Climactic moment in Type O Negative's hit Love You to Death, where the singer soars with the lyric, "Am I good enough for you?" It was spine-chillingly glorious when I was a teenager, rife with self-doubt and insecurity. "You," in that line, became about a dozen girls I'd had a crush on through all of high school and later in college. I think my wife eventually was included in that thought, as well.
But it's not something that many guys past age 30 will find themselves singing. Then again, the line "I would do anything to make you cum," is repeated about a dozen times over a minute and a half in the following song, and that isn't something normally associated with the 'settled' man, either.
Also, success has its own draw away from inspiration. Back in 2000, when the Smashing Pumpkins were breaking up, Billy Corgan noted in Rolling Stone that "when we had no money, no nothing, there was nothing else to do but be grungy and be in a band. Now there are many other options: 'I could be skiing.'"
So I suppose it's not such a shock that many bands lose their luster well before age thirty. It's a rare band that's so happy with each other and so hungry for improvement that they stay together and relevant (U2 comes to mind).Labels: age, music, teenagers, u2 |
