I’ve been thinking about doing this poll since reading an interview with Nick Lowe awhile back.
Lowe is a singer/songwriter responsible for great rock songs like “I Knew The Bride” and “Crawling Through The Wreckage”. As he’s gotten older (and prematurely white-haired) his style has softened/mellowed. In the interview, he recounted how he had recently been invited up on stage by an act he’d produced to perform one of his old rock songs with them. He declined, saying “I don’t rock and roll any more.”
Now, I can respect that decision (particularly seeing the fossilized rock acts that feel they must keep touring ad nauseum). But it made me wonder - should I be mellowing out too as I get older?
I’m almost 48. I play very loud guitar in a rock band every Tuesday night. And we don’t do but one or two ballads. We’re mostly straight up rock n roll (not metal – think Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, the occasionally Allman Brothers and a healthy dose of Bob Marley).
I will rock out with my cock out until it falls off. I recommend the same.
I’m 56. I still listen to the same old bands and singers I did back in the 70s and 80s. In just the past year I’ve bought new albums from Aerosmith, Joe Walsh, ZZ Top and Bruce Springsteen. Since most of these musicians are several years older than I am, I don’t feel age has anything to do with it. And I feel that these guys still have good music in them, even as they approach their seventies. As Abraham Lincoln has been quoted as saying, “It is not the years in your life that make a difference. Rather it is the life in your years.”
I enjoy the same kind of music I always did. Looking at a random playlist selection, that would include Styx, Ministry, Ozzie Ozbourne, Metallica, Disturbed, Queen, Pink Floyd, Tool, The Fixx, Rob Zombie, The Cranberries, White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, The Cure, Fluke, Primus, The Dreaming, Nox Arcana, Nirvana, Missing Persons, Stevie Nicks, Concrete Blonde, Stabbing Westward, Queensryche, Roxy Music, Flock of Seagulls, and more.
I’m not sure how many of those qualify as “rock” technically speaking; I tend to just classify music into two categories; “Music I Like”, and “Music I Don’t Like”.
I’m 58 – as long as the artists that I love continue to perform, I’ll make an effort to go see them. (I’ve been to four concerts in the last two months and I have tix to a couple of upcoming shows.)
I’m 58. I quit listening to rock (in favour of country) back in '72, but I’m still willing to listen to the groups/singers I liked before then. The four stations currently set on my car radio are oldies ('60s & '70s), country, classical and NPR; I listen to the first two most often, even though approximately half of what the oldies station plays is too new for me.
I’d kill to be able to go to one of the Seekers concerts that are coming up in May…
I’ve gone from a one trick pony to R-&-R and lots of other stuff.
Heck, on my Pandora quick mix, it will even throw in a couple of disco songs here and there. Which I don’t object to. House cleaning and disco go hand in hand.
Now, if my friends ever found out about this, they would give me endless amounts of shit. And they would be right to do so too…
I’m encouraged by the responses from the creaky rockers thus far (afterthought: I’m sorry I didn’t put in the poll option “Hope I die before I get old”).
“I’m going to keep on boogeying till they throw me in the hearse” is a line I remembered from a song recorded by the Flamin’ Groovies, though when I Google it one of the first things that comes up (other than this thread) is an article titled “Human Corpses are Prize in Global Drive for Profits” :eek:
I rejected simplicity: I used to listen to mainly classic rock and some classical. Now I listen to all types of rock, and some jazz, folk, and even pop as well. So while I listen to a large variety of music, I do think age has something to do with it. But I still listen to rock. It’s softly if it’s at home but that’s because it’s playing on my computer with an ordinary computer speaker. I go to loud rock concerts several times a year.
My 51-year-old husband still shakes the house with Slayer when nobody’s home. I kindly use headphones when I listen to anything weird like Skrillex, but otherwise our tastes mesh nicely. We don’t believe in too old.
I listen to a lot of rock and metal, and I do notice that a lot of artists get a little mellower over time, but I don’t think there’s such a thing as too old to rock. I don’t think it’s so much that older musicians mellow out, but rather they get exposed to more and more music and their influences broaden. Thus, if you start on the heavier end, exposure to new influences will naturally draw you back toward the softer side. It seems noticeable because we only really notice when a sound changes. If an artist stays consistent for 20+ years, if anything, they’re criticized for failing to progress. Conversely, I’ve observed some musicians get exposed to heavier rock and metal and their sound gets heavier over the years.
The one part that I think age does directly contribute to is speed and technical playing. A guitarist often can’t quite play as fast or as tight at 42 as he might have at 22. To some extent, they learn that playing super fast isn’t the end-all-be-all of rocking out and naturally pick up other techniques. Also, as they just can’t play as fast, they need to find new ways to keep their performance interesting.
So, really, to me, the idea of being too old to rock is just a bad excuse. For some reason there’s this idea that certain styles aren’t rock or metal enough and if your sound mellows out, it’s not because you’ve broadened your influences or expanded your skills, it’s because you’re a pussy. So, ironically, rather than admitting to that, saying they’ve discovered some really cool jazz or whatever and wanted to incorporate some of that into their sound, they just take the easy way out and say they’re too old. Quite frankly, I love it when artists discover new influences and experiment. Sure, sometimes it doesn’t work, and when it doesn’t they’ll usually move on, but sometimes an artist takes 15-20 years to settle on their unique sound. It may not be quite as extreme, but a big part of that extremity is that lack of uniqueness. It’s precisely those broadened influences that turn a generic rock or metal act into a progressive and influential artist in their own right.
