February 19th, 2009
I was talking to a friend recently about artists that you just wish would stop releasing albums, if only to preserve their legacy. The conversation started while listening to “You Better You Bet” on the radio; while it’s by no means the worst song in the world, any time I hear it I just wish the Who had stopped recording new music after Keith Moon died. They already had a massive catalog of classic hits, and fans always want to hear their favorite bands go out on top. A large element of this desire is most certainly selfish—I have no place to decide when a band should or should not stop making music, of course (unless maybe I’m in that band). But it’s not that I want the members of the Who to cease all music making, I just don’t want any more Who albums that don’t feel like Who albums.
But of course artists soldier on, often outstaying their welcome for the simple fact that they can still sell records. Bands like U2 and Aerosmith just keep adding faceless releases that do nothing to their discography other than increase its number, often obscuring the fact that, at some point, they were on top of their game and making top-notch music (for me personally this is illustrated much better with Aerosmith as I’m a sort of middle-of-the-road guy with U2, but you get the point). Or, perhaps more frustratingly, there are bands like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard who have rightfully called it quits only to come back for more when no one really wanted them to in the first place. It’s not that these bands shouldn’t get back together and tour again, but the new albums are almost always a huge let down and lack the energy and electricity of their earlier material.
