Getting Better with Age, and being older makes my music better

MThis is the only relevant discussion i could find on ILM and i can't accept the tenor of the accepted parties. Surely, the majority of musicians that improve with age are reserved for the respective ilks of classical, folk, jazz, and the blues.

Who got better; who improved their craft? Not only that even the most established tend to wain in the latter days of their recordings, and that death might create an unfettered truncation to the process; is the realm of musical legacy reserved only to the cultural phenomena of regional music (i.e. traditions such as Dhrupad, Tuvan, Appalachian, S. Central).

Has anyone ever stopped with their "Masterpiece"?

The fundamental question remains as to which artists or genres have most significantly advanced their "cause" whilst remaining musically significant.

These had both appreciable catalogs and "swan songs" that where truly informed by their respective histories:

Roland Kirk
Ali Farka Tour'e
Stephane Ggrappelli
Vassar Clements

.. and somehow Keith Jarrett has had it since the early 1970s.

More.

Don't know about "getting better" but Tom Waits is still as good and relevant as he's ever been.

Roland Kirk didn't "get better" either, IMO. Plus he was only 42 when he died, a mere boy!

you'd get better answers if you stopped talking like a robot lawyer.

"tenor of the accepted parties," what is this, ilx as contract law primer?

"tend to wain," what you mean they all end up reading john wain novels?

No, they all retire and become farmers.

Cockfarmers

Come on guys, K.I.P! Just because I'm in my thirties doesn't mean my dreams of being an international superstar have waned... too much...

Any road up, back to the question:

Davy Graham said in some interview that the music he plays and is influenced by, tends to become better the more the musician plays. Basically, people like Segovia produced their best works towards the end of their playing careers.

Having said that, he's best known for "Anjii", the first track on his very first e.p. which was a split single with Alexis Korner. The corny indie dude!

Basically: Times change.

Also: during the course of their playing careers, the improvements in sound recordings render their efforts with greater clarity.

Nothing in this message constitutes a contract. Caveat Emptor. Without Prejudice.

Having seen Davy Graham in concert a few years back I can confirm that he is one artist who definitely did not getter better with age

ah, at least he was having a go. (Was that with VVIIW supporting?)

I saw John Martyn w/ Danny, his last 2legs tour I think. I thought he was great, but the bloke I went with, a big JM fan, reckoned he was rubish and taking the proverbial.

VVIIW, y' what? He wasn't really having enough of a go, that was the problem.

I was lucky enough to see Bob Copper just before he died (his cousin had died some time before), and the fraility of his voice perfectly suited the folk songs that felt and sounded that they came from a different age. So not 'better' exactly, but some genres are going to be more suitable to aging than others. And obviously there's no creativity issues there, or not many anyway.

Tom Waits - agreed

Kirk - Starting in the mid-50's and and ending in the mid 70's - 1977's Boogie-Woogie String Along is as much a swan song as anything on record. Does not 20 years a career make?

Scott Walker

Accepted - not wain or Wayne, but yes, wane.

Keith Rowe (the ex-AMM guy rather than the reggae singer)

VVIIW = "Voice of the Seven Woods", a young(er) acoustic guitar dude.

LOL, geezer's real name is Rick Tomlinson

That's him. Don't call him Ricky.

His stuff is great, btw. Check out the self-titled album on Twisted nerve.

Simon May has probably got better since "The Summer Of My Life."

"We'll gather lilacs in the sping / All my loving" says no.

So, what of "Absolute" radio 'banning' Cliff?

Apart from the fact that Mr Richd seems damn cranky and delusional in his old (I outsold the Beatles you kno, yeah righto)..

1) Radio Station talks about how he's not "sex/drugs/rock/roll" oh OK, so are we getting Gratefla Dead nights? No?

2) By all means don't play "Living Doll", "I love You" and other snorefests. There's a whole bunch of his that would be fine, "Blue turns to Grey" for instance. But that would mean buying another record or some such, right?

