Fifty may be the new forty in some areas of life, but popular music isn’t one of them. With very few exceptions, pop musicians make their most vital work in their twenties and early thirties. Even if they continue to perform to sold-out arenas into their eighties, their fans are largely indifferent to their new music and just want to hear the hits. This creates a seemingly counterintuitive situation where artists have sold-out tours connected to new albums that are, comparatively anyway, flops.
The level of ambition and ego required to reach the top rarely fades with age. As a result, aging pop stars often try to remain relevant to varying degrees of success. In the ’80s, artists like the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen tried to remain contemporary, sometimes with now-horrifically dated production techniques.
Even those who’ve tried to continue innovating eventually realize that’s not what their fans want. They revert back to some form of their former selves, usually with lucrative results. At the top of the spectrum, many of these artists enjoy a comfortable lifestyle of multimillion-dollar-grossing greatest-hits tours in arenas and stadiums. The new material they release often serves as a bathroom break for the audience.
But still, they try. Recent cases in point are the new albums from Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez, as well as Madonna’s “Celebration” tour. Timberlake’s return from the wilderness was preceded by a bulldozer of a rollout that felt safe and dated. Lopez’s album was a self-absorbed and self-financed $20 million multi-platform story of her reunion with Ben Affleck. Madonna finally hit pause on heavily overloading sub-par new material during her many tours and launched a triumphant greatest-hits tour.
So it often goes in the mature era of a formerly can-do-no-wrong musical career. Age and decades of success can cocoon the superstar from realizing how much the room temperature has changed. However, there are artists who age gracefully. Sade, Missy Elliott, Maxwell, and even the late George Michael thrive on scarcity, leaving people thirsting for more. Others like Kelly Clarkson, Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, and Pink maintain music careers while leveraging their screen savvy into talk shows or hosting podcasts.
Bob Dylan, Neil Young, McCartney, Springsteen, and others tour regularly and release new material while feeding fans a steady diet of archival releases. Sometimes, there’s a late-career bolt of inspiration, such as Dylan’s “Time Out of Mind” or Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” And in an unimaginably bittersweet farewell, David Bowie’s brilliance seemed to return as he recorded his most innovative and creatively inspired album, “Blackstar,” just a year before his passing.
Staying relevant in the ever-changing world of popular music is an ongoing challenge. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Each artist must find their own path, whether it’s by embracing their age, adapting their sound, or focusing on their core strengths. It’s a delicate balance between staying true to oneself and connecting with a new generation of fans.
In the end, it’s the artists who continue to create music that resonates with authenticity and passion who have the best shot at staying relevant. Whether they age gracefully, experiment with new sounds, or find inspiration in unexpected places, the journey of the aging pop star is a testament to the enduring power of music and the eternal quest for relevance.
Read the original article on F5mag.com