twenty years ago)

but you never know!

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 15:59 (twenty years ago)

Because being young and feeling invincible are necessary elements of good rock.

― 57 7th (calstars), Friday, 16 July 2004 16:21 (twenty years ago)

the novelist would be all about mastery, maturity, subtlety. (unless you want to have franz kafka as some nick drake figure, which would be completely fair. also shakespeare's later work was considered passe at the time.) our rock is all centred on this myth of revolution and while that may or not ever happen the natural vigour of youth lends it a thrilling enough air of plausibility.
but such music has only had about 40 years at the very most of being thought of as what is contemporary. it's very young so given time there will likely greater numbers of scott walker doing 'tilt' and johnny cash doing 'hurt', people managing some of their greatest moments in those autumn years.

― matthew james (matthew james), Saturday, 17 July 2004 11:28 (twenty years ago)

The last two posts raise a valid point. If you have followed someone who has had a 20 to 30 year career in the biz, with few exceptions, like Neil Young or Bob Dylan, the 30-year-on material is truly of a different texture that I can only attribute to older artists.

Of course the times change as well over the years.

I almost feel like I know the answer here, but can't quite express it.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 18 July 2004 01:49 (twenty years ago)

I think what you were try to say, jim, was:

Rock hard! Ride free!
All day, all night
Rock hard! Ride free!
All your life

Correct me if I'm wrong.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 18 July 2004 02:04 (twenty years ago)

That's it in a nutshell. Thanks Colin.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 18 July 2004 02:13 (twenty years ago)

Driving Rain is actually quite possibly the best McCartney album yet.

― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 18 July 2004 03:11 (twenty years ago)

hum....so we don't really have an explanation, do we ?
i watched a mccartney special yesterday (videos, live etc). kinda scary at some points, i must say...

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 19 July 2004 10:47 (twenty years ago)

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