"progress" is bollocks tbh but it creates a convenient fiction for radio programmers when what they mean is "target audience"

I don't know if PJ Harvey's got better with age considering how good she was from day one, but she's certainly no worse, and she's evolved a lot along the way as well. I think that's the best you can hope for.

I do prefer Neil Hannon's recent stuff to his older but that's probably just because it's not that long since I started listening to him altogether. Or maybe his whole older gentleman aesthetic just works better now he's passed forty.

In general I find that musicians get better until they think they're getting better.

Yup, it was all downhill after Sgt Pepper.

Dinosaur Jr

I prefer both of their new ones to anything they did 20 years ago.

I never understood why artists couldn't become better with age. It only makes sense. But I guess they wear into a groove line a pinball in a table from the '70s.

Several reasons, really...

Some musicians tend to make their freshest music when they don't know what the hell they're doing, and stumble upon great ideas by accident and/or naturally. It's fairly logical that the more one practices making music, the more one ends up learning about the 'craft' of it, and sometimes a mixture of part-craft/part-inspiration can make for wonderous results. It's when it reaches the point where it's all craft and no inspiration that things become a problem, and for some artists it's just an inevitability. Equally, artists can be more interesting when they're just fumbling about, without any idea of what they're meant to be... once they start getting an idea of what they're meant to be, that's when they start churning out identikit records that don't seem as inspired as their previous ones.

A lot of it is down to 'the human element' as well. It's natural that an artist is going to forge a "style" over a number of years/records, and no matter what they do it's going to sound like "them". You can't change the voice that you were born with, you can adopt elements of other playing styles into your own but it eventually ends up coming out sounding like your own thing anyway because no two people play an instrument literally, exactly the same way. I do think there's no such thing as an artist or songwriter that has unlimited levels of creativity - some bands can stretch for 10 albums of creativity easily, whereas most maybe only able to manage one or two albums at the most. Some artists just run out of things to write about, run out of melodies, run out of chord progressions...

The priorities of artists can change too - it ends up becoming a job/career/business venture, whereas when you're in your teens and your early twenties with no ties and no kids you can pretty much devote your time to thinking of every note of music you care to record and release. Not to mention younger bands gel better because they tend to spend more time together and they're not quite as sick of each other as bands who stay together for 20 years. I guess this can lead to a bands later efforts being perceived as 'forced' or 'laboured', because they're literally getting together at the studio to piece material together in a studio environment, rather than road-test the hell out of their material first like younger bands tend to do. Some people, I suspect, even fall out with the notion of making music entirely, but don't quite either because they don't want to let their bandmates down OR have become quite accustomed to the money and/or the lifestyle that their chosen career has given them.

There's no such thing as an artist with everlasting creativity and freshness though. No way. Artists will either run out of creativity at some point, or their "style" (no matter how much they attempt to dissect it and rearrange it) will just become tiring after a certain number of albums. It's pretty inevitable.

This book convinced me that anybody can improve in any field if they're putting a certain kind of conscious effort into improving their work. But I think too often musicians buy into the myth of some kind of magical talent that's only present in youth.

And there are too many musicians who approach things intuitively and buy into the anti-craft point of view that Turrican expressed. If you do that then of course you'll never improve. Artists who accidentally do something brilliant in their 20s but don't technically understand what they're doing are not going to be in a good position to improve. Especially if they're told they're geniuses and build up a fanbase who continues to buy their stuff even as they slide downhill.

It makes sense that most composers and jazz musicians improved with age since those forms valued technical skill.

Artists will either run out of creativity at some point, or their "style" (no matter how much they attempt to dissect it and rearrange it) will just become tiring after a certain number of albums. It's pretty inevitable.

Wow, it's a good thing no one told Bill Dixon this. Or John Coltrane. Or Sun Ra.

I'm not 'anti-craft' at all. Like I said, wonderous results can be achieved from a mixture of part-craft and part-inspiration. But when it's all craft and little-to-no inspiration, then it shows and can make for a laborious listen, IMO.

