Entertainment For Lively Minds
Has anybody made any good albums in their 40s?
Posted by DrJ on 17 December 2010 - 12:27am.
Looking at the emotions generated by REM's latest on the board makes me ponder the above question. Should all bands/acts stop on the eve of their 40th birthday and then resume when they hit 50? It might have stalled the REM decline, and have disposed people a little bit better to the Rolling Stones. It seems to have worked for Crowded House.
Thoughts?
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Neil made Harvest Moon at 45
Ragged Glory and Weld just prior to 45, Unplugged and Sleeps With Angels right after.
But you do have a point.
Well
I think he's made his best two albums in his 40's in my opinion
Justin Currie "The Great War"
One up arrow from me Dave,
Uncle Wheaty will be along shortly ;-)
But wait!
Bob Dylan turned 40 in 1981. Are you saying that his 80s output was...
oh, hang on.
Oh Mercy
At 48.
Oh, I know
Bob Dylan actually did loads of good stuff in the 80s. But that ruins the joke.
Pet Shop Boys
1994-2004 (being Neil Tennant's forties) was rather a wobbly period, before they got back on track again with 2006's Fundamental.
Nick Cave's forties ('97-'07), on the other hand, include two of his most acclaimed albums - and one a double at that - in The Boatman's Call and Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus, along with the first Grinderman album.
Paul Simon
Graceland
Morrissey
Ringleader. And that other one. His best vocal performance in years.
Frank Zappa...
...turned 40 in 1980. He died in 1993, so there are plenty of great albums in that 13 year period (with more to come, I expect).
Basher
Ol' Nick didn't do too badly in his 40s.....
...or
...or his 50's for that matter.
Ry Cooder
Has he ever made a bad album?
Randy Newman
say no more
Peter Hammill
Suitably titled one of his albums "Roaring Forties".
Peter Gabriel - "So" etc.
Chris Difford - 'Last Temptation"
I'm sure Chris will thank you profusely
.. and it is a brilliant album, released in his 53rd year.....
And...
Peter Gabriel was 36 when So came out...
Was he?
Oh. Sorry in both cases. My chronological skills are lacking. At least I got Hammill right. Didn't I?
Robbie Robertson's first solo LP?
here are a few gems by artists in their 40s...
Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Toumani Diabaté - The Mandé Variations
Natalie Merchant - Leave Your Sleep
Leonard Cohen - Recent Songs
Keith Jarrett - At the Blue Note Complete
Steve Earle - The Mountain
Richard
Hawley
Bruce
The Seeger Sessions and Live In Dublin are IMHO the best things he's done in years
Yes but...
Bruce was in his 50s, not his 40s when those albums came out.
Bruce is a good subject for this theory. If he hadn't released anything between 1989 and 1999 would the audience have been worse off? If he disappeared after touring Tunnel of Love and reemerged at the turn of the millennium, then we all would have been much more excited about Broooooce in 2000 then we actually were.
Tom Joad
Very good record
Jazz
Miles Davis was born in 1926.....but as a rule 'no'.
I'm bound to say that if the Beatles' generation is where the calendar of pop music is often (wrongly) started from, the '40s' starts from the abysmal 1980s and these records were almost bound to be lousy.
Even (no, especially) people in their 20s were making lousy records then.
Mono
by Paul Westerberg.
Miles Davis
I was just about to add Miles to this - as ranger has done above.
Born in 26, so between 66 and 76 he released several albums including In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, A Tribute To Jack Johnson, Live-Evil and On The Corner
So he definitely did.
Three of those above are my Miles favourites
Well spotted!
Alison Goldfrapp
7th Tree.
Still a babe, too. *sigh*
Go on then, I'll say it
I think Richard Thompson may have been 50 when Mock Tudor was released but lets say he was in his 40s when it was written and recorded. For me it's one of the peaks of his career.
He also kicked off his 40s with Rumor and Sigh (also known as 'the one with Vincent Black Lightning 1952 on it') which is a favourite of many and, I think, his most commercially successful album.
In between were Mirror Blue, You? Me? Us?, The Bones of All men (with Phil Pickett) and more. Not too shabby for a bloke in his 40s.
Andy Partridge And Kate Bush
Apple Venus and Wasp Star and Aerial
Lloyd Cole of course
Music in a Foreign Language (41)
Antidepressant (45)
Broken Record (49)
As good if not better than anything he made in his 20s and 30s - it's just that virtually nobody heard them.
Mark E Smith/The Fall
The Unutterable - 43
The Real New Fall LP (formerly Country On The Click) - 46
Fall Heads Roll - 48
David Bowie
obviously made some terrible records in his 40s but he also made the Buddha of Suburbia album in 1993 when he was 46, one of his most under related albums. No one bought it expect me and a few other Bowie fantatics but it is truly worth hunting out, a wonderful record.
Dont you think..
that we all tend to lose our confidence in our forties?
My own experience has been going from a preening arrogant twat in my twenties and thirties - building an army of enemies but also admirers amongst fellow twats who are the people who keep our careers running - until running into reality around 39-ish when we realise our shit smells bad and we're going to die one day. At this point we lose the admiration of fellow twats and start to worry that maybe we were useless in the first place. Happily, we pick up new admirers who didnt like the arrogant prick incarnation. It often takes the best part of a decade before many men realise they weren't actually all that bad in the first place. They just weren't the little princes they imagined they were in their twenties.
Self belief dies in the forties and is replaced - usually - by reality.
Once the assumption of worship is negated we're usually halfway to being civilised. The fifties are possibly the best period of life. No expectations, all pretense forgotten. You barely even notice that pretty girls can't see you any more.
All ages are fun if you let them be. I like my forties best so far.
Not me
I think I came into my own in my forties (well maybe late 30's) I've always been quite shy and owning my own business (started when I was about 38) necessarily made me more self confident - it had to when I was meeting new people every day. This is coupled with the use of the Internet where it's easier to hook up with like minded people where you discover that you're not the only one who thinks like that.
I wish I'd had the confidence that I have now in my twenties.
Wilco
Jeff Tweedy is in his 40s now, and the last album is one of their best.
lots make/made great music in their 40's
richard thompson
Pink Floyd
Green Gartside
Leonard Cohen
Suzanne Vega
Lambchop
Nada Surf
The Go=Betweens
The Fall
Nick Cave
Scott Walker
David Sylvian
Laurie Anderson
John Cale
sonic youth
Lou Reed
Billy Bragg
Peter Gabriel
David Byrne
Brian Eno
Paul Weller
Bob Mould
kate bush
Bjork
Damon Alborn
Julian Cope
Handsome family
Joe Pernice
Richard Hawley
Daniel Johnson
Sparklehorse
tindersticks