They’ll sing the old songs for the entirety of their unnaturally extended lives. The 27 Club were the lucky ones. They just went straight to hell.
I’m not the first to wonder aloud if there wasn’t something to that “devil’s music” hysteria around popular music as it evolved into guitar-based rock in the 1950s and ‘60s. Here we are in A.D. 2024, the glory days of the 1960s now 60 years behind us, the classic rock heyday of the 1970s half a century ago, and the Satanic inversions revealed are classic Twilight Zone punchlines.
The first and most obvious is how what was once a very youth-centric culture—“don’t trust anyone over 30” was a catchphrase in the 1960s—is now full of wizened old creatures who seem compelled to do what they do year after tiresome year, at ages when most have long since gone to their eternal rest. Given the lifestyle, it’s surprising enough to see so many of these rockers in their 80s, let alone going through the grind of going cross-country to play shows. Sound checks and rehearsals are tedious and exhausting to men half their ages, but something compels them to go through with it.
It’s not money, either. Paul McCartney is reputedly a billionaire based on his investments. Bob Dylan sold the rights to his catalog for half a billion dollars and also has investments on the side. Dylan, it should be noted, once attributed his success to his having made a deal with “the Supreme Commander” of the world. He always famously talks smack in this interviews, but one wonders if this isn’t a rogue nugget of truth slipping through the patter. Neither McCartney, Dylan, the Rolling Stones, et al., ever plan to stop touring. It’s as if they’re not allowed to go home and play with the grandchildren, take naps in the afternoon, surround themselves with family and friends at dinner, etc., as normal elder folk would.
I’m in my 60s and horrified at what these once fresh-faced rebels, 20 years my senior, are going through. The sheer number of them—as in “every other last one of them”—are brittle, ancient fossils on stage pretending to be rock ‘n’ roll stars, with the groupies, drugs, booze and other rock star amenities now long since irrelevant. Did I call them rebels? Most, if not all, enthusiastically promoted the “wear the mask, get the jab” propaganda the Man was forcing on everyone three to four years ago. When I saw videos of Joe Walsh and Donald Fagan inserting, “Oh, and wear the mask!” into their completely unrelated patter, as if indeed ordered, I knew rock was dead.
Even worse, it was all fake. Phony, in the most Holden Caulfield sense of the word. When the powers that be gave the order to spread the lie, our one-time heroes against the machine, jumped to. “Do not marvel at such things,” as the Biblical expression goes. The revolution had been merchandized a long time ago.
I, who wonders if he’ll make it to age 70, also wonders if all these 80 year old great-grandpa rockers won’t be cursed to live until 100 before they’re finally released from the labors. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were further humiliated with streamed specials of their centenary birthday concerts, in which one can hardly see their faces for how far they’re all stooped over in age, their guitars pulling the old shredders down to the boards, the mic stand all there is keeping the singer upright. “Rock ‘n’ roll will never die!” that old catchphrase from the 1970s is already a morbid joke regarding these people. I can see it non-ironically being used to sell the streaming concerts 20 years from now.
This would all happen in the 2040s and most of us are wondering how far we as a culture will make it past 2030. It’s not looking good for the United States of America and the rest of what used to be called Christendom. Christ’s return is all there is to look forward to now.
For the sake of argument, though, let’s say the world endures into the mid-2040s. By this time, all the iconic rockers of the 1960s are centenarians. Will they even have an audience to play to? I can’t imagine streaming stations playing much, if any, classic rock past a point. Twenty years from the 2040s, all of this music starts turning 100 years old. At best, classic rock would have a strong, albeit small following among musicians mining for songs entering the public domain, but no more than that.
I prefer not to dwell at all what popular music would sound like then. It’s already written by algorithm in A.D. 2024.
I remember when bright-eyed young women would talk of music changing the world. I remember thinking, the hippies didn’t stop Vietnam, everything is still awful, what is it changing other than the soundtrack? As stubbornly obtuse as my young self was in the 1970s, I got that much right. That said, a lot of the music was entertaining enough, and I’ll be grooving on those golden oldies until I die. If I have to disassociate myself from most of the artists, that’s for the best. One should never look up to artists. Only admire their work, and only if it is worthy.
One last thing comes to mind as I wind this up—remember the Great Rock Star and Celebrity Die-Off of 2016? Were David Bowie, Prince, et al., under a different contract than the one with all these elder survivors are?
It’s an idle question. As always, we are reminded that all the things that made the past seem more vibrant than now was, for the most part, a lie. Marketing, if we must be polite about it. Moreover, everything that happened back in the good ol’ days, even the really good parts, led to these awful times that are the third decade of the 21st century. It’s a straight line from way back there to here, and so on to the end.
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