I don't believe that creativity is some magical talent that's only present in youth - but I do believe all artists have a limited amount of creativity in them, and there ALWAYS comes a point when that creativity runs out.

robert wyatt has been very consistent and amazing all throughout his career

― Turrican, Friday, November 18, 2011 6:35 PM

Great painters, sculptures, architects, etc, typically take decades just to approach the potential in their craft. Why are musical artists so different?

I've heard this analogy before during conversations about this kind of thing, and my response is always the same: music isn't painting, sculpting or architecture. Anyone with basic, rudimentary music skills can write a song if they choose to, and maybe even stumble upon a classic one if they're lucky (that luck goes for finely honed musicians as well).

Give someone whose only knowledge of painting is painting garden fences or painting a door or something a paintbrush and ask them to paint "a work of art" with those skills and it is highly likely that the result will be shit.

I do admire those who are committed to a chosen instrument to practice every day and improve and get better at their chosen instrument, but just because one is technically skilled at their chosen instrument does not mean that the music that they make will be any good. Songwriting and 'chops' on an instrument are two different things as far as I'm concerned, and I've known many who have been good at one but not so good at the other.

robert wyatt has been very consistent and amazing all throughout his career

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, November 18, 2011 7:58 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

He's only made 8 "solo" records though, hasn't he?

sounds right i guess? though i guess i could matching mole and soft machine too

but most of your arguments i don't think were predicated on number of albums released

I'm not 'anti-craft' at all. Like I said, wonderous results can be achieved from a mixture of part-craft and part-inspiration. But when it's all craft and little-to-no inspiration, then it shows and can make for a laborious listen, IMO.

that sounds kind of anti-craft. you've set up craft and inspiration in opposition to each other and made it clear that you prefer raw inspiration with no craft over raw craft with no inspiration. as though an increase in craft must necessarily lead to a decrease in inspiration.

but personally I don't even think inspiration is a meaningful term, at least for the audience (it may mean something personal to the artist but we can't know that). whatever quality you're finding in a piece of music that you consider a mark of inspiration is something that could be understood and controlled through craft.

I don't think you can have a bad piece of music that is all craft. that idea doesn't make any sense to me. because if the music is bad, obviously the craft has failed.

Anyone with basic, rudimentary music skills can write a song if they choose to, and maybe even stumble upon a classic one if they're lucky (that luck goes for finely honed musicians as well).

Give someone whose only knowledge of painting is painting garden fences or painting a door or something a paintbrush and ask them to paint "a work of art" with those skills and it is highly likely that the result will be shit.

that is so wrong and so utterly disrespectful to the art of music. it's equivalent to the "my kid could paint that" reaction to abstract painting.

xxpost:

Well, I wouldn't have said Wyatt's output was "all craft and no inspiration", I think Wyatt's career is a case of part-craft, part-inspiration... but it's still only 8 solo records in 41 years. If he'd put out a solo album every 2 years since 1970, we may be looking at his career somewhat differently now. I have no doubt in my mind that the long breaks between records have helped him stockpile ideas and such, but how many artists actually have that luxury?

that is so wrong and so utterly disrespectful to the art of music. it's equivalent to the "my kid could paint that" reaction to abstract painting.

― the wheelie king (wk), Friday, November 18, 2011 8:30 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

and they probably could!

yo that's bullshit with all due respect

Artists will either run out of creativity at some point, or their "style" (no matter how much they attempt to dissect it and rearrange it) will just become tiring after a certain number of albums. It's pretty inevitable.

this is wrong. eye of the beholder and all that.

m@tt and wk OTM

glad someone already brought up Coltrane and Sun Ra. There's some country guys I would throw in there too (Willie Nelson may not care about songwriting anymore but dude is a straight up amazing performer, and his voice and playing have definitely improved with age)

E-40

Neil Young

altho Neil would probably side (rather disingenuously imho) w/Turrican re: craft vs inspiration

that sounds kind of anti-craft. you've set up craft and inspiration in opposition to each other and made it clear that you prefer raw inspiration with no craft over raw craft with no inspiration. as though an increase in craft must necessarily lead to a decrease in inspiration.

