George Michael

Stevie Wonder

MJ

LazarusHeart said:

I'm speaking of course strictly about Rock, R&B, and contemporary style music. Are there any artists who actually create better albums as they get older?

I always seem to enjoy rock acts when they bust on to the scene or when they've been doing it for about 10 years max. After that, I tend to grow tired of them. I'm pretty sure much of it is due to my own bias having developed expectations based on older material, but I'm not so sure. It seems many people feel artists do their best when they're younger even as they technically get better as they age.

Your thoughts?

If you're looking for examples of artists excelling as they progressed in age, popular music

is the last genre I would look to for examples. I mean Prince got better as he got older, so

did the Beatles, Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder.

But you gotta go to jazz and classical, two genres of music where true musicianship is

celebrated, praised and normative to find examples of artists getting better as they age.

I'm talking about:

Mozart

Beethoven

Miles

Coltrane

The list goes on...

I forgot to mention Prince's music did get better after a while. I mean "I Hate U" is a masterpiece.

lastdecember said:

rialb said:

I think there are very few artists that produce their best work later in their careers, particularly in the genres suggested by the original poster.

A big reason for that is probably because when most artists are starting out they are really plugged in to the zeitgeist. As great as Bob Dylan's recent albums have been they do not connect to the public the way his music of the sixties did. Eventually people move on and new artists come along and take their place. I think there is something very unique about most artists material during the first five-ten (maybe fifteen-twenty for a fortunate few) years, after that they almost always start to get stale and the later material pales compared to the earlier.

There's probably also something to be said for the vitality of youth. As they age many artists claim that they are much better writers/musicians than when they were young. That may be true but I think they often lose the drive that made their earlier work compelling. As they age their music tends to become much slicker and more polished.

There may be some examples but I can't think of anyone in "popular" music that I would rather hear the second half of their catalog as opposed to the first half (unless it is someone like Sam Cooke or Otis Redding who died very young).

gotta disagree, there are many, i think people tend to hold on to "heydays" more because its nostalgic to them, this is why people get up and go to the bathroom when an artist plays a new song at a concert, its got nothing to do with material, we just dont grow with them. John Mellencamp is clearly one on my list that blows this analogy apart, the part of his career from 1979 when he put "i need a lover" and even up to his explosion with "jack and diane" and the American Fool, John has grown 100% more than anyone around him has, he in his later 40's and 50's brought out the blues influences, folk,etc...John Cougar never did that, because he wasnt developed yet. another group i listed was a-ha, now they are unknown in this country but their work from 2000-2010 is light years more interesting than the days of "take on me", because they grew as writers and players and artists. NOT that everyone is gonna hit a homerun, but someone like Elton JOhn to me has been on a roll since "Songs from the West Coast", yes he made amazing albums in the 70's and a few bad ones in the 80's and 90's but since 2000 its been stellar work. But its impossible to compare the mind of a 50 year old writer to a 25 year old one, Van Halen just did possibly one of their best albums in 25 years, proving all the skeptics wrong, Paul McCartney after horrendous albums in the 80's has done really great stuff like "flaming pie" and "chaos" which to me were album of the year contenders in their respective years, and overlooked. And my greatest example Rick Springfield, dude is 64 and since 1998 every album has gotten better anyone that heard his record "Shock Denial Anger Acceptance" and "venus in overdrive" albums in 2004, and 2007 clearly would say he is much better now than the 1980's rick springfield. so i cant go along with this statement that artists DONT produce their best work after they age, i mean no one ever says this about ACTORS, do we look at Tom Hanks and his later work and say WOW "why cant he do something like Turner and Hooch or Man with One Red Shoe again".

One problem that I think a lot of artists have as they age is that they often alter their sound in an attempt to stay current. Sometimes they change in a big way and sometimes it is more subtle and has more to do with the production (think Bob Dylan in the eighties). This is often a case where the artist is damned either way. If they maintain their "classic" sound they will be criticised for a lack of growth but if they change with the times they are criticised for chasing trends. Whatever the reason, it is extremely rare for an artist to maintain a high level of quality over the course of a long career/later in their careers.

The example of John Mellencamp I probably have to agree with but his first few albums were so bad that it kind of skews the average a bit. He is kind of the opposite of what I said above. Sure, he had a lot of hits in the eighties/early nineties but it was later in his careeer (maybe the last ten years or so) that he found his sound. Elton's last few albums have been great but I don't think they are better than his best work of the early-mid seventies.

