Whats the definition of a good
song?

Any song that you happen to like.

disagree with the generalization of song writers getting worse with age.

but ya, it certainly can and does happen.

especially to the people who started off getting lots of exposure. maybe people expect them to keep bringing that youthful energy "anything can happen in my life" wildness that is the exclusive domain of the young. And generally expected in the world of mainstream music.

on the other hand I've heard songs and records which i assume the artist's younger self couldn't have created because of the profound maturity of the art itself.

my final thought, because this is a very complicated topic to me, is I think a lot of it has to do with the industry and audience expectations which can be almost divorced from the art itself.

why then do some artists get worse with age - probably because they become to comfortable in life. as you age you realize you are not special, you are a man or woman among men and women.

sorry thats a big jumbled mess of thoughts.

I don't think the premise holds true for me at all, like a fine wine, all my chops, skills and ideas get better with age....I find I do have more and more inspiration but less and less time and motivation to get it done, and though the fact that life jerks you around with bullsh!t like cars bills and BS so much you tend to stop caring, I'm getting better every time I pick up a guitar, keyboard, drumstick or pen. I like what I do, and others do too, no time for the old always making it new, more about the joys and less about the blues...So fck the aging process, take vitamins, not drugs, drink water not beer, stay down, live in the underground, and sound will find it's way through and into your soul, no need to bleed for what you need...truth indeed...
The more I know the more I ignore those who seek to impede...
I win in the end and I'm my only friend.
The rest of y'all can live and learn...
or FOAB...

For people who haven't hit the bigtime (especially at an early age) getting older usually does mean inevitable incremental improvement in compositional skill and overall expansion of options regarding artistic expressiveness.

The stresses of hitting it big early can often wear a young artist out relatively early : exhaustion due to fandom and industry pressure to maintain the high level of productive output often impedes creativity.

Beiber being an excellent example of being doing and saying nothing at all before he could drink, and being used up before he could actually have some thing to say...such is life, and the business...glad I'm not formally a part of it.
I just buy stuff...

Bieber is the perfect example.

But it doesn't have to be that way, wind up the pop-tart like a spinning top, and kick him around like an industry pawn.

It would be much better if quarterly-based profitability was less of a factor, and fostering the young artist into their 30's with a regimen of highly individual, artistic/creative freedom was priority #1 .

An organic, transparent, non-manipulative long-term view and approach.

Some of those industry execs and the priorities of their hierarchy are so repressive, stifling, greedy and ruthlessly short-term / small-minded.

When I turned 30 after trying to make it it so cal for 10 years it was time for a change. Nirvana ripped the rug out from under the plexis and hammer-ons and there was no eye popping skill on guitar. I ran off to Colorado to go skiing.

After a while and the real players in Country, I thought I'd give it a shot. I who was the primary writer in rock n' roll found it wildly difficult to make every line count without the lyrical bag of tricks of "astral planes" other key rock phrases.

I listen to the lyrics in Country and constantly know I'm not that clever. I try to get better but it's clear for the staff writers it's easy.
I'm 53 now btw.

Staff writers and ghost writers and anyone else who subcontracted "creativity" out to a hired gun, is the causative factor of why there is a vast majority of "suck vs success" right now on radio, MTV, Video, Cable, and TV formats...it's why classic rock formats still generate millions in ad and royalty revenue, and why new artists, college radio, and new music is just barely getting by...hippop and EDM speak to a criminal/gangster/drug lifestyle and a vast majority of it has nothing to do with music or art at all, it's all just programming the masses into believing that there is still some sort of reason to keep any of it going, it all means very little in the disposable worlds of internet time. Real artists strive to be remembered, with originality and to release material that has lifetime appeal...everyone else is either trying to make a buck, or get a fvck...women not withstanding, music was at one time crossing cultural, sexual, racial, economic, social, political and philosophical lines, not so anymore...
someone needs to reopen the door...

Just a world full of clones who end up alone...

People get set in their ways. Once they find a sound they stick to it for the duration of their career. Surely that's part of the cause? By the time they get older they wouldn't know how to write something different without exhausting old ideas or pre-defined structures.