There is no such thing as 'raw craft'! And yes, I would rather hear an inspired piece of music by a person with basic musical skills than a laboured piece by a technically accomplished "professional". As for increase in craft = decrease in inspiration... well, it is possible for one to learn too much.

I think this whole "musicians are better when they're younger" angle is mostly down to demographics/marketing from when the most $$$ to be made from music came out of the pockets of teenagers. (Now that music's not worth anything we might see a shift lol). Prior to the youth market music was hardly the exclusive provenance of the young. But once that came into play you can see the whole blossoming of 'youth culture' and musical material and the entire industry being directed towards that market, necessitating a critical underpinning that priveleges youth-associated vagaries like "raw talent" and "inspiration" over old-man shit like craft.

xp

I think it's hilarious that anyone would suggest that knowing which chords work together has nothing to do with the craft of music. Even knowing what a chord IS is part of the craft of music.

this thread's not really getting any better with age is it?

how I long for its youthful days of vigor and inspiration, before it started repeating itself

I feel like we really honed the craft of beating a dead horse here but that initial rush of inspiration is gone

I think it's hilarious that anyone would suggest that knowing which chords work together has nothing to do with the craft of music. Even knowing what a chord IS is part of the craft of music.

― The Uncanny Frankie Valley (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, November 18, 2011 10:45 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

I suggested that it had everything to do with the craft of music. But learning a chord is not a craft.

lol learning how an instrument works and how to reproduce sounds is not part of the craft of music.

okay

No, it's not a craft IN ITSELF. Pay attention to your own discussion! :)

As I already said to you as much earlier, learning how to use a screwdriver is part of the 'craft' of being an electrician, but learning how to use a screwdriver is not a craft in itself.

lol whatever this distinction is important why now

Nick Cave is getting better and better as he goes on.

Gainsbourg kept getting better for a really long time and only had a little dropoff at the end maybe depending on your pov

shifts in technology over the past 50 years may have also played a huge factor in all of this. stylistic shifts are not that difficult for an artist to manage. think of someone like picasso who went through big stylistic changes but was fundamentally always just painting on a canvas. but in pop music you have people who didn't manage to make the shift from being performers only to being expected to write their own material, or to play their own instruments. or who weren't able to make that transition from being heard and not seen to videos being a main driving force in pop music. to the extent that maybe things are starting to settle down a little bit technologically for pop music (a big maybe) we might start to see more artists who can gracefully carry on into their later years.

here's one screwdriver, here's two more - now go be an electrician

...music isn't painting, sculpting or architecture...

Art is art. Training (or self-discovery) can be administered in all. Mastery of any particular form can only be achieved through considerable effort and the perspective of time (save the example of savants).

maybe things are starting to settle down a little bit technologically for pop music (a big maybe) we might start to see more artists who can gracefully carry on into their later years

I think yr point about technology drastically changing over a couple decades is relevant; being a successful musician now means a totally different thing than it did 20 or even 10 years ago, and involves a different set of skills. But like I alluded to upthread, I think the financial destruction of the youth market music industry may have an even bigger effect - if the market isn't pushing everything to be by/for/about young adults than spaces may open up in some of these genres that will enable artists to continue working through all stages of their lives. of course the flipside of that is that with the financial incentive removed not too many people are going to have the resources to devote their entire lives to music as in previous generations, so the pool of people who are getting the benefit of improving their craft by creating music 24/7 is gonna narrow considerably and maybe it will just continue to be restricted to the shrunken youth market. I dunno...

in pop music you have people who didn't manage to make the shift from being performers only to being expected to write their own material, or to play their own instruments. or who weren't able to make that transition from being heard and not seen to videos being a main driving force in pop music.

