Sunday, February 17, 2019

Rock Fandom and the Ten-Year Theory



I know what it’s like to be a fan. Not just an enthusiast, not just an appreciator but a proper fanatic. To be obsessed with a band or piece of music. It used to happen to me all the time. It happens less and less as I get older but every once in a while  something will trigger a new phase, awaken an old one. Like the first time I saw Sparks in concert five years ago. I’ve always liked them but after that brilliant gig I listened to them exclusively and obsessively for weeks. Or when the Beatles released their remasters about ten years ago, I fell into a Fab Four rabbit hole for what seems like the hundredth time.
Being a fan doesn’t mean being deaf and blind, though. I am fully aware of some of my favourite artists’ intermittent mediocrity. Alice Cooper, for example, has released some albums that I really can’t defend. But I love them anyway. Hell, I even obsessed over artists that have no redeeming quality whatsoever and haven’t done anything worth a fuck over their entire catalogue. When Mötley Crüe rebased their book The Dirt over fifteen years ago, I got into them even more than when I discovered them in High School.

But being a fan doesn’t mean not realising your heroes’ faults. Being a fan is acknowledging their faults, their shit records, their lame songs, their stupid image, their abhorrent behaviours… I can’t really judge Ryan Adams’ fans who still stand by his music when I’m an Axl Rose fan (being a fan of Adams’ music is one thing, though. But if you’re defending his actions then you can fuck right off).

I am fully aware that Eric Clapton has recorded a bunch of wimpy AOR albums that are a taint (heh heh, taint) on his legacy. I still listen to them sometimes and I can even find things to enjoy!

I know full well that Black Sabbath has recorded as much tripe as it has recorded masterpieces, but I celebrate their entire catalogue, warts and all.

David Bowie, Lou Reed, Metallica, Lou Reed WITH Metallica, Funkadelic, Jeff Beck, the Rolling Stones… all wonderful artists that have all at some point done some truly abysmal work that I can either overlook or even secretly enjoy. And then I am a guilty appreciator of cheesy shit like Dio and A-Ha.

Despite all of my blind spots there is something I have noticed in popular music, a pattern of sorts that is applicable to all artist, something I call the Ten-Year Theory. Apologies if this is common knowledge. Apologies if you disagree. Apologies if it is inconsequential but it is the raison d’être and the burden of the music nerd to think of those things. It could be worse, I could be a fetishist and wax poetic for paragraphs on end about feet and pleather.

My theory is that a rock artist’s creativity has a ten-year lifespan. Ten years during which they will discover their sound, push their boundaries, innovate and produce their best work. After that decade is over the well won’t necessarily run dry. Some will keep doing great stuff: the Rolling Stones have cut some fantastic records after 1974 but by then their style was established. Everything they are and everything they would do was established during their first ten years.

As with everything, the template here is the Beatles: ten years and they were gone. They gave us everything they had. They gave us everything, period: pop, rock, soul, punk, metal… everything we hear today comes from them, or came through them. But it only lasted ten years. And sure, they broke up, so we’ll never know for sure but it’s highly doubtful that they would ever have managed to change the world again.

Every rule has an exception, and at first I couldn’t think of one for my theory. Jeff Beck? Close, but no. Miles Davis? Almost, but not quite. The only band that has constantly pushed the envelope, created new forms, renewed its approach and invented new musical languages in the process is King Crimson. Then again, I guess King Crimson is more of an idea than a band. The membership has changed countless times over the years, even the form of the band is radically different from one era to the next: sometimes a quartet, a sextet, a trio, an octet today… So many individuals have passed through the ranks of the venerable avant-garde outfit that making it the exception to my formula is almost cheating. But hey, it’s my theory, my rule. And I’ll edict the exception I damn well please.

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