I was talking to someone online about classic rock artists and it fired up an old rant of mine dealing with the music industry.
I hate that artists that have been around for more than 10 years get little opportunity to record new music unless they are huge names, like U2, Paul McCartney or Madonna. I admire the lesser known artists that have been around for ages that still want to work on new music.
Tommy James has had new material out in the last 5 years as well as The Buckinghams, two artists that had hits in the 1960s that still enjoy touring and making music for the fans.
Why is it that when you've been around the block a few times, the industry says, no, just stick with the hits. The Moody Blues, a favorite classic band of mine, now has more compilation albums than studio albums. Probably more than the studio and solo albums of its members too.
That is just ridiculous. These guys are still good songwriters. Why can't we get new material by them? Why do we have to content ourselves with remasters and best ofs that have the same 12 songs on them!
Why is it that music must only be for those people in that 18-30 age bracket? I can assure you that many people older than that, myself included, still enjoy music, purchase it, and go to concerts.
Even Elvis Costello is starting to fall victim to this. His back catalog has been remastered more times than I can count and the most recent remastering happened only a matter of months after Rhino Records finished a spectacular remaster on his entire back catalog. Now he's releasing a serious of live shows on CD. Ho hum!
Any day now I expect to see them degrading themselves by being a mentor on American Idol. I won't even go into the horror I felt when Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits succumbed to that show. Grrr.
I want my classic artists to get some respect and recording time damn it!
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