Ageless

Interesting to see that the commentary surrounding the new Bowie album has been overwhelmingly positive, as with the first single from it. Can rock music be viable as a form for old men? There's no problem for jazz and folk, of course, but it's hard to think of a single rock musician off-hand whose work post-sixty years can reasonably be claimed to match the earlier stuff - unless you count Dylan. Mind you I have no doubt that if Zappa had made it to old age we would have seen no dimming of the light. But, then, the term 'rock' is too narrow a label for either Bowie or Frank.

And there's also the simple fascination surrounding why it is that some artists seem to thrive in their golden years in a seemingly inevitable way, whilst others burn out. The paradigm, I suppose, is Yeats. Who would have thought reading the Celtic twilight stuff, good as it is, that we would one day be sent Sailing To Byzantium?