Black Sabbath released their new single, “God Is Dead?” on YouTube last Thursday. I didn’t realize — Ozzy is alive?
The nine-minute-long track features a lumbering guitar riff that causes a similar reaction to the news of the band’s reunion: when will it end?
Ozzy and his crew aren’t the first over-the-hill rockers to jump on the bandwagon. The Rolling Stones have been touring almost non-stop since the ’60s. Their newly-announced summer tour has been named the “50 & Counting” tour. Though, at least for Jagger and Richards, “69 and counting” might be a more appropriate title.
And what about Madonna? The 54-year-old ‘80s queen is still clinging desperately to the mainstream, as evidenced by her multiple references to the EDM-popularized drug, MDMA, in 2012. First, she released an album coyly titled “MDNA,” then, a few weeks later, made a controversial remark to Ultra Music Festival-goers: “How many people in this crowd have seen Molly?”
Why do all these aging rock stars feel the need to keep performing years after the height of their success? It’s hard to hear Ozzy, 64, singing, “there is no tomorrow” without wondering just how many tomorrows he actually has left. “Like A Virgin” loses its effect when Madonna’s kids — the oldest already in her teens — sit in the audience of her performance.
The fact is, all over-the-hill performers have an expiration date. What matters most is the music’s content. The dark, scary metal of Black Sabbath’s beginnings sounds weird coming from Ozzy now. The blue-collar persona that the Rolling Stones put out in the 1960s and ‘70s feels cheapened once you read about Mick Jagger’s $13 million mansion.
By sticking to age-appropriate content, a few stars have managed to inch past the span of their heyday and keep performing. For instance, Bob Dylan, 72, has managed to keep his career both long and respectable. By nature of being a folk singer, Dylan has created a persona for himself that can only get better with age. The solemn morals of his earliest work, like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” sound more honest coming from an older, distinguished man than a young, hot-shot kid. Try applying that same better-with-age principle to Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”: suddenly, “death and hatred to mankind” sounds an awful lot like, “get off my lawn!”
If aging rock stars refuse to move from the limelight, what does that mean for artists of today? Do we, the Millennial Generation, really want to be doing the “Harlem Shake” in our mid-fifties? Will Skrillex’s infamous undercut look more distinguished with some salt-and-pepper flecks in it?
Here’s the deal, geriatric rockers: it’s time to turn the amps down, and the hearing aids up. Whether these reunion tours, desperate attempts to remain relevant, stem from financial need, narcissism or a failed grasping for the sexuality of your youth, it’s time to step aside and allow pop culture to move on.
And Ozzy, as for “God Is Dead?” now is probably not the best time to write yourself off from an afterlife.
Contact CU Independent Senior Staff Writer Sarah Elsea at Sarah.elsea@colorado.edu.