Reading various reviews for recent rock concerts, it’s clear that the voices of some singers are not what they were. As a Beatle, Paul McCartney gets some grief for the thinned-out nature of his voice as he nears 84 years of age, though not from me after listening to his latest brilliant album The Boys Of Dungeon Lane and as far as I am concerned his critics can just do one. But this week, I have read about other artists who can’t hack it anymore and at last to me there are no surprises.
Elvis Costello was always a crap singer anyway so his decline would be, to me anyway, barely noticeable. And now it transpires Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses no longer has his raspy screech from the 1980s. No shit, Sherlock. He’s 64, not 24. Why should we be surprised by any of this?
Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen can barely sing at all these days, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson has COPD and requires a backing singer to get through shows and have you heard David Lee Roth, former front man of Van Halen? Then, don’t, unless you are able to accept that old age comes to us all in ways that we would rather it didn’t.
Many singers perform in a lower key as they get older, like Elton John, and most people don’t notice or care. Some of my favourite artists lower the key for some songs and in its way it adds to my enjoyment because I can sing along with them on a level I couldn’t when they were younger.
The choice we all have is simple: if we don’t want to hear our favourite artist struggling to sing like they used to, or singing much lower than they used to, then no one is telling us we have to. We just put our money away and listen to something else. Those of us who would almost literally give or pay anything to see Paul McCartney play live can complete that bucket list and those who wouldn’t are welcome to watch whatever the fuck they like. Just don’t tell Macca he should retire.
I would far rather go to a gig where the artist is singing for real, rather than lip-syncing (miming) or using autotune. But I won’t criticise you too much if you pay to see The Eagles mime their way through Desperado for at least $300 a pop. (Well, I might since The Eagles still playing today have only one original member, they’ve only released one album since 1979’s The Long Run and it, 2007’s Long Road Out Of Eden, is absolutely dire. Buy the records instead.)
Let us fans decide whether we want to listen to burnt out shells of our music heroes. Maybe if you think the old stars should retire, you should take a look in the mirror and consider doing the same thing?
