Music is heavily dependent on controlled distribution channels which markets young people to young people. The lifestyle, gigging, being surrounded by drugs and alcohol, it’s a young persons game.
A serious painter could quietly produce work in a studio for decades until they are discovered, same is true for writers or just about art form but with music, and to a slightly lesser extent acting, if you haven’t made it by the time you are 23-25 you most definitely never will. You may become a song writer for hire but you’ll never be famous. The average consumer of music is profoundly disinterested in musicianship, song writing, virtuosity pretty much anything a musician could improve with time.
I’m utterly pessimistic about why most people listen to music. Pop music serves a function somewhere in between a utility kind of like air conditioning and a white noise to play in the nursery to keep the babies from getting anxious. It is also a vehicle to legitimize pop stars as more than just phone and makeup sales people.
I love music but I find myself bitter about it sometimes. It often feels like just something playing in the background while everyone is shopping. Or psychological filler to distract you from realizing how dull the movie you’re watching is.
Many of my closest friends are guys who play in hard rock bands and are not famous at all. We are all at the end of summer in our mid to late 30s. When they were younger there was a cockiness in them about being cool and playing music. Doing lots of acid and being wild. Now that our 30s have passed in a handful of heartbeats I don’t think any of them are keeping the dream alive of being famous as musicians. If anything, they are better than ever before as song writers, musicians, they are still very cool and quick but matured and better humans basically, still very attractive as men but their value as would-be celebrities is basically negative value now. They are still super cool to me and dear as anything in the world as my friends but to people 20 years younger than us, they are now perceived as culture vultures. Becoming old guys at the bar. They are definitely not there yet but it’s wild to see how many of the new ones hanging around acting like they own the world instantly perceive us as dated. Counting us out for no reason other than we are now old, at 36-38. The local scene operates this way, I imagine the music business is no different.
I truly believe most of the loved, classic albums which are almost all universally made by people in their early 20s were made by artists who became even more interesting as people when they turned 30, 40, or older. But they almost all lose that ghost in them which made them do something cool in the first place as they get older and become “too old” for the game. I think it’s heartbreaking to be so easily casted out and replaced. I think that kills the inspiration to make great music. Music is made for people, but if the people no longer want you because you’re old, are you really going to be excited to make music for them?