‘Career Decline’ Indicators

It’s been asserted that the following are definitive signs of career decline:

1) Touring to ‘celebrate’ an album that was released more than two decades ago.

2) Issuing Christmas (or ‘holiday’) albums

3) Re-recording ‘greatest hits’.

4) ‘Greatest Hits’ tours

5) Issuing a live album (this wasn’t once suggestive of career decline, but may have become so recently)

6) Reuniting with former collaborators whom you still have ‘issues’ with ‘because it’s what the fans want’ (trans: ‘we hate each other, but we could still do with the money’)


Agree? Disagree? Tell!

 

Agree; and if one does it well enough (or have an overly worshipful fan base), an artist can easily fool the audience into thinking they're NOT in decline!
Remember also, there's releasing a new album that was started and almost finished years ago as well.

 

Tells me the band has had a massive, long career.
OMD fits that criteria, minus the Christmas Album
Secret was re-recorded in 88.
I see no decline from their output.

 

There are no absolutes, but it does feel like many artists past their prime, which sounds nicer than saying they are on decline, do the majority of those things, the exception being the live album. Plenty of artists still in their prime release live albums.

 

To me, those are all indicators of careers that declined long ago, that have basically been wallowing in purgatory for many years, and they are an attempt to revive the career or more realistically cash one last check.

Think about the Smashing Pumpkins tour last year or the Motley Crue tour from 2015 or whatever. Both of those bands hadn't had a hit record in 20 years or more. That's the norm here, IMO.

 

Got Simple Minds stamped all over it. Their current live album is an utter embarrassment.

 

Touring with Ringo

 

1. back to basics / blues and / or covers album
2. state fair

 

The repackaging of Greatest Hits, then Best of’s, then Rare Tracks, then Retrospectives, ad nauseam. And then, the Covers album(s)...

 

I guess it depends on what we are calling career decline. If you're still selling albums, and concert tickets, it isn't a decline.
I guess the end of artistic vision? Idk, it's a tough call.

I really don't like Christmas albums, but I think they get released because people buy them.
The anniversary tour of an album seems to be a more recent thing.... I like the idea, but I guess it depends how it manifests.
Most concerts end up being greatest hits tours, to some degree.
The rerecording of greatest hits seems like desperation in a lot of ways. Though there have been some great and successful examples over the years.
The issuing of live albums ... I guess it depends of the era the band belong to, and their fan base. Most bands I know released a lot of live albums.

but number 6 there is a really interesting one. When two or more folks that hate each other, or are at least perceived to hate each other, work together - tour or album - that is always a subtle inference that something isn't right.

 

Bingo. I'm always suspicious of back to basic albums. It suggests to me a lack of direction for an artist. Covers albums suggest writers block.

 

Their new songs start sounding like retreads of their older ones, or of other artists’ songs.

 

County fairs. Reality show on a lower level network.

 

digging into unreleased material to fill out an album.

 

Many artists go into decline after their debut or cannot (or will not) musically grow.
Sometimes decline can be slow or so slow it doesn't register with the listener who is on their own personal decline into alcohol and middle age spread, resulting in wild fanboy claims that their latest album is the best since.......the masterpiece or landmark album.
As a rule of thumb for lesser known artists I hunt out the debut as being on the balance of probability more vital.

 

And then you have bands 30+ years still going strong
No Christmas album from these guys either

 

These things have to be judged on a case by case basis. Jeff Lynne has done at least 3 of the things on the original list, but he's still selling out arenas and his new album went to #1 in the UK. So hardly in decline.

Christmas albums really depend on the artist. The Monkees released one last year and it seemed totally fitting for their fun brand of pop. But when the Moody Blues made one, and it in fact became their last studio album, I felt they just weren't trying anymore.

 

suspect releases to watch out for:

The Great American Songbook album
The Duets album
[acclaimed older album] Unplugged

 

Suppose in January, Neil Young’s website announces a ‘60 Years Since After The Gold Rush’ anniversary tour. Neil will play the whole album, as well as some choice cuts from the debut and EKTIN backed by Crazy Horse, with an appearance from ‘special guest’ Nils Lofgren.

What would we all think (after ‘where’s my credit card?)?

‘Wow! That divorce must REALLY have cleaned him out.’

‘When did he last sell a significant amount of product? 1992?’

(Even if he WAS actually broke, I doubt it’d ever happen).

 

I think Duets albums are another sure sign. Except in the case of Sinatra, whose career was effectively over (through choice/medical issues) when he issued his.

 

Recording orchestral versions of well-known songs from the back catalog (Gabriel, Sting, Ferry). To be fair, these are more career twilight than decline.

 

I think Jethro Tull have done all but 6).

 

A duet album with someone else in a career decline.

Bonus points if it's Christmas themed.

 

This list is a description of Rod Stewart's career since 2000... although the reunite with an old collaborator that you now hate would only be the Jeff Beck "encore" they shared at the Hollywood Bowl this year...

 

Anytime a family member of a band member replaces another band member or mgmt