| But of
course there is, and everybody knows it. People who say there isn’t
such a law are kidding themselves. It often functions from the inside, an
apparently irresistible force: can any here among us imagine, even for a
second, the Rolling Stones hunkering down in a New York studio this summer
and coming up with a truly great record, one whose greatness was an agreed-upon
point among all the music-loving peoples of the world? Naturally no-one
can, nor is this because of some senseless bias the public has against seasoned
veterans. (Nor because the Rolling Stones suck, which they don’t,
objections of our friends out in Queens notwithstanding.) Rock and roll
is not unfair to the aged. No. It’s that rock and roll people tend
to diminish as they age. There is a whole vocabulary devoted to describing
the process: they “lose their edge”; they “wear a little
thin”; God help us, they “mature.” The term “relevant”
as it’s used in rock criticism is an heavily coded term, its use usually
serving to signal the reader that the artist being reviewed has long since
said everything important that he might once have had to say, and is now
spinning his wheels. |