Artists have a hunger, a youthful passion in their early years that - as with all of us - is slowly replaced by reflection, melancholy, and a wisdom that can only come with life experience. And as such they can write very different songs that reflect this change. I wouldn't have it any other way.
good stuff, as ever - strikes me that we're trying to compare the startling originality of the younger artists with the more mature sophisication of their experienced later years. Not quite apples & pears, more beaujolais & aged whisk(e)y...
...besides which, artists should always have the freedom to make the art they want, rather than try to please people who bought them previously (record companies may disagree).
It's up to us if we like it or not, rather than on them to make stuff we like.
I also think artists should be free to chase an audience if that's what they want. (I wouldn't recommend it, but I also wouldn't recommend they listen to people like me.)
of course, but I hope that's included in 'make the art they want'. ;-) They sould be able do what they like, which can include do what they think other people want, if they choose.
I also assume no-one who is trying to make a living out of music will care what I think, which is kind of my point ;-)
I love this. Another great thing about the perspective imparted by age is the extra significance it drapes over music created (and/or loved) by our younger selves. Purely subjectively, I wrote lyrics when I turned 60 for a melody I wrote when I was 18; and that cued a torrent of compound emotions.
I like your perspective. I relive my youthful love of music for its own beauty, unburdened by the shackles of street cred whenever I hear this song, which is (incredibly) not written by David Gates.
It’s just a staggeringly great song to me. I’m surprised it hasn’t been covered left, right and centre, particularly when boy bands we’re milking the past.
Love this. I’ll never live down the mortification of interviewing the Pet Shop Boys in 2012 and referring to their “heyday”.
Neil Tennant used the phrase in air quotes for the rest of the conversation… and of course their new material (well, some of it) holds its own against Actually & Behaviour.
Comments
It's up to us if we like it or not, rather than on them to make stuff we like.
I also assume no-one who is trying to make a living out of music will care what I think, which is kind of my point ;-)
https://youtu.be/YZpF-sQ8Yhw?si=YvhcIa6csb46B1P2
Neil Tennant used the phrase in air quotes for the rest of the conversation… and of course their new material (well, some of it) holds its own against Actually & Behaviour.