Artistic peak

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Given a rock/pop artist with a lengthy recording career, it seems that on average, his/her best record (ie, received best among fans and critics, usually also means sold well, but that's debatable) is somewhere in the middle, though usually closer to the beginning than the end. I am thinking of Rubber Soul/Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, Exile on Main Street, Innervisions, Pet Sounds, OK Computer/Kid A, London Calling, any number of 70s David Bowie records, Hounds of Love, Zep IV, the Damo-era Can records, etc etc

Why is this? Because these artists were both young enough to have the energy and drive to do good work + they had a little experience under their belts? Is it because pop culture only affords people of a certain age the opporunity to be heard?

If one were to look at the same artists under some other rubric than "pop/rock", does that change the notion of a "peak"? And what is actually "peaking"?

― Dominique (dleone), Monday, 13 February 2006 14:48 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's because at a certain point, the artist realises that they don't have to strive as hard as they did once before to realise something as perfect as previous. Especially if the rewards will be comparable to whatever they put 100% into, with only 70% effort.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 13 February 2006 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

they also have more capital to spend in the studio

― Vintage Latin (dog latin), Monday, 13 February 2006 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

I think the energy + drive thing is the main factor.

The age factor in pop culture is relevant with respect to getting hits and MTV airtime, but I don't think it matters to people when evaluating an artist's oeuvre.

How does SMiLE fit into this?

― erklie (erklie), Monday, 13 February 2006 18:39 (nineteen years ago)

also, i figure, because people get used to a certain sound

― rizzx (Rizz), Monday, 13 February 2006 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

I think these kind of answers demonstrate something I see a lot of in rock crit--a lack of acknowledgement that the artist was making music long before they put out their first album. Generally an artist's first exposure to the public will be once they've hit on something that really clicks, but they've probably spent years and years at that point trying to get that click to happen. Then they're getting the money and attention and opportunity they need to develop that thing further, but after a while, it's not clicking anymore, and you're back to where you started. Only you still have a record contract and a fanbase and they will receive what you produce a lot more eagerly than your pre-breakthrough stuff. So I don't think it's necessarily a change--they could still have the same drive and energy and effort and all that, but they've left this period in which everything seems to be clicking. And that doesn't even necessarily make their stuff bad, it just makes it non-peak material. I think what we regard as a peak generally comes right at the end of the period of clicking, which itself comes one or two albums after their breakthrough. And there are breakthroughs to different levels, etc. etc. as we see with Radiohead.

Don't know if that makes any sense, but it's how I think of it, anyway.

― Eppy (Eppy), Monday, 13 February 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

Eppy - this is part of what interests me, the relationship between artistic peak and critical response. Assuming that there is actually such a thing as artistic peak (which btw I think is entirely debatable), how is this determined, and what does it say about both the artist's work and the response it generates/inspires? Is it purely relative? I've read many artists describe their stuff in terms of peaks and lulls, so it doesn't appear to be something only approaced from the external critical point of view.

― Dominique (dleone), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:03 (nineteen years ago)

totally totally cherry picking

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:07 (nineteen years ago)

I think peak is probably the consensus album, which means it's generally a fairly accessible album in some way or another. I can't think of too many peak albums that are also particularly "difficult."

What artists regard as their peak shifts constantly, on the other hand, and is subject to a whole other set of standards. I remember hearing REM describe New Adventures in Hi-Fi as their peak because many of the tracks were actually recorded live, so it's a great document of how they sounded as a band. Other bands will regard the album they worked hardest on as their peak. Artists generally regard their peak as the album that comes closest to sounding how they wanted it to sound, whereas everybody else regards their peak as the album with the broadest appeal.

― Eppy (Eppy), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:09 (nineteen years ago)

I've interviewed Mogwai lately and according to Barry Burns they see Rock Action as their career low, while it's praised by critics for changing their style from epic rock to epic intimacy. So opinions differ heavily between crits and artists, even. Isn't it just a matter of taste? As with Radiohead, some might call The Bends their 'peak' while others may look at Kid A as their 'peak'

― rizzx (Rizz), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:09 (nineteen years ago)

Also note difference between "peak" and "best."

― Eppy (Eppy), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:09 (nineteen years ago)

Any artist with a "long" career is probably going to have to peak in the "middle," because if they don't achieve a certain level of success (sales), they get dropped by their label. Similarly - but instinct tells me not as iron-clad -- how long a career can we expect from an artist whose first released album is their best?

