By fnord12 | September 24, 2014, 6:45 PM | Music & TeeVee | Comments (1)| Link

Churning out the hits

It must kind of suck to be an aging arena rocker. Here are three variations on the same theme from a (now out of date) review of upcoming tours in the July issue of Rolling Stone:

Aerosmith:

Don't expect to hear many songs from Aerosmith's most recent album... "We really believe in the new album,' says Joe Perry. "But the audience wants the old stuff."

Motley Crue:

"Do you leave out 'Girls, Girls, Girls' and please the 200 people in the arena that want the deep tracks?" Sixx asks. "It's hard."

Tom Petty:

Expect Petty and the Heartbreakers to go deep into their new studio album... "It would be a shame not to - I want people to know it exists," says Petty of the record, "and that it's a real album."

On the one hand, it must be awesome for people wanting to hear any of the music you've written, but you can imagine that they'd really like to stretch out and think that they're still doing relevant stuff. Interesting distinctions, too. Aerosmith is just doing what the fans want, Petty goes in the opposite direction, and Motley Crue's not even thinking about new music, just whether or not to play the hits vs. the album tracks. But they're all struggling with the same basic problem.