i dunno, seems to be that in the 80s the old guard baby boomer crowd embraced synths and sequencers and modern (for the time) production with gusto - springsteen, peter gabriel, fleetwood mac, tina turner, marianne faithful, steve winwood, don henley, yes, etc etc etc

synths are a smaller leap than, say, making the change to writing your own material, or making successful videos, or learning how to distribute your shit on the internet and have a twitterfeed or whatever. Synths were just another instrument, these other technologies had much larger changes in terms of performance, of what it meant to BE a musician.

i dunno, i think synths totally changed the art of arranging and performing music, even in the 80s...like compared "in the air tonight" by phil collins to, say, a early 70s genesis song...the arrangement is so skeletal and minimal, the chord changes are really only sketched out by the synths, i think that's a pretty big change from someone coming out of UK progressive rock traditions...or like "owner of a lonely heart"

all the artists i mentioned made videos (except faithful maybe? i've never seen one)...gabriel himself becoming like one of the top 5 (easy) 80s video artists IMO, despite coming from a way different tradition.

how hard is it to distribute your own shit on the internet? prince did that early on...or have, like a twitter feed...either way those things have jack shit to art or being an artist or music

look at kate bush from her first album which was pretty trad gilmour band led piano stuff to embracing fairlights and stuff

I think the financial destruction of the youth market music industry may have an even bigger effect - if the market isn't pushing everything to be by/for/about young adults than spaces may open up in some of these genres that will enable artists to continue working through all stages of their lives. of course the flipside of that is that with the financial incentive removed not too many people are going to have the resources to devote their entire lives to music as in previous generations, so the pool of people who are getting the benefit of improving their craft by creating music 24/7 is gonna narrow considerably and maybe it will just continue to be restricted to the shrunken youth market. I dunno...

yep, totally agree with both possible forces/scenarios. maybe we'll see fewer artists overall having long careers, but out of them there might be those rare few who manage to sustain a quality output for a lot longer than we're used to with pop musicians now.

i dunno, seems to be that in the 80s the old guard baby boomer crowd embraced synths and sequencers and modern (for the time) production with gusto - springsteen, peter gabriel, fleetwood mac, tina turner, marianne faithful, steve winwood, don henley, yes, etc etc etc

yeah, a lot of it was pretty artistically unsuccessful though imo. the jefferson airplane -> starship transformation seems like a typical example to me. and I think that transition period has a lot to do with the feeling that older musicians can't stay relevant, because so many artists of that boomer generation latched onto new developments like synths and drum machines but did such shitty stuff with it.

1978:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MabjIyY9CJc

1983:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpmmeT69cE

that seems like a pretty big transformation for Yes

i dunno, seems to be that in the 80s the old guard baby boomer crowd embraced synths and sequencers and modern (for the time) production with gusto - springsteen, peter gabriel, fleetwood mac, tina turner, marianne faithful, steve winwood, don henley, yes, etc etc etc

yeah, a lot of it was pretty artistically unsuccessful though imo. the jefferson airplane -> starship transformation seems like a typical example to me. and I think that transition period has a lot to do with the feeling that older musicians can't stay relevant, because so many artists of that boomer generation latched onto new developments like synths and drum machines but did such shitty stuff with it.

― the wheelie king (wk), Friday, November 18, 2011 6:51 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark

haha the starship comparison as being the standard seems pretty unfair, esp considering the quality of 80s stuff on the pretty long list in my post...

how hard is it to distribute your own shit on the internet?

not that hard necessarily but it's just another thing to think about that people didn't necessarily have to think about before. the flipside of "now you can record yourself! now you can be your own label and self distribute!" is "oh shit, now you have to do all of that work yourself". but yeah, if you're an established artist like prince you can just pay people to do it for you like you always have.

either way those things have jack shit to art or being an artist or music

exactly. more distractions. sort of. but on the other hand I think that every aspect of presentation is part of the art of pop music. and the artists who stand out are the ones who know how to use all of these elements in concert with each other. not just the music, but the visuals, the persona, the publicity, etc.

esp considering the quality of 80s stuff on the pretty long list in my post...

it's interesting though that a lot of the good 80s stuff was from people who came from that progressive background and maybe didn't have the punk era mentality that craft was a bad thing (huge generalization there obv).

but yeah, the 80s were kind of a golden period for middle-aged artists having big chart hits huh? I guess it was those valuable boomer demographics

?