Then you have the marketing machine where songs are just crafted for money...

I could guess there is an initial reason or inspiration for creating music, and the further one goes, the higher the likelyhood of losing that primal inspiration that was there from the beginning. Just my two cents.

My own theory is that in some cases the beginner's mind goes out through the door when listening a lot on others' music and conformity kicks in.

A lot of great art comes from a dark place. With success, comes less darkness. So, there you go.

Bruce Cockburn is better now than he ever was. I saw him live a couple years back and he was incredible - I can't even listen to his older arrangements (80's etc.) but what he is doing now on acoustic is ferocious! His performing ability (fingerstyle guitar and vocal) is unparalleled.

In general, I think the issue is that many musicians end up having a few good ideas and a certain "shtick" that permeates everything they do and ends up being somewhat repetitive over long periods of time and so we attribute that with a loss of creativity.

I disagree that "with success" comes less darkness.
We can point to Janis Joplin, Bradley Nowell, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, & Jim Morrison as examples that this does not ring true. Those people were the same before success, as they were after success.

And just about any other drug-addict/alcoholic artist. Perhaps there are genuinely "cheerful" alcoholics tho.

I would like to hear an example of whom u are referring to.

Success doesn't end wars, and the 60s was a reflection of Vietnam. Darkness is the state of the world.

I suspect more options for creativity eliminate the desire for it, rather than
age itself. I know I got alot more work done before I had thousands of possible sounds and directions to sift through.
Also sobriety being the causative factor for most of my creativity, I've learned to turn it around: whereas I used to crave drugs to help me be creative, sobriety is now actually the motivation to write, to keep honing my knife edge and to keep tracking. I'm fiercer now than I've ever been,
and the rest of the world shudders in sin...

Angus Young anyone?...

McCartney has been mentioned often in this thread. The live stuff that he has done in the past 5 years has still been pretty good. He surrounds himself with a younger, rocking band and his vocals are good.




His recent records though, have been utterly mediocre. Others like Stevie Wonder seem to have dried up completely for new material, and just focus on playing live. Bob Seger's recent album was a disaster in how horrible and cliched it sounded. No more Night Moves for Bob. Hall and Oates keep going on and sound great, however where is the new great song material? Oates new album has some decent tunes on it... but nothing like their old stuff.

In my opinion, songwriting is very difficult to do extremely well in most cases. No only that, spending time recording classics is quite a burn on the soul and can be very depressing. I wouldnt imagine than any of these older stars would spend a half a year writing a new classic album....or 2 years as was the case of Songs in the Key of Life for example. It just takes a ton of dedication to be great...dedication...hard work and talent...surrounded by great musicians, engineers and possibly producer.

Myself..Im in my mid 40s now and have hundreds of songs written, but Ive never put anything out other than a few TV show work I did a few years ago. So Ive been working on my current album for almost 8 years now and its finally sounding great. Ive chosen 15 songs from my catalog, fleshed them out and to be honest, it is quite good. My problem is that it takes me thousands of hours working in my studio alone to get good sounds... each track gets recorded to tape, then bounced to the DAW. Its meticulous and I have wondered why in the hell have I sacrificed so much for this project? Money, women, jobs etc. all have taken a back seat to this album.

My deadline is Sept. 1 and Im holding to that release date. There is a good chance, no one will hear this (or not many) and no one will care...it would have to be great to cut through the unprecedented noise out there...but I do have a marketing plan. Why not? My point is, that this amount of effort is something that Ive dedicated myself to, regardless of my age. I dont think I would bother, had I done this 20 years ago and had success. I may be tempted to just live off the bank, and tour like a lot of these guys do.

And a lot of people don't want to give in to their darkness. Because it seems counter intuitive do so.

By denying their own darkness, they are indeed denying their own greatness, for it's the same force of different polarities. You can't swing the pendulum to one side more than to the other.

And for some, the existential darkness overshadows any success they might achieve on this planet... Beethoven.

nailed it.