― Mitya (mitya), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

Presumably there is also a thread somewhere on ILM along the lines of "Their last album was the best they ever did."

― Mitya (mitya), Monday, 13 February 2006 19:53 (nineteen years ago)

My current, winter-addled guess is, they're still young enough to see where things can be done, but old enough that they've made some mistakes and built their skillz. Another words, after that, they've stretched their abilities, it's harder to find novelty/delight/belief in new/old things/tropes, everything seems like rehashing, and hard work seems to yield less rewards. To me, that's usually when they get simpler in their style, go all meta on your ass, or rehash the old stuff ad nauseum.

Or maybe that's just because I'm terribly disappointed in the last offerings by Neil Finn, Sam Phillips, Joe Henry, and Los Lobos. And before anyone asks, no, I'm not a middle-aged, latte-drinking crypto-conservative New Republic subscriber. That's what I'm aspiring towards.

― Jubalique (Jubalique), Monday, 13 February 2006 22:09 (nineteen years ago)

totally totally cherry picking

OTM -- I think Led Zeppelin III, Houses of the Holy and Physical Grafiti are all better than IV, for example, and A LOT of people would disagree that Rubber Soul or Revolver was the Beatles' "peak" (my favorite is Abbey Road, which came at the end) -- pleny of disagreement about Stevie Wonder too, I'm sure. I don't think Fugazi hit the "peak" of their ability until Red Medicine, before which many people probably already considered them to be past their peak. And of course all of this is assuming the existence of a single "peak" in every career, whereas there are probably some careers that have several peaks.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 13 February 2006 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

If Fugazi was formed in 1987 and Red Medicine, which I agree is definitely the peak of their ability, was released in 1995, and the band's last CD came out in 2001..then doesn't that pretty much count as the middle of their career?

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 02:43 (nineteen years ago)

It's a weird & interesting subject, especially since it applies almost exclusively to pop music - certainly in the classical music world (and in literature & painting), artists who start strong and run out of gas (or who start naive, get good & then run out of gas) are so anomalous as to be instantly nameable: Worsdworth & Tennyson the great literary examples that come to mind. That a composer of classical music would just get better as he learns more about his craft almost seems self-evident - but then, we're talking strictly in terms of composition there; how thing might play out in a studio environment doesn't really enter into the occasoin. And indeed, in modern classical music, Philip Glass seemed to lose the plot once he got more studio time & bigger contracts (Glassworks, The Photographer) though he did find his way back into better ground in my opinion.

I think the writing-gets-better possibility ought to be true - it just seems that way instinctively to me. But counterexamples in rock abound. Really it'd be the dance/electronic people who ought to put the whole question of artistic peaks to the test it'd seem: I'd assume that the ever-lengthening learning curve of technology would encourage them to keep struggling & learning, which I'd guess are key factors for continuing to produce vital work.

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

Agreed. Longevity and continual growth (at least insofar as it's evident in the music) is one area where pop doesn't hold its water compared with other fields. It would be tough to come up with a pop counterpart to, say, Shostakovich, who produced consistently excellent music for, what, almost 50 years (?).

Of course he didn't live to see the 80s, the netherworld of so many great pop artists' careers.

― erklie (erklie), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 03:07 (nineteen years ago)

Is this really so true for literature? I immediately think of Faulkner, whose "classic" works were in the middle of his career.

― Mitya (mitya), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 04:47 (nineteen years ago)

"Is it because pop culture only affords people of a certain age the opporunity to be heard"

I think this is truer than most people care to admit, and that the perceived "peak" has more to do with marketing and a constructed narrative than with the artist's actual work or energy level.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 04:51 (nineteen years ago)

Often (and I think this is the case even in a lot of cases where there are no traditional "songs") this has to do with the songwriting. Lots of acts will just have a limited number of good ideas, and once they run out of them they will either do failed experiments that come out not at all successful or their will try to rewrite their older material attempting a "return to form".

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 14 February 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

And, to Eppy, most acts (unless they've been in the biz for ages) view their most recent album as their artistic peak.

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 14 February 2006 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

If we're contrasting disciplines, it might be more interesting to consider the sciences, where for your basic "genius" their best work is always their early work. Merely great scientists/mathematicians produce their good stuff at any age, but there seems to be a fairly legitimate cliche of the genius prodigy.

― Eppy (Eppy), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

xpost I think there's a difference between what they say in interviews and what they actually think!

― Eppy (Eppy), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

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