This past year has been a great year for music. Rihanna, Chance and Kanye each dropped successful albums, Adele released her comeback album, 25, and Frank Ocean seemingly returned from the dead. And that’s not even mentioning Queen Bey’s revolutionary Lemonade, the visual album that shattered the charts earlier this year. While there seems to be public outcry over how the rest of 2016 is turning out, there’s no denying that the music industry has flourished this year.
Of course, there are a couple of surprises. According to Official Charts Company, the third biggest album of 2016 was David Bowie’s Blackstar, with Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool ranking 16th and Rick Astley’s latest album, 50, not far behind at 23rd. And that’s as of Oct. 4. Not only did ’80s pop rock band Bon Jovi drop a new album on Friday, but Metallica and The Rolling Stones have studio albums lined up for release before the year is out. Why all these classic bands are continuing to release new music, I can’t say for sure. And it isn’t necessarily a new trend. But one thing I know is that it’s a strange, kind of wonderful phenomenon to witness.
On the one hand, seeing these classic rock bands put out new music is like scrolling through Facebook and seeing your grandpa post a “U mad bro?” meme — which is to say, totally cringeworthy. Sure the golden days were great, but it may be time to put away the guitar and settle into retirement. After all, it’s not like these bands can get much better. The Rolling Stones were a colossal force in the ’60s British invasion, practically changing the nature of American rock and roll. Meanwhile, Metallica brought thrash metal to a mainstream audience, while David Bowie and Bon Jovi varied so much in styles that it’s hard to restrain them to a single genre. Continuing to release new albums in 2016 may seem like overkill, especially when these bands can’t really get much more popular.
And make no mistake: The popularity of these bands plays a huge role in their ability to keep releasing music. Namely because their fans will worship whatever they release like it’s the greatest thing to bless mankind, even more so if they tack on tours. It’s a strong fan base that allows The Rolling Stones to release two projects in two consecutive months — the first being the live footage of the band’s historical concert in Havana, and the second being the band’s new studio album, Blue & Lonesome. In a way, the fans take some power away from the critics — if it doesn’t matter to them whether an album is good, then could it really be bad? The relationship between the artist and the fan is interesting and profound, with intricate layers of trust and emotion woven between the two.
Maybe that’s the beauty of the whole thing. Of course it would be significantly easier for these classic bands to play their music, make their fortunes and retire on a fat lump of cash. But that would be disregarding the thousands of people whose lives they have directly affected. You cannot look at the mass of shrieking men and women present at a Rolling Stones concert and say their lives haven’t been changed in some way by Mick Jagger’s crooning voice or Keith Richards’ jumping guitar. You cannot listen to any metal band on the radio without in some way tracing its presence back to Metallica or Black Sabbath. You cannot witness the thousands of people setting memorials for David Bowie after his death and claim that those people felt anything less than a personal loss.
Classic bands going out of their way to continue producing music is a testament to their appreciation toward fans. Yes, without a doubt the whole ordeal could make you cringe at times, but if that’s the case then the music most likely isn’t for you. These people aren’t trying to gain more popularity or bring more people into the fan base. Instead, their goal is to celebrate the people that are already there and are there to stay.