You don't excessively drink, nor do you take drugs, if you're generally satisfied with your life. Often times, there are things resting in one's soul that never get to see the light of the day. Substances like alcohol and drugs only help to regulate and keep the despair in line somewhat.

But whenever there are drugs or drinking involved, or any kind of addiction, you will find a dark cause if you dig deep enough,.. if the other person lets you, that is.

@ Temple of Light Hip Hop is no longer gangsta commercially and Hip Pop is Miley Cyrus when she collabs with Hip Hop producers as she's Pop but not Hip Hop

Darkness is the environment, not the individual...in all pursuits and exchanges involving money.

I was under impression, though, that he used it as a reference of dark places of one's soul. Where all the hurt, sorrow and regrets of all sorts are locked away from the world and from one's own sight. A place that, nonetheless, offers great powers to those who give in and dare to visit it.

Well, those dark places can destroy a person existentially on many levels, unless he's well versed in transmutation of energy. And can use the power of anger to his benefit and to build off of, instead of subdue to it and carry over its destructive influence to his physical, psychological and spiritual realms.

Let us wait for @ BrutusJonesJr to clarify his point on this matter, then. Instead of wasting our time with assumptions.

My guess would be priorities, not a natural degradation of songwriting prowess over the years.

Think about it.. when we were teens we were able to play and write every second that wasn't invested in school. As young adults, perhaps every second that wasn't invested in a job. But as older adults / older folks, there's simply 100's of things to fill the day that finding quiet time to write is near impossible [i'd imagine].

Besides, when we're young, we believe that that 'one amazing song' is going to change our career trajectory, so we fight for that moment. When we're 40/50 that goal seems so unlikely that the towel is thrown in before the event has even started.

Songwriting has been my life since i was 15 [now 29], but i'm slowly seeing my time devotion decrease merely due to the realities of 'life'.

If i was a successful writer and able to make this my career, it's be a different story - but reality bites.

So to summarise, i don't think talent degrades over time, i just think that the facetime given to the artform lessens and lessens until the outcome is always going to be an inferior sonic product.

Substitute the word "desperation" for "darkness" and that could work, too.

Oh come on, people. Promotion and marketing controls everything and this has nothing to do with the musicians and their skills. If Record companies suddenly started to promote older artists and put their music on the radio and on the Internet, guess what would happen? Oh yes, older artists would appear in the charts and their music would mysteriously become successful again. Do people honestly believe that Don Henley, Elton John and Michael McDonald can no longer write and record great music in their 60s and 70s? We have an endless stream of Miley's, Katie's and Britney's for a good reason. And it has nothing to do with the quality of music. Only to do with what gets marketed and spoon fed to music fans who will always buy whatever they hear! PAYOLA controls everything and money gets music on the airwaves. The best song in the history of music will not get played unless there is considerable funding coming from large corporations who control what you hear (and you like!) and when you reach age 30 your music stops getting played because you are now TOO OLD, LOL!

You obviously don't have little kids. I could pull out and play all the greatest classics from the 60s,70s,80s records and it will all be just "boomer" music to them.

But incidentally, if the music has a good groove and can be somehow synced to a short dance clip on Tik-Tok , a younger generation might dig it. My 12 year old started listening to Earth Wind & Fire out of the blue one day. I asked her how the hell did she get into that, and it was through Tik-Tok. So I have had the pleasure of putting together and sharing Spotify playlists of their better songs from their early to mid 70s catalog releases. The moral of the story is, Pink Floydy stoner music may be a hard pitch but if it has a good grove and can dance to it, you got a chance.

If it were as simple as payola then the old wealthy artists sitting on a mountain of legacy cash could keep themselves relevant.

The industry is almost entirely a slave to the cultural zeitgeist. They control very little, they place calculated Vegas type bets, and win big about 2% of the time, which pays for everything else.

This one went viral a couple weeks ago. Nothing like long boarding down the freeway sipping cranberry juice to Stevie Nicks to catch a vibe: https://www.yoursun.com/dreams-tik-t...488b6bc02.html

Stevie Nicks streams apparently shot up that week.