It seems to be the season for aging rockers to resurface with various degrees of pride.
Item: Believe it or not, the surviving members of The Who have come out with a new album, the first one in nearly a quarter-century. Early reports suggest that Endless Wire is pretty decent, though perhaps not exactly Who’s Next or Quadrophenia; still, original music from Townsend & Daltrey is a bargain at any price. It’s clearly not a a case of The Who sells out:
It’s a very dignified, un-embarrassing collection of quality material, well executed. It’s mainly of interest to fans, but they are unlikely to be disappointed. Eight or nine tracks are 2 minutes or shorter—-the second half of the record is a song suite (“mini opera”)—Martin
I haven’t actually heard it myself, though I suspect that situation will change shortly.
As a side note, it should be noted that while The Who has lost a drummer and a bassist, the only surviving members of the Beatles are a drummer and a bassist. A combined reunion tour would be the biggest license to print money since Kim Il Sung got his hands on an intaglio press.
Item: Meat Loaf has launched Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. Note that this comes 30 years after Mr. Loaf’s first Bat Out Of Hell album. It’s predecessor albums were distinguished by the singles “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” and “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. The first single is “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”, and given that it’s cracked Billboard’s Top 10 chart, it looks like Mr. Loaf has found his own printing press full of money. I’d expect a full report to show up sometime soon over at patrickrunkle.com.
Item: Genesis has decided to turn it on again and do a stadium tour of Europe in 2007. Tragically, it’s the power-pop Collins-Banks-Rutherford version of Genesis that’s hitting the road, not the classic Banks-Collins-Gabriel-Hackett-Rutherford lineup.
Apparently Gabriel was approached, but he declined (unless I’m possessed of a misunderstanding, I believe that Peter Gabriel would only agree to tour with Genesis again if some calamity befell his bank account); Hackett then decided that performing as a four-piece would trespass on the image of the most popular version of the band.
I would, incidentally, pay good money to see the classic Genesis lineup perform; it’d be even better if they rebuilt the original costumes they performed in.
Item: The Stooges are back in the studio, recording a new full-length album.
It’s almost like the 70s never left. All we need is a new Steve Miller Band album.
this may make me sound old or stupid, but i would totally dig more steve miller band :-) what song is more fun to sing along to than take the money and run....