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Never too old to rock 'n' roll

Despite what alarmists claim, Rock is a long way off from dead

Mick Jagger

When Paul McCartney wrote When I'm Sixty Four in his teens, he might never have imagined things would turn out like they did. He's still kept his hair, but things are not as he hoped they'd be. The nicer Beatle hit his 64th birthday last week, amidst tabloid reports speculating the end of his second marriage. And it isn't just him. Pete Townshend, for instance, the notorious face of The Who, famously sang: Hope I die before I get old and has now had to suffer the ignominy of a long life. And Mick Jagger, who didn't want to sing Satisfaction beyond 45, is still trying, wrinkles and geriatric bones and all, to keep that spark going.

Meanwhile, few of the newer bands manage to replicate the success of the legendary bands of the '60s and '70s. As one musician points out, every garage band manages to scrape together enough to make its own albums and videos, but few are anything more than a flash in the pan. And so the last decade or so has seen alarmists crawling out of the woodwork to proclaim that rock is dead. At the heart of the issue is a paradigm shift from a movement to an industry; a viewpoint that has been explored in literature

Moreover, almost every new mainstream band that hits the scene does so amidst a wave of company-sponsored media hype. But, says Avijit Michael, a musician: "Everything is moving towards a more corporate setup. You can't look at things like in the '60s." But every generation has its good old days. Meanwhile, the music continues to entertain us all, wrinkles, scars and all.

RAKESH MEHAR

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