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Why do you think some bands after a great period of creativity and innovation, get into a tendency of making the same music and don’t seem to come up with nothing fresh or original? In other words, album by album, you kind of expect what you are going to get. It has happened to me with some bands, like U2 for example, after All that you can’t leave behind, is like they have been trying to duplicate the same album. Rush in the 90’s was like that to me as well, until they put out Snake & Arrows and Clockwork Angels. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers after Californication, the same story. Not that the music is bad, just that it doesn’t offers anything new. Do you think is age? Music skills limitations? And, do you think they should hang it up when they get into this slump?
I'm the complete opposite. I like predictable...predictable is very good. I hate WTF moments when you go to buy a new CD of one of the tried and true heavy hitters. Some try to get too creative and soon don't even sound like themselves. You earned your name doing "X". Keep doing "X" if you want diehard fans to keep listening and buying your stuff. The new Metallica and Van Halen are great examples of just that. It sounds like them. Even better than both have in quite some time. The new ZZ Top is pretty good too. I don't like change.
Why do you think some bands after a great period of creativity and innovation, get into a tendency of making the same music and don’t seem to come up with nothing fresh or original? In other words, album by album, you kind of expect what you are going to get.
It comes down to ideas. Through the years, we've seen just about every possible idea tried, and there's really nothing left. Nowadays, with artists and groups, everybody sounds the same, both male and female, that there's really no distinction from one artist to another. But in those groups that you spoke of, they have a certain niche and have to stick with that because that's what's worked for them and for certain other artists.
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Originally Posted by Lock N Load
I'm the complete opposite. I like predictable...predictable is very good. I hate WTF moments when you go to buy a new CD of one of the tried and true heavy hitters. Some try to get too creative and soon don't even sound like themselves. You earned your name doing "X". Keep doing "X" if you want diehard fans to keep listening and buying your stuff. The new Metallica and Van Halen are great examples of just that. It sounds like them. Even better than both have in quite some time. The new ZZ Top is pretty good too. I don't like change.
Nothing wrong with predictable. Not at all. It goes back to niches and how these groups tick. Van Halen and Rush don't necessarily have to try anything new. The thing is, the longer you go as a musician, the harder it is to find anything fresh. And that can become the hard part. Musically, it is possible to run out of ideas and try to come up with new ones without accidentally plagiarizing something someone else did.
do you think they should hang it up when they get into this slump?
I think the only reason a band should hang it up is if they want to stop. If a band starts to suck, but they want to keep at it, that's great. It's a lot easier for me to quit listening to them than it is for me to expect them to retire based on my opinion.
Why do you think some bands after a great period of creativity and innovation, get into a tendency of making the same music and don’t seem to come up with nothing fresh or original? In other words, album by album, you kind of expect what you are going to get. It has happened to me with some bands, like U2 for example, after All that you can’t leave behind, is like they have been trying to duplicate the same album. Rush in the 90’s was like that to me as well, until they put out Snake & Arrows and Clockwork Angels. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers after Californication, the same story. Not that the music is bad, just that it doesn’t offers anything new. Do you think is age? Music skills limitations? And, do you think they should hang it up when they get into this slump?
I think it's just a case of the well running dry. Every successful artist starts out with a fire in their belly and lots of ideas that they struggle for years to perfect and manifest in reality. Once they achieve that, what more can they do? After you achieve what you set out to do but the fans keep wanting more, you become doomed to repetition. It's the lure of the money to be made that keeps them producing more music long after the creative fires have burned themselves out.
I don't neccessarily think they should give it up. If enough people still want to listen, why not give them what they want? Also a lot of bands can suddenly pull a great album out of nowhere after years of struggling to get anywhere. Creativity is not a tap that can be just turned off and on at will according to other people's demands, usually it needs a catalyst, something to stoke the fires. Once you are successful it gets harder and harder to find inspiration because your world becomes closed off and cushioned from reality. A lot of artists create their own problems (with drugs, relationships, etc.) just to find a new source of creativity.
Put it this way, if you started out full of anger at your crappy life and became successful because a whole bunch of people identified with your feelings but then the success suddenly made your life really good, how do you still write about the same feelings with any conviction? You have to remember what it was like before in order to find it again but then it just starts to sound derivative and stale because you just don't feel that way anymore. The music has to change in order to be fresh again, but the fans want the same stuff that they fell in love with you for. It becomes a trap and an endless cycle that's really hard to break out of. The fans often stifle their favourite artist's creativity without even realising it.
Some artist, groups, bands outlive our ability to appreciate them because we reach a sort of saturation point where we've just had enough. It's like your grandmother trying to stuff a third piece of chocolate cake down your throat: the cake is still awesome, but you'll be sick if you have even another bite.
Put it this way, if you started out full of anger at your crappy life and became successful because a whole bunch of people identified with your feelings but then the success suddenly made your life really good, how do you still write about the same feelings with any conviction? You have to remember what it was like before in order to find it again but then it just starts to sound derivative and stale because you just don't feel that way anymore. The music has to change in order to be fresh again, but the fans want the same stuff that they fell in love with you for. It becomes a trap and an endless cycle that's really hard to break out of. The fans often stifle their favourite artist's creativity without even realising it.
I agree.
I remember listening to an interview with Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of Tool, and he was been interviewed at his vineyard in Northern Arizona, and he was asked about his new wine endeavors and the distraction it represented to his music, and his answer, in a nutshell, was basically what you just wrote. But in his case, regarding his music, he is leaning more towards his other band, A Perfect Circle, because the dimension of musicality that he can achieve with that band, in terms of joyfulness and melody, surpasses the anger and rawness of Tool, at least from his point of view.
Creativity comes in spurts, and some artists just use it up (i.e. - Taupin and Elton John in "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" - a double album reflecting just a raw spurt of creativity that by their own account will never be matched again). But also, personal conditions change for artists - there is a big difference between a starving musician writing songs in his 20's vs. a rich musician writing songs in his 50s. His outlook on life and the environment around him changes.
Not to say the U2 was still doing excellent music after they were rich and famous. So it's not all monetary - but they are slowing down and getting older, getting tired of groupies, getting tired of touring, married and have families..their priorities change. That reflects in their music. How can you be Van Halen at 50 and still performing "Hot for Teacher" on stage (their last album ironically was made up of songs that EVH wrote in the 80s).
Some accuse bands of "selling out" from their roots and getting into more easy popular music that appeals to the masses. Some do this (Chicago in the is a good example), but others go into a different area - being already accomplished, they then do music that makes them happy, not that appeals to the masses. They frankly don't care.
I remember listening to an interview with Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of Tool, and he was been interviewed at his vineyard in Northern Arizona, and he was asked about his new wine endeavors and the distraction it represented to his music, and his answer, in a nutshell, was basically what you just wrote. But in his case, regarding his music, he is leaning more towards his other band, A Perfect Circle, because the dimension of musicality that he can achieve with that band, in terms of joyfulness and melody, surpasses the anger and rawness of Tool, at least from his point of view.
This is interesting because I like Tool but their world is a little too dark for me to stay very long in, if that makes sense. I love their videos too but feel the same about those as the music, only in short doses but I love the creativity and psychological aspects of the band. Is Keenan the main writer of Tool's music? Because I would like to see the more joyful side of the mind that Tool came from. I'll have to give A Perfect Circle a listen. It's easy to see how a band like Tool might get trapped in the cycle I was talking about. I've seen how the fans talk on their videos on youtube.
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