The rock stars of the 1960s and 1970s are still outranking - and outselling - their younger rivals.
Recently Paul McCartney met a man who plays the piano in an old people's home. "I hope you don't mind," the pianist said, "but I play some of your songs and the most popular one is When I'm 64."
The truth, however, is that music hasn't been ruled by the young for years now. More than half of all CDs are bought by people over 30; Mojo, the British magazine for the greying fan, outsells NME. Even big-selling young bands settle on a sound that is reactionary (Oasis), retro (the Kaiser Chiefs) or reassuring (Coldplay).Ah yes, the sugary music-hall ditty from The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt Pepper; people either love or hate it.
"But I have to change the title," the man went on, "because 64 seems young to those people. They don't get it." So he sings "When I'm 84" instead.
McCartney sees his point: "If I were to write it now," he told the Los Angeles Times recently, "I'd probably call it When I'm 94."
McCartney will be 64 in June. He has a young band, a young producer, a young wife, a small child and youngish hair; his age shows only in his jowls, the odd creak in his voice and an air of gathering urgency, which led him to open the proceedings at last year's Live8 concert as well as close them. He still needs us, and he is not alone.
There were three new entries in last week's British album chart, all from McCartney's contemporaries: Neil Diamond, 65, Dolly Parton, just 60, and Ray Davies of the Kinks, 61. Welcome to sexagenarian rock'n'roll.
The music business still has its meteors - current media darlings the Arctic Monkeys are all under 21, and the new star of British soul, Corinne Bailey Rae, is 27. But there is a flurry of activity from the elders of the tribe. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, 60 , is celebrating by releasing a rare solo album. Van Morrison, also 60, released his umpteenth CD this month. Joan Baez, 65, is still touring.
The Rolling Stones, pushing 250 in total, are in the middle of another world tour. Bob Dylan, 64, is forever on the road, though this may actually be an experiment to establish how badly he can maul his old songs before his fans walk out. Leonard Cohen, 71, is working on a new album. This is the man who, when he took his songs to agents in New York, was asked: "Aren't you a little old for this game?" He was 32.
B.B. King, 80, will begin his farewell tour next month. Not that farewell always means adieu. Elton John, 59, will play Britain's sports grounds this summer, possibly forgetting he first announced his retirement from live performance in 1977.
Then there's the Who. Having somehow survived the death of half their line-up, decades of dormancy and Pete Townshend's encroaching deafness, they are still big enough to headline festivals this summer. The band that hoped they would die before they got old must increasingly find their own lyrics quoted back at them: "Why don't you all just f-fade away?"
This question has many answers. Bands play on because they love it, or they're addicted to the roar of the crowd, or because it's what they do. Rock is a hybrid form, drawing on blues, country, folk and gospel: cultures that attach no stigma to seniority. It's only the final ingredient in the recipe - youth culture - that makes us surprised to find a person of 60 singing rock songs.
It used to be assumed that rock was like football or chess, offering its best players a brief blazing heyday followed by an inevitable decline. Lately, it has looked more like golf, promising 40-year careers and only a slow fade. Now it may be shifting again, to become more like writing or painting. Some stars will burn out, others will flicker, and a few will shine brighter with age.
What is the formula for rock longevity? Asked how he had managed to keep going into his 50s, Iggy Pop replied: "I'm not bald, I'm not fat and I'm not safe." Many stars manage to adhere to at least two of these criteria. Strangely few rock singers are bald (has toupee technology secretly moved on?), and those who are wear a hat, such as Morrison, or divert attention with comedy braiding arrangements, like Keith Richards.
Safety is another matter. Iggy may retain his anarchic energy, but not many grizzled survivors still have an air of danger. John Cale, 64, is perhaps an exception, having found a new lease of life playing "dirty-ass rock'n'roll", as he calls it, in sweaty clubs, almost 40 years after changing the course of rock in his capacity as the viola player with the Velvet Underground.
Craftsmanship hardly ages at all, and smarter songwriters have used it to defuse the issue of age itself. Paul Simon, 64, wrote a song baldly entitled Old, arguing that people of 50 or 60 were not old in the context of human history, a point that could have been tediously earnest in the hands of a less gifted writer. Cohen used self-deprecating wit in Tower of Song: "Now my friends have gone, and my hair is grey/I ache in the places where I used to play."
Randy Newman, 62, did it with satire, lampooning ageing rockers in a song called I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It). "I have nothing left to say," Newman gleefully yelped over dumb guitars, "but I'm going to say it anyway."
Ry Cooder, just gone 59, deliberately seeks out musicians far older than himself. "I always thought you need to find the oldest person," he said last year, "because they know the secret things that can't be described, or written down, or put in DVD form. They have the capacity to play and sing the beautiful thing that comes from the inside."
With Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder assembled musicians aged 65 to 90 for an album that was expected to sell 400,000 copies - but achieved 10 times that.
In the fight for ongoing credibility, however, the sharpest weapon is excellence. Diamond's new record, 12 Songs, sold 40,000 copies in Britain in a week, twice as many as his previous album managed in four years, even though he didn't promote it there. It was because, as nearly all the critics agreed, he had made an outstanding album: lean, glitz-free, and unflinching ("I'm too old to pretend."). It was the musical equivalent of replacing a comb-over with a crop.
The template here is Johnny Cash, who released four albums of searing honesty in the decade before his death in 2003. Cash's producer was the hip-hop entrepreneur Rick Rubin, who also produced Diamond's new album.
"They're both grown-ups, and there aren't many great albums by grown-ups," Rubin said recently. "There's no reason why great artists shouldn't make their best records when they're 50, 60, 70. In other disciplines, it would be expected." Disciplines! Rock really must have changed.
NOT FADE AWAY
Last year's list of the top-grossing tours in the US reads like a history book. Topping the list of ticket sales was The Rolling Stones, with $US162 million ($227 million). Others in the top 20 include Paul McCartney, The Eagles, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Barry Manilow.
Older acts have the advantages of near-legendary status and a well-heeled baby boomer fan base. Paul McCartney charged an average of $US135 ($189) a ticket, just above the Stones' $US134.
Tickets for the Stones' upcoming shows in Sydney and Melbourne started at a reasonable $54.50, then climbed from there.
The "Diamond VIP package" option includes drinks, canapes and a ticket to the concert; it costs about $400.
The Stones play Telstra Stadium in Sydney on April 11 and Rod Laver Arena on April 13. Other baby boomer acts heading down under:
* Dusty: The Musical (Lyric Theatre, Star City, Sydney, running now through April 23) from $34.95
* Judy Collins (Sydney Opera House, April 9) from $85.40
* Jackson Browne and David Lindley (Enmore Theatre, April 11; Victorian Arts Centre, April 13) from $128
* Buddy Guy and Robert Cray (Enmore Theatre, Sydney, April 19) from $101
* Donny Osmond (Crown Casino, Melbourne, April 30) from $79.90
* Deep Purple/Status Quo (Hordern Pavillion, Sydney, May 9-10) from $125
* Foreigner (Palais Theatre, Melbourne, May 17; State Theatre, Sydney, May 19) from $89
* Split Enz (Sydney Entertainment Centre, June 8-9; Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, June 11-12) from $90.20
Source: smh.com.au
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