retired_derek

Damn right.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

Impressive really that one of the Godfathers of Rock is still going strong while other young pretenders have faltered.

retired_derek

Would definitely agree on the running out of ideas thing. Green Day a good example. Stuck in a rut really for several albums, release decent if not great albums with the odd occasional good song from time to time. Effectively treading water. Then, it took the political situation in America to really ignite them again to write a masterpiece. Think it may be several years again before we get another album of the quality of Dookie or American Idiot from them.

retired_kimmymarlo

your post introduces the issue of quality itself being impossible to agree upon.

Green Day = garbage.

retired_the gizmo

hey, I kinda liked garbage. unfair to compare them to dross like green day. mindless, droning, market-tested pop-punk fecal material.

retired_yesmoncar

Elvis Costello is another exception.

Although he has more to his bow.

Geoff

all equipment owned by the record company.
i mean, how would the band release their first album otherwise to even get picked up by a major label unless they already had some intruments.

So thus the musician has no money to buy equipment, rehearse, record, tour?
The above is the reason why record label's give the musician money in the first place when signing a deal. </BLOCKQUOTE>

cbhoyhern

Oh, I didn't necessarily mean instruments, I should hope most bands own their own instruments to start off with. Unless other musicians knew something that I didn't.

Not all label's (including major) would own music equipment (plus transport etc) unless they had sponsorship or a deal with an [insert equipment] manufacturer.

retired_sarahlatham425

Jesus and Mary Chain are coming back and I can only pray they don't disappoint me. It was all downhill after Darklands.

retired_sera

I always feel uncomfortable when Green Day are lumped in with the manufactured pop-punk of today, because they've been around since 1987 and did actually earn their stripes. American Idiot was, at least imo, so far and away better than any other modern day pop-punk release that I still think of Green Day as 'genuine', despite attracting a lot of 'manufactured' fans. Comparing them to some band like Simple Plan who write songs called 'Shut Up' and 'Welcome To My Life'...well, they're an abomination.

No idea why artists turn rubbish, btw. I saw an interview with Bob Dylan where he openly admitted that he could never write anything anywhere near as good or as inspired as in his younger days because it just doesn't come to him like that any more. Lack of inspiration, drop in creativity, mental fatigue after years of playing, writing and self-medicating, a combination of all of the above?

retired_amaynirvana

non-**** genres (jazz, blues, classical) are studded with people who have been playing and performing their entire lives. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Can't really compare songwriting in jazz and blues with rock though. Improvisational skills and interpretation of the music won't diminish in the same way that the ability to continually write rock songs that sound fresh.

Can't really comment on classical music though as I don't know composers' canons of work well enough to say at what age their 'great works' were written and whether they experience a prime or not.

Didn't think that the new Eagles album was that bad fwiw, but I've never been that great a fan.