mobanmarketI’ve got a music problem. Specifically, I’ve got a rock music problem.
It’s a true cliché—that is, a cliché that happens to be true: Rock music, in almost all its forms, is young people’s music. It’s about new, fresh experiences—new love, new sex, consciousness sought or attained, rebellion, drugs—and when you’ve reached a certain age, those experiences don’t feel so fresh anymore. That’s a fact about which it’s hard not to feel some regret. You don’t have to share their sentiment to realize that there’s a reason Pete wrote, and Roger sang, “Hope I die before I get old.”
Despite Pete and Roger’s proclamation, only the drummer died young. But many other musicians have also done it: Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens. Jim Morrison. Janis Joplin. Bob Marley. Otis Redding. Lowell George. Sid Vicious. Kurt Cobain. Amy Winehouse. Tupac Shakur. The Notorious B.I.G. (footnote 1). Today I got news that another great rock’n’roll drummer had died, although not young. Charlie Watts, bless him, lived a good, long life.
I can’t think of a single example of a great rock musician who, late in life, has continued to make music as vital as the music they made when they were young. Some still make good music, but it’s not the same—which is as it should be, because, again, rock is fundamentally music for the young.
In a recent email exchange, mastering engineer and Stereophile contributor Tom Fine wrote, “Seeing my old faves on geezer-reunion tours has never been the least bit appealing.” Same here, though I’d probably put it in stronger terms. Yet there’s never a shortage of geriatric rockers on nostalgia tours. I loved Styx when I was 14, I confess with shame. They have a new album out—God help us all. The Eagles, which I’m not ashamed of liking in my younger years, will be playing Madison Square Garden later this month. Today, August 8, Guns N’ Roses is playing Detroit. They just released a single.
Lynyrd Skynyrd is on its 857-thousandth tour. It’s unclear whether the tour will continue though, because Gary Rossington just had an emergency heart procedure; these things happen when you reach a certain age. Alleged longtime bandmember Rickey Medlocke recently got COVID—another reason for the band not to tour (as if a reason was needed). I own at least 10 vinyl copies of Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd, and I listen to them often. But I regret what the band has become.
Some members of Lynyrd Skynyrd did die young, famously, and others came close. But their early songs are about survival, learning lessons from hard living, self-preservation, regret about dangerous behavior: “Give Me Three Steps”; “Saturday Night Special”; “The Needle and the Spoon.” “That Smell” is about the Labor Day weekend accident when Rossington, drunk and high on Quaaludes, crashed his car into a tree. Bandmate Allen Collins had a separate, serious accident the same weekend. Then they wrote a song together expressing regret. Just over a year later, a plane crashed, killing Ronnie Van Zant and Steve and Cassie Gaines and injuring the rest of the band. Nine years later, Collins would be paralyzed in another car accident. His girlfriend was killed.
Maybe rock’n’roll is just one of those things you have to give up when you get old, like dating, sex, and size-34 jeans. My partial answer is jazz, recorded and played live. While many jazz musicians (especially trumpet players) died way too young, others remain musically vital well into old age. Marshall Allen, formerly of the Sun Ra Arkestra, plays Smalls on August 20. He’s 97.
Here’s my difficulty: I’m not ready to give up rock’n’roll.
For years I did okay. Every few years, I’d find a new band to love. I loved Picaresque by the Decemberists—clever chamber rock with fun wordplay—but I’ve liked nothing by them since. I consider Radiohead one of the all-time great bands, but I discovered them when I was still in my 30s. I don’t recall truly loving a single rock album, by any band, since Amnesiac.
I try, but I haven’t been successful. Much of it seems soulless, passionless, derivative. I’m open to new sounds—eager for them—and yet the new bands and musicians I like best tend to emulate past styles. (Not Greta Van Fleet: They don’t so much emulate Led Zep as violate them.) One problem with many of these records is that they just don’t sound very good: Would someone please take away their reverb?
Part of the problem, I’m sure, is that young people themselves have changed: How can you relate to the music if you can’t relate to the musicmakers? I know that every generation says that about the generations that follow, but this time it’s true.
Here’s a list of music I’ve discovered during the last few weeks that, well, I haven’t hated. Turnstile’s Glow On isn’t bad. I like “Sad But True,” St. Vincent’s Metallica take. “Coal Black Mattie” by the Black Keys is serious hard-rockin’ electric blues, but the sound is a bit rowdy. Monster Magnet rocks out on A Better Dystopia, but the music is derivative, the lyrics are inane, and the recording isn’t great. Punk-rockers AFI have been mellowing lately: “Dulceria,” from their 11th album, Bodies, would have been a big hit circa 1985. There be hooks here.
Speaking of the ’80s: The Linda Lindas are basically an ’80s band making music in the 2020s—except that none of them were even alive in the 1980s. Or the 1990s. As of May 2021, the oldest member in the band was 16. The youngest—Maya, the drummer—was 10. “Oh!,” released in July, reminds me of Missing Persons. It’s pure joy. Perhaps rock’n’roll skips a generation.
Send your new rock music recommendations to stletters@stereophile.com. Please put “New Rock Music” in the subject line.
Footnote 1: I’m excluding, for example, John Lennon, who died at the relatively ripe age of 40.
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