In the vast majority of cases I still believe that the first half of a career is much better than the second half, assuming we are talking about artists with lengthy careers.

bigd74 said:

rialb said:

I've only got Broken, The Downward Spiral and The Fragile.

Year Zero I found pretty cheap but it hasn't arrived yet. I know, I have to get Pretty Hate Machine. Is there anything on the deluxe version of The Downward Spiral that a casual fan needs to hear?

Sorry for steering this a bit off topic. Carry on.

Pretty Hate Machine has been remastered but is not endorsed by Trent so get the normal version.

No, this isn't true.

Trent was in charge of the official remaster. It has new artwork and contains the cover of "Get Down Make Love" as a bonus track which was originally a B-Side to one of the singles from the album (I think either Sin, or Head Like A Hole).

The sound quality is vastly superior so that is the one rialb ought to buy, it looks like this:

The reason you are confused is because, shortly after this happened, the parent label (Universal or whoever), released their own remaster seemingly just as a cash grab, with the original artwork and not containing the bonus track. THAT's the one to avoid, not this one posted above.

Kylie Minogue

Michael Jackson

Stevie Wonder

Marvin Gaye

Scorpions

Britney Spears

The Rolling Stones (68-72 overshadows anything they had done before)

[Edited 2/6/12 11:01am]

Lady T! The singles may not have been as strong as the Motown material, but the albums LaDona and Congo Square were as brilliant as anything that she ever released.

Fast forward to 2009 and the album "Congo Square", Teena Marie has done something for her audience that is totally unexpected, and completely welcome. Imagine if you could take the very best of 1980's "soul/funk" and pretend that the ravages of rap music had not completely rendered "soul/funk" music impotent during the 1990's? Imagine instead that it had continued to advance musically along it's projected path starting in about 1985, continuing till 2009. Imagine how good that music would sound. It would be funky, it would be erotic, it would be personal, it would have substance and it would connect with you and your lifestyle. And it would be delivered to you by someone that you feel totally comfortable with, who had also endured the very same up's & downs offered by post affirmative action America. -B. Davis

Sade? Anyone feel qualified to speak on their recent material? The singles certainly smoke, but I haven't listened to the recent work as a whole.

allsmutaside said:

Sade? Anyone feel qualified to speak on their recent material? The singles certainly smoke, but I haven't listened to the recent work as a whole.

I bought the special edition of "Soldier of Love", and honestly, I found the album as a whole to be very disappointing. Singles were great, sadly most of the album was unlistenable to me.

But I don't think that exempts her/them from the list, as "Lovers Rock" came out 16 years after the debut and was an AWESOME album.

Militant said:

allsmutaside said:

Sade? Anyone feel qualified to speak on their recent material? The singles certainly smoke, but I haven't listened to the recent work as a whole.

I bought the special edition of "Soldier of Love", and honestly, I found the album as a whole to be very disappointing. Singles were great, sadly most of the album was unlistenable to me.

But I don't think that exempts her/them from the list, as "Lovers Rock" came out 16 years after the debut and was an AWESOME album.

That's too bad. Your "Love is King" and all of those songs ruled a fantastic summer that I look back on with the entire range of human emotions.

alphastreet said:

Another good example is Sting. Desert Rose came out of nowhere and I mean that in a good way. Santana had his biggest success in 1999/2000 though it's arguable whether that is his best work or not.

Both of those are bastardizations of their earlier seminal work though. Maybe succesful but not "better."

rdhull said:

alphastreet said:

Another good example is Sting. Desert Rose came out of nowhere and I mean that in a good way. Santana had his biggest success in 1999/2000 though it's arguable whether that is his best work or not.

Both of those are bastardizations of their earlier seminal work though. Maybe succesful but not "better."

ECHO rdhull. I had a hard time with the Santana stuff in 2000. But I was very happy he had some retirement money.

Militant said:

bigd74 said:

Pretty Hate Machine has been remastered but is not endorsed by Trent so get the normal version.

No, this isn't true.

Trent was in charge of the official remaster. It has new artwork and contains the cover of "Get Down Make Love" as a bonus track which was originally a B-Side to one of the singles from the album (I think either Sin, or Head Like A Hole).

The sound quality is vastly superior so that is the one rialb ought to buy, it looks like this:

The reason you are confused is because, shortly after this happened, the parent label (Universal or whoever), released their own remaster seemingly just as a cash grab, with the original artwork and not containing the bonus track. THAT's the one to avoid, not this one posted above.

Cool. Gotcha. i knew there was a dodgy remaster but didn't realise there was a good one. That's just cost me a tenner!