An Alternative Landscape: The Downside Of Being Musicians As You Age
Your fans just don’t care as much and there’s not much you can do to change that.
Pearl Jam
Jamie Mah @grahammah
Gigaton, the long awaited new album by Pearl Jam, came out last Friday. I have to admit I feel a wonderful sense of nostalgia for this group and other bands that helped shape my early musical discoveries. Pearl Jam’s first three albums were, and still are, some of my favourites of that grunge-fueled era.
The artists who anchor your early musical influences are often the ones whose stylings will remain with you as you grow older. Behavioural psychologists call this anchoring, and its effect in shaping who we are to become is often more profound than we might believe.
Personally, looking back on the years 1990–95, I’m quickly reminded of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. The song “Would” by Alice and Chains. The fantastic video, “Been Caught Stealing” by Jane’s Addiction. Chris Cornell’s screeching vocals as lead singer of Soundgarden. The underrated album Creep by the Stone Temple Pilots. Billy Corgan’s ego and the Smashing Pumpkins, whose album, Siamese Dream is still my favourite to this day, and of course Pearl Jam, the one band to stand above them all even if they were the group you’d have least expected to still be around some thirty years later.
But as with everything in life, time passes on and so do we and the artists we adore. We change, as do they. Our tastes evolve, we mature and our time becomes more precious, less available and often hard to manage. Adulthood brings about numerous challenges which so often force us to choose which activities are deemed more or less important. Soon, raising a child takes precedent over spending hours watching videos of your favourite artist, something you’d have done with ease in your youth.
No longer the teen blasting “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as your mother urges you to turn it down, you are now the one who is possibly doing the yelling. Your viewpoint has changed and so too has your appreciation for juvenile music. Because let’s face it, for the most part, this is a young persons game. We may love watching Mick Jagger and Keith Richards jam away as they play “Miss You”, which in itself is still amazing all these decades later, yet, as good as they might still be, nothing probably beats them doing that show back in the 1970s. Old musicians are hardly seen as “cool” in the proverbial sense, that is, unless you’re Iggy Pop. Either way, staying on top isn’t easy. Few artists manage the feat.
This isn’t to say you cannot have a wildly successful late career, as most artists who continue to tour often do; Pearl Jam is a perfect example of this. They were the pioneers of the live album release, and they’ve come to dominate that arena. Eddie Vedder recently expounded on this money making concept on a recent episode of Bill Simmons podcast. There’s cash to be made as a touring group and older acts have capitalized on it. Hell, the Backstreet Boys still tour and it’s not because they’re cranking out the hits.
Yet, for all the fandom, concerts and piles of money, one constant remains the same for the vast majority of these artists. Few fans are there to hear the new music, if there is any at all, as some have given up on that ideal altogether. As painful as that might be for those artists who still enjoy and covet the creative process of crafting new songs, when the upkeep has been halted, how do you get everyone back on board when you have something new to say?
Regarding Pearl Jam, Gigaton is a decent record, by far their best work since 2002s Riot Act. The band can still craft a tune, with “Buckle Up” and “Retrograde” being my favourites. Are there any new songs here that will make any Pearl Jam top ten or twenty list? I doubt it. But that’s beside the point, because even if there were, would their fans even care?
Honestly, an even better question might be: Can you still make great music late in your career? Not something I’d want to bring up to a proud group like Pearl Jam, but it is worth noting. It can be done as I’ll detail below, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask the question.
Pivoting to another example, I recently saw The Strokes here in Vancouver. They have a new record coming, so I gave their two new singles a listen. Surprisingly enough, one of them, the song “Bad Decisions” is fucking great. I really enjoy it and would place it up there with any of their top tracks. Similar to Pearl Jam, this is also The Strokes first album in seven years. Sadly however, even with excellent new music to enjoy, most whom I spoke to as we prepared to attend their show weren’t concerned about what they had to say now, as they were there to hear their older hits.
I experienced a similar situation two years ago when I attended a Smashing Pumpkins reunion show in Seattle. Sensing the idea I’m presenting to you now, the band themselves jumped ahead of the expected hopeful wishes of their fans and just plain asked them to tell them what they wanted to hear them play. Understanding the dynamic they were about to enter, rather than try to play new tracks off their latest album, which was set to be released during their tour, the Pumpkins accepted the reality of their age and those of their ardent fans and gave into what they knew would be hoped from them; that they’d skip the new stuff and just get to the songs everyone knew and loved.
**Here’s the setlist from that Pumpkins show in Seattle. It was quite the night.
As humbling as that might sound to a group which sells out large stadium arenas, accepting that your artistic prowess is no longer something fans desire has to be somewhat difficult, no matter how much money you make or how many shows you sell out.
Playing the same tracks for decades as The Rolling Stones have done since their peak has to be fun in a way but also demoralizing in another. To be human is to grow and learn and become better each day. It’s in us to strive for new challenges. The experiences we gain in life so often give us the tools to overcome new battles. I’m a better writer today than I was five years ago. If I wasn’t and my peak was in the past, writing would become a more difficult thing to do as I grow older.
For most artists and musicians, your days at your best are so often in your youth that to experience the sensations of latter year success is in itself a rare feat. Some achieve it, with Beck and Slowdive being two that come to mind who’ve managed late career ascensions. Slowdive’s 2017 album Slomo is by far their best work and it came a full twenty two years after their last album.
Thinking this way, I’m naturally brought back to Pearl Jam. Their new album is decent. A new tour will begin after Covid-19 passes and they will sell out stadium after stadium. They’re still wildly successful, and I’d be happy to trade places with them. Having adoring fans scream your best work, even if it came out decades ago, is still a pretty cool thing. But they have to know the reality of it all, that most will be there to hear “Betterman” and “Jeremy” and not “Retrograde.” It has to sting a bit that a majority of their fans might never even entertain their latest work. This reality then begs asking: Why even bother creating new music?
From a pure speculative standpoint, it probably explains the gap between albums. Seven years is a long time and when you know all the work you will need to put in to crafting ten or so tracks to make a full length LP, realizing that most of your fans won’t even it listen to it has to dampen the spirit some.
But maybe, as Slowdive recently showcased, exceptions can happen, and lighting can strike. Who knows how this record will be received in a few months time. I might be undervaluing it. For Pearl Jam’s sake, I hope I’m right. I’m sure if the new songs are loved, it’ll make rocking out to “Even Flow” that much more enjoyable.
In the end, can an artist reclaim their past glory and be just as popular as they were in their prime? It’s hard to do, but it can happen. Madonna is definitely the queen in this arena and if you were to take stock of how she pulled it off, it would be by reinvention and serious commitment. Beck’s remained relevant his whole career. U2 achieved it up until about ten years ago, and I’m sure I’m missing a few others. You get my point.
Anyways…do we as fans owe it to our favourite artists to give their new work a fairer shake? Probably. But as I’ve detailed above, unless you have plenty of free time on your hands or you’ve gone through a weird midlife crisis,`a la Kevin Spacey’s character in American Beauty, listening to that new Pearl Jam record might not score high on your priority list. Not ideal, but understandable.
For groups like Pearl Jam who helped shepherd the alternative movement, their current reality is one they must be content with as it’s most likely the alternate of what they’d hope for.
It isn’t perfect, but at least they still get to play. I’m sure they can take solace in that.