It was about twenty years ago. The caricatures were flying. Rock at the hospice! We imagined a whole series of walker battles, with solutes plugged into amplifiers, Paul McCartney with no teeth and Mick Jagger falling into the crevices of his own facies. At Duty, we made the headlines with what seemed like an expiration date: Dylan was 60! Canonical age! The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, since the mid-1980s, has been rushing to induct its legends while they were still alive, these bedridden people still capable of pushing, sluggish or not, a few immortals into the world. party late evening.
And here we are in 2023. Discarded, the old men presumed to be soft eaters? Nenni. To the shredder, the caricatures. Keith Richards celebrated his 80th birthday on stage, invited to Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday party: a tremendous performance. Paul McCartney, in Australia, Mexico and South America, relaunched his Got Back, dapper journey lining up three-hour shows (and almost forty songs on the program). Dylan, Ringo Starr are also on tour, The Who were performing again this fall, the cult group The Zombies are more active than ever, the material from their new album Different Gamelaughing at their Time of the Season. Like the good old days before are now.
Several mega-stars are on their farewell tour, sometimes extended, but nevertheless leading to renunciations of a life spent in their suitcases, luxury style or not.
Brand new Rolling Stones and Beatles
Stronger than Roquefort, the charts were taken by storm by these unrepentant veterans. As in the 1960s, Beatles AND Rolling Stones took turns in the various rankings of the Billboard, and as at the time, they consulted each other so that their new products were not in competition, a strategy of staggering event dates. Note the word: new. The Stones launched their Hackney Diamonds October 20, The Beatles, the “last new song” Now and Then on November 3. In both cases, the dead live: there was still Charlie Watts in stock for the Stone strike, and the “sound releasing machine” developed by the team of filmmaker Peter Jackson made it possible to give John Lennon and George Harrison their full place in the mix, in the present of amazed listening.
How can we explain all these returns, this phenomenon which brought us a Christmas with Brenda Lee in first place with her Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree65 years after the release of the 45 rpm)? And Cher tops Spotify and other digital platforms with her very first seasonal album? And Darlene Love who triumphs on the show The View with its almighty rendering of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), fifty years after the original version? And Dolly Parton who treats herself to the album Rockstar with the proverbial host of guests (including McCartney and Starr) to mark his somewhat surprising induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
Seventy-year-olds, eighty-year-olds, ninety-year-olds in power
There is one word that says it all: demography. Since the mid-1940s, the baby boom has changed everything. These millions and millions of children conceived on the same night of post-World War reunion (we are hardly exaggerating) have necessarily aged at the same time, and the way of living each slice of life has been disproportionately disrupted. The number corresponding to the power (purchasing power, in particular), we are currently experiencing the last hurray of this generation. For popular music, with the help of advances in medicine, those who chanted “I hope I die before I get old” (key phrase of the song My Generation by the group The Who, published in 1965) did not follow the slogan. Of course, many believed that fame was more glorious when one went from life to dramatic death at the age of 27 (from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain), but the fact is that for most people, stars or not, the Life expectancy has been increasing.
And retirement for an artist of venerable age has proven less inexorable when he is in good shape, and especially when a public as numerous as loyal not only has good legs, but purses full of valiant pennies. The market grows, grows and grows again: cruises with a rock’n’roll theme, tour itineraries passing through casinos, groups which are perpetuated in spectacular avatars (Abba, Kiss, etc.), a host of tributes and “immersive experiences “, everything was good for the business of the goodwill in 2023. We must add the album release anniversaries, duly highlighted by monumental, even pharaonic box sets: you need a trailer to drag the 50th anniversary box of the ‘album The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.
From baby boom to death boom…
It won’t last forever. More than ever in 2023, major artists have sold their catalog of publications for hundreds of millions: an old principle if ever there was one, the jackpot goes to those who know when to let go. Several megastars are on their farewell tour, sometimes extended, but nevertheless leading to renunciation of a life spent in their suitcases, luxury style or not. We will have to go to Paul Simon, to Elton John, who will no longer pass through us. Already, the Las Vegas Sphere is the destination for non-renters tired of time differences: U2 has set up there, others will follow. Country stars had thought about it a long time ago when they commandeered the town of Branson, Missouri: everyone has their own performance hall.
Let’s put things into perspective: active, vivacious, formidable, yes, but not all. Have you seen Ozzy Osbourne recently? Or Phil Collins? Damaged, sick. Even the indestructible Bruce Springsteen had to postpone his tour with the E Street Band due to a severe ulcer. And the year of grace 2023 has seen more than its share of missing people. We lost David Crosby, Wayne Shorter, David Lindley, Gordon Lightfoot, Tina Turner, Astrud Gilberto, Tony Bennett, Sinéad O’Connor, Robbie Robertson, Jimmy Buffett, Gary Wright, Roger Whittaker, Denny Laine… and our Karl Tremblay, prematurely . Inevitably, the baby boom is approaching the death boom.
On the durability of songs
We can debate it, but there is perhaps another reason than numbers to justify the place of artists of yesterday and the day before yesterday in the landscape. What if songs were better when they were constructed with verses, choruses, bridges? For a Taylor Swift who knows perfectly how to build success (no surprise that she poses with McCartney), for a Lady Gaga capable of holding her own on the same stage as Mick Jagger (their duet on the latest Rolling album Stones is on fire), how many danceable but interchangeable pop pieces? The discomfiture of Rihanna at the last halftime show of the Super Bowl did not forget the touchdowns and conversions of the late Prince, or Springsteen. Nor the Stones and McCartney. You have to know what to do when you have possession of the ball.