Recently turned 40, so made a mix of "later work" (age 40+) by artists I loved when I was 20. I think the work stands with their "prime" work, and in many cases is imbued with layers of experience that I think add emotional impact.

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/musicophilia_00_various_late_2005-2019_cover-a.jpg?w=1000

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/musicophilia_00_various_late_2005-2019_cover-b.jpg?w=1000

Various – ‘Late’
(2005-2019)

01 [0:00:00] David Bowie – “Lazarus” (‘Blackstar’ 2016)
02 [0:06:20] My Bloody Valentine – “In Another Way” (‘MBV’ 2013)
03 [0:11:50] Shelleyan Orphan – “Bodysighs” (‘We Have Everything…’ 2008)
04 [0:16:40] D’Angelo & The Vanguard – “The Charade” (‘Black Messiah’ 2014)
05 [0:19:50] Low – “Fly” (‘Double Negative’ 2018)
06 [0:25:35] Kate Bush – “Snowflake” (’50 Words for Snow’ 2011)
07 [0:35:15] Nick Cave – “Jubilee Street” (‘Push The Sky Away’ 2013)
08 [0:41:35] Sam Phillips – “So Close” (‘World On Sticks’ 2018)
09 [0:45:00] Flaming Lips – “Turning VIolent” (‘The Terror’ 2013)
10 [0:49:15] Portishead – “The Rip” (‘Third’ 2008)
11 [0:53:40] Mazzy Star – “Seasons Of Your Day” (‘Seasons Of Your Day’ 2013)

12 [0:57:15] Bjork – “Black Lake” (‘Vulnicura’ 2015)
13 [1:07:25] Daft Punk – “Motherboard” (‘Random Access Memories’ 2013)
14 [1:13:00] A Tribe Called Quest – “Conrad Tokyo” (‘We Got It From Here’ 2016)
15 [1:16:30] Beck – “Defriended” (‘Defriended’ EP 2013)
16 [1:20:25] Cavern of Anti-Matter – “Kool Boy Narcosis” (‘Blood-Drums’ 2013)
17 [1:23:20] Neneh Cherry – “Soldier” (‘Broken Politics’ 2018)
18 [1:27:40] Rustin Man – “Our Tomorrow” (‘Drift Code’ 2019)
19 [1:32:15] Nine Horses – “Wonderful World” (‘Snow Borne Sorrow’ 2005)
20 [1:38:10] Erykah Badu – “Hello” (‘But You Cain’t Use My Phone’ 2015)
21 [1:43:15] Slowdive – “Falling Ashes” (‘Slowdive’ 2017)
22 [1:51:10] Radiohead – “True Love Waits” (‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ 2016)

[Total Time: 1:55:43]

Download/stream here: https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2020/08/29/late/

Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage just released the best album of her career at age 40.

Great-looking mix Soundlike, and great concept

fantastic cover art.

This is one of those threads where everyone’s arguing with each other for no reason.

Cosign the ones I know: Slowdive, Low, Mazzy Star and Portishead.

Great mix indeed, but can't be downloaded; they flagged "Lazarus" out of the gate.

yeah this is great and I really like the idea behind it

Thanks all--glad you like it! I almost made it just out of curiosity for myself--how good *is* all the "later" work I thought was good? Turns out IMO it's better, and made for a much more cohesive and emotional mix than I expected.

Ned--mediafire is quirky--usually lets you download on 2nd try if you close the tab and try again. Seems to be working that way. It's all mixed as a single file like a podcast, so I don't feel like it's ethically an issue.

Cosign the ones I know: Slowdive, Low, Mazzy Star and Portishead.

― that's not my post, Sunday, August 30, 2020 1:59 AM

I think from those you'll like a lot of the rest.

fantastic cover art.

