Artists whose peak period was middle-age

Scott Walker

OTM. Not that I ain't a massive fan of the numbered albums, but SW is the first thing I thought of when i saw thread title.

this is a pretty idiosyncratic list of people so far

bill withers

Go-Betweens.

The drummer from Spirit was 85 when their debut came out.

weren't The Damned kinda old or at least some of them?

tonetta

Jeez, is anything over 30 middle aged now?

lee hazlewood

Trish Keenan was 35 when Broadcast released their second album (Haha Sound).

Pet Shop Boys

Marianne Faithfull
Lucinda Williams

Ivor Cutler

serge gainsbourg

he was 40 when he made "je t'aime moi non plus" and 43 when he made "melody nelson".

you would think that electronic music producers would improve with age, since it's a craft that benefits from knowledge and experience, but it doesn't seem to work that way. proof that ideas trump craft, i guess.

Lucinda Williams and Tom Waits are spot-on choices.

I don't expect a lot of people to agree, but I like the new Dinosaur Jr. stuff better than their 80s records.

surely Frank Sinatra ?

Arguably, Johnny Cash

No 35-year-olds pls, that is not middle aged unless we're talking about the 19th century or earlier.

agree that a lot of these nominees are more of the "older than their peers" but not necessarily middle-aged variety. My initial inclination was to make the cut-off 40-60, tbh

sometimes I think Eminence Front is the best Who song

but 1982 was def not their peak period

LOL no

I know we're spread out all over the globe, but the Median age in the U.S. Is 36.8 as an example.

Good lord, unless you're in Japan where everyone's 100, 35 is pretty damn close to middle age!

does Sting count?

Radiohead

this is just an interesting phenomenon to me. the tendency to burn out/give up/lose interest prior to reaching the age of 40 seems really strong across the musical landscape (lol at one point I had a drummer who insisted that "nobody over 40 made any good music". he also thought the golden age of popular music was from 1992 to 2000 or so). Not sure what to attribute this to really - obviously part of it is market forces (in general, younger people have more time/money/more of their personality invested in music) and some of that gets built into aesthetics ("if it's too loud, you're too OLD", "rock/hip hop is for pissing off your parents", etc.), and part of it just seems a natural tendency for people to get tired/bored/bitter, particularly if commercial success has been elusive.

seems like jazz and country are (or at least were) more amenable to the aging process than other genres

In the case of early country music, a lot of acts spent 10 or 20 years performing and broadcasting in their home states/counties so that they were pretty advanced in age by the time they achieved national fame. I think that's part of the reason why the genre came to be dominated by middle-aged performers. a more obvious factor is the tradition of paying respect to wise, experienced elders, which guarantees certain country stars a fanbase at an age when many pop stars are inclined to retire. I know this has more to do with commercial peak than artistic peak, but there's often a correlation between the two.

anyways, I can think of a bunch of country ppl who recorded their best work after the age of 35:

Hank Snow
Charlie Rich
Kitty Wells
Dolly Parton
Bob Wills
Porter Wagoner
Buck Owens
Johnny Cash
Loretta Lynn
Uncle Dave Macon
AP & Sara Carter
The Osborne Brothers
Hazel Dickens
Doc Watson

etc.

yeah agree with yr assessment on country there. although I dunno if this:

a more obvious factor is the tradition of paying respect to wise, experienced elders, which guarantees certain country stars a fanbase at an age when many pop stars are inclined to retire.

is still in place in current country. seems like it applies more to previous generations, but I could be wrong (will defer to xhuxh lol)

Fennesz.

s still in place in current country. seems like it applies more to previous generations, but I could be wrong (will defer to xhuxh lol)

Alan Jackson (52), George Strait (58), Garth Brooks (49), and Toby Keith (49) have all had huge hits in the past few years, so I'd say the trend is alive and well. otoh a lot of purists feel that none of those guys are fit to floss with Merle Haggard's butthair, so maybe it's too early to tell if the country stars of the baby boomer generation will ever be treated with the same degree of reference as their forebears.

Toby Keith is the only one of those I would say is anywhere close to his peak period

this thread needs xhuxk asap, my guess is that he'll rep Kid Rock.

is xhuxk an Uncle Kracker apologist? cuz I dunno if I can deal with that.

I'm surprising ok with the idea of Kid Rock as the elder statesman of meatheaded white trash buttrap-rock.

Last night I turned on the tv for a minute & saw Kid Rock singing and George W. Bush in the audience bobbing his head. Then I noticed Bush Sr., Clinton and Carter too. WTF?

If that isn't Kid Rock's target audience, I don't know who is.

lol middle aged america?

billy paul

Barry White?

Fela Kuti

imo Kate Bush... Wuthering Heights was great and all, but she really didn't start producing a constant stream of quality stuff 'til her 4th & 5th albums

Underworld. 92-95 being their middle period.

PJ Harvey's headed that way on the strength of the last two albums.

I'd say Aerial is the only album Kate Bush has produced in middle age so far.

Derek Bailey

The Stranglers and the House of Love (or at least Guy whatshisname)

Chadwick. He was only early thirties though when the House Of Love made their best records.

Chas & Dave

I think Bill Callahan's best work was done as Bill Callahan, and Woke on a Whaleheart came out when he was already 41. Even the best Smog material (imo) was done in his 30s.

Yeah, tbf, even Sonic Youth's 80s work was done when Gordon was in her 30s; the band name was always ironic.

It would be an easy argument to make that Celia Cruz peaked after age 35 or even after 40

Bill Frisell: mid-30s during downtown NYC days, 37 when he moved to Seattle, over 40 by the time of Have a Little Faith. Some of my favourite work of his might actually be post-middle age!

Duke Ellington was in his early 40s when he composed/released a string of masterworks ("Take The 'A' Train," "Cotton Tail," "Harlem Air Shaft," "Jack The Bear," "Ko-Ko," "Concerto For Cootie," etc. etc.).

And he was in his late 60s when he started a series of brilliant suites (The Far East Suite, The Latin American Suite, The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, New Orleans Suite).

Wow I didn’t realise Kim Gordon was 66! I would have guessed at a minimum five years younger.

Sorry, should correct the above to co-composed -- Billy Strayhorn was either the sole composer or a collaborator with Duke on many of the '40s pieces.

xp

Duke is a good one.

Nels Cline was in his 50s when he made my favourite albums of his, probably past middle age when he made Macroscope.

personally i'm planning to peak around 43

― adult music person (Jordan), Tuesday, March 29, 2011 4:27 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still on track for this

Pauline Oliveros fits in here for sure

Steve Reich was 39 when Music for 18 Musicians premiered. I think this is common for classical and jazz artists in the contemporary era.

Lucette Bourdin was a visual artist who released her first ambient album in 2005, when she was 51... Then, in following 7 years, she released something like 25 albums, most of which are excellent. Sadly, she died in 2012, but it was an amazing burst of music from someone who had never made (commercial) recordings at all in her first fifty years.