Antique antics

Spectator, The, Oct 4, 1997 by Berkmann, Marcus

First Oasis, now Bob Dylan, Portishead, the Rolling Stones. Disparate acts indeed, but with one important thing in common: they want your money. The new album season is upon us again, and suddenly we find out what all our favourite acts have been up to in their long years of silence: Most bands now take so long to record an album that it always comes as a surprise when the new album sounds so much like all their previous albums. Bob Dylan's first set of new material for seven years is just what you would expect it to be, down to the 16minute jam session at the end that could sensibly have been 15 minutes shorter. Portishead's agonising new effort was described by one critic this week as 'a companion piece' to their first album, i.e. it sounds exactly the same. But if there is one band that believes in delivering precisely what is expected, without conscious variation or an ounce of introspection, it is surely the Rolling Stones. No band, it seems, wants your money more. And if ticket sales for their latest gargantuan world tour are anything to go by, they are getting it too.

They are, of course, Very Old. Even their youngest member, 50-year-old Ron Wood, now seems fantastically ancient. Almost all bands lose members from time to time, but Bill Wyman became perhaps the first prominent musician of the rock era to announce his retirement. Their immense age seems further magnified by Mick Jagger's dauntless determination to go on strutting around like a hormonally bombarded 17-year-old, even though he looks older than Keith Richards.

Their 757th album Bridges to Babylon (Virgin) - their first since their last one, which no one can now remember - is a suitably efficient piece of work which few people will ever hear. No one buys Rolling Stones records any more except the hardy faithful, who, like Radio Two listeners, are gradually dying of old age. But new albums must still be recorded, if only to preserve the illusion that the band still matters. Like all third age Stones' albums, Bridges to Babylon makes the occasional gesture at sounding up to date, with modish production touches provided on three tracks by the Dust Brothers. For most of the time, though, it sounds so much like all the band's other albums you almost feel sorry for them. Fortunately, as the wider public will never listen to it, no one will ever have to know.

Instead the Stones kick off their world tour with Mick Jagger saying, as ever, that he is tired of playing the old songs and would prefer to concentrate on the new material. Obviously, no one wants to hear this new material, but we do want to hear Jagger saying that he would prefer to play it. Thus, every Stones fan can publicly regret that the band have to play the old crowd-pleasers, secure in the knowledge that they will never play anything else. The illusion benefits everyone, and so must be maintained.

As with Pink Floyd, as with the Eagles, as with any middle-aged group who have a sparkling back catalogue but haven't produced anything worth listening to in years, the illusion must be maintained. If the band just admitted that it was washed up, credibility would be lost forever. If you never acknowledge that you are just playing the nostalgia circuit, you can probably play it for the rest of your life.

And the chances are that we will be enjoying this debate every four years or so until individual Stones start dying. In four years' time, of course, Bridges to Babylon will be quite forgotten and another mediocre new album will be presenting itself for appraisal. It would almost be sad, were the surviving Stones not four of the richest men in the world.