― mark e, Saturday, August 29, 2020 9:18 PM

Thank you! Was worried it was too tongue-in-cheek, butbliked the idea aesthetically so went with it : )

pretty much every time I listen through the discography of an artist that I got into 10+ years ago I come away thinking "the early stuff is overrated, the later stuff is underrated"

awesome idea for a mix

Wire would fit in this mix too

I had a Wire track culled--just never found a good place for it in the flow of the mix.

"The fundamental question remains as to which artists or genres have most significantly advanced their "cause" whilst remaining musically significant."

That is a pretty high mountain to climb.

Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock seem to me to fit that bill. Same probably could be said for quite a few other career jazz musicians of perhaps lesser popular stature.

Jeff Beck is doing pretty well too.

Ralph Stanley kept on doing what he was doing and then the world spun back around and paid attention. There are quite a few musicians that have had that type of careers, being rediscovered while just doing their thing.

Happy birthday soundslike. I'll be 40 in a couple of months and I am also waiting to release my best work

This is an excellent mix, yes. Daft Punk sticks out a bit though...RAM was only 12 years after Discovery, it feels "mid career" rather than "late".

Many (probably most) artists clearly got better as they grew older, but the genres they inhabit most of the time have lost cultural relevance over the years, its listeners are less likely to be shocked and awed - an artist's recognition/reputation in the end is mostly based on cultural impact - Roni Size could make the best drum & bass album of all time tomorrow, but who would be around and give him the credits for it?

I've long argued that Motörhead's final (and longest-lasting, mind you) lineup was their best, and their late run of albums, particularly a few from the mid-2000s, were among their best work. Everybody knows/remembers "Ace of Spades" and "Overkill" and maybe "Killed By Death," but albums like Inferno and Kiss of Death and The World is Yours and even their last album, Bad Magic, are packed with great stuff.

Underworld seem like they should fit here, I’m legitimately inspired by what they’re doing two decades past their “heyday”

I do love the concept and still marvel that Radiohead made their best album so deep in, but 'True Love Waits' seems like cheating since that was apparently written over 20 years before being recorded.

My thesis in the mix wasn't really that artists get *better* per se as they get older--more simply that "later work" is a term loaded with a bias of being presumed in contrast to "prime work". This just happened to be the most relevant thread I could find. But I do think it's an interesting thought that sometimes later work (particularly if not radically divergent from earlier work) is as good or better, but the paradigm and interest surrounding said later work can't recognize it as such, at least contemporaneously...

I do love the concept and still marvel that Radiohead made their best album so deep in, but 'True Love Waits' seems like cheating since that was apparently written over 20 years before being recorded.

That's actually why I chose "True Love Waits"--it has a unique poignancy in that it was written by a young person, but never fully realized for 20 years until captured by a much older person in a very different life context. The way it was performed originally in 1996, with its zealous arpeggiated keyboards and jaunty guitar, is such a remarkable contrast with its plaintive, almost mournful tone and pacing and disintegrating piano. I think the latter could only have been made by an older man, and as such reflects the quality aside from sonic quality that "later work" has over earlier work: perspective.

(Made even more personally for me personally in that me and my best friends when I was 16 performed a near-instant cover of "True Love Waits" in our high-school talent competition in 1997. They remain among the people I are about most in the world, but we've all diasporized across the U.S. and see each other only every few years. So there's a sense of the song that is for me about philia, and remembrance of youthful bonds and the passing of time itself, that I imagine is there for the members of Radiohead even moreso, their lives so intertwined over so many years.)

Touche, nice story!

I've long argued that Motörhead's final (and longest-lasting, mind you) lineup was their best

You're not wrong, I've seen them many times since the mid-80s, and especially live they only got better, tighter, heavier. Mikkey Dee is a hell of a drummer. Better production also hugely helped them on the records, the old albums have exactly the same songs but playing them back to back really showcases how much these basically very simple rock 'n roll songs are elevated by sound alone.

Mark Eitzel's last couple albums rival his best earlier work, and his singing seems to get better with each one.

my favorite favorite Diana Ross song is “It’s Your Move” from 1984.