So, I’m going to this Billy Joel concert next month (I discovered my unconditional love for 80s music a couple of years ago). I didn’t – and still don’t, really – know anything about Billy Joel; I’m just crazy about his music (this song in particular) so I never stopped to really think…”wait a minute. This guy was a star in the 80s, right? And you’re going to see him perform…now? In 2007? Isn’t he, like, old?” There’s nothing wrong with rock stars getting older, mind you, but I have to wonder…how far can they really push it?
So I started thinking about all these singers I adore and how old they really are: Billy Joel is 57, David Bowie is 60 (as would be Freddie Mercury, God rest his soul), Deborah Harry (Blondie) is 61, Prince and Michael Jackson will be 50 this summer… And they’re still going, even though their generation has technically been replaced. Aging rock stars – admirable or pitiful?
On the one hand, they’ve been doing this for years so, consequently, they keep getting better and better.
On the other hand, it may matter that they get better and better because their fans will eventually die out, drowned out by this generation’s pop and rap and hip hop. They keep on for years, singing and moving their aging bodies like it’s 1985…but it’s 2007 and while some people are still cheering them on, others are laughing at them.
Mitchell Stephens wrote in The Washington Post in 1993 about aging rock stars Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, and Eric Clapton: “Old rockers too often leave us with Robert Frost's sad question: ‘What to make of a diminished thing?’ Most have drifted off into nostalgic anonymity or become mere ‘entertainers,’ working nightclubs, supper clubs or, recently, inaugural balls -- reprising the old hits once again, reduced to singing songs written when they were still battling acne. The creative juices -- or the yearnings that set them flowing -- have dried up. …But let's not be too quick to dismiss or pity Dylan, McCartney, Jagger, Richards and Clapton. Once upon a time, these men reinvented what it meant to play rock-and-roll. Is it not possible that they might also be capable of reinventing what it means to be ‘old’ and still playing rock-and-roll?”
He goes on to mention what I’ve already briefly mentioned, that these years of practice have made them better musicians and singers. Also that with age comes wisdom, “even upon rock stars”.
It’s sad, though. With the tabloid-infested, commercial, scandal-hungry world we live in, we’re more likely to hear about Michael Jackson’s presumed child molesting and Billy Joel’s alcoholism, than we are to hear about their newest recordings. These are not their glory days anymore, to say the least. But I, for one, find it commendable than this hasn’t stopped them in riding out the aftershocks of their musical climax. I see nothing wrong in letting them live out their passion for as long as they can. And hey, we’re still buying tickets to their concerts, aren’t we? …Or maybe that’s just me. Well, that's all right, too. : )
