“You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.”
The comedian George Burns, who made it two months past his centenary, understood this well.
Nowhere in showbusiness is this maxim more relevant than the music industry. In television and film, there are grand dames and men of stature for actors to play. Botox is not a realistic aid to playing a working-class grandfather.
Even in dance, Gene Kelly was shaking a leg on film into his late 60s and Dame Ninette de Valois was appearing on stage at 102.
The music industry is a different kettle of fish. And like fish, if the produce isn’t fresh, they’re pretty much smoked.
The “best before” date of an X Factor winner does not normally exceed 18 months after their win, but even the tried and tested music Hall of Famers struggle to keep an audience interested.
That is why Paul McCartney was – or his handlers were – so keen to have his picture taken with Dave Grohl and Adele at the Grammys.
It’s why Dusty Springfield sang on a Pet Shop Boys record. Blue tapped into Stevie Wonder and Elton John’s insecurities around the ageing process by asking them to sing on their records.
Music stars, whether hip hop or hip op, have to remain relevant.
This brings us to the question of what relevant means.
Two artists not often mentioned in the same sentence are currently taking differing approaches to the comeback trail.
Madonna Louise Ciccone tends not to do understatement. Her latest single Give Me All Your Luvin’, employs cheerleaders in the video, two up-to-the-minute chart collaborators, is produced by Swedish DJ Martin Solveig – and was showcased at half-time at the Super Bowl in front of a staggering 114 million viewers.
It’s a bubbly enough pop single – but, after record sales dipped in the States, Madonna hitched her wagon to Timbaland and Pharrell Williams on her last album, and Nicki Minaj and MIA are present here.
“Every record sounds the same, you’ve got to step into my world,” she sings, which would be a strong argument if the record didn’t sound like Gwen Stefani’s rendition of Toni Basil’s Mickey. It has entered the UK charts at number 37.
In fairness to Madonna, that lowly position is related to a record company offer of a free download connected with the sale of album MDNA, but it hasn’t stopped the criticism that she is not the mainstream pop force she was. Initially, Lady Gaga had to deal with a Madonna question in every interview. These days, it’s more likely to be the other way around.
M.I.A.’s much publicised middle finger at the Super Bowl also put Madonna in an awkward position. Criticise the gesture that has been much censured elsewhere and she looks matriarchal and nannyish. Approve of it, and she undoes the good work of that new family audience she gained during the Super Bowl.
In the end, Madonna responded with a fence-sitting “I understand it’s punk rock and everything … but it seemed negative.” The mother of four went on to criticise the London rapper for such a “teenager, irrelevant thing to do”. It sounded like the kind of thing she’d say while confiscating Lourdes’ iPod, which is not Madonna’s default setting.
Madonna could learn much from Leonard Cohen, whose wondrous new album, Old Ideas, has topped the charts in nine countries and just missed the top spot here.
On the face of it, the pair have little in common. Before his first record, Cohen had published four volumes of his poetry and two novels. Madonna’s most famous published work was a book featuring photographs of her in her undergarments with Vanilla Ice.
The Madonna–Laughing Len Venn diagram actually has a little more overlap than you might assume. The records of both are drenched in sex and religious imagery, and the two are known for their particularly spiritual outlooks: Cohen swears by the hours of meditation at the Buddhist retreat of his 105-year-old guru, Roshi. Madonna has raised thousands for the Kabbalah movement, for whom she built a school in Malawi.
Patrick Leonard, who co-wrote Like A Prayer and Cherish, has co-written three tracks on Old Ideas, including the stand-out, Show Me The Place. And both MC and LC, in pop terms, are getting on a bit. She is 53, he is 77.
The difference is that Madonna’s capacity for reinvention has been her strength. His artistic constancy, through the different cycles of his life – broken business and personal relationships, bankruptcy, on-and-off touring and record company rows – has been reassuring. He has never once sentenced his audience to 20 years of boredom.
Every Leonard Cohen album has the same echoes of wit, wryness, maturity, romanticism, his poetic gifts, an ability to laugh at himself – and strong tunes. The strength of Old Ideas is that it does not sound that different from the 1967 debut Songs of Leonard Cohen. The rapturous reception afforded to this record is of gratitude that Cohen is still around to make it. Malcolm Tucker’s insult – that his to-do list was “longer than a Leonard Cohen song” – doesn’t apply here. Only one song, Amen, exceeds five minutes.
Madonna has some tough decisions to make. The previous rule in rock’n’roll was that you had to be “down with the kids”, not look out of place alongside the crop-topped teenyboppers fresh out of stage school and move with the times. That was certainly Tom Jones’ excuse for releasing an album with Wyclef Jean.
Recently, those artists who have stayed truest to themselves have produced some of their strongest work by reflecting the advance to mortality – the late-period albums of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell have been among their strongest work. Old Ideas is the same.
Madonna is a well-travelled, twice-married mother of four, who has had the experience of being the most famous woman in the world as well as being one of the most criticised. She opened an orphanage in Africa and got slammed for it. She has won Oscars, BRITs and Grammys – and sat next to Prince Charles at dinner.
She deals with the pressure of keeping up with the Britneys, the Rihannas and the Christinas on a weekly basis, but it’s possibly time for a different act. And, as we know, acting was never her strongest suit anyway. Dancing with LMFAO is not as interesting a reflection of where Madonna’s at as, for instance, a torch song album about getting old (that previous unspeakable crime for rock stars) could be.
The most daring reinvention Madonna could make now would be to act her age.
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