It'll be Molony this Christmas wrote:Might this be to do with the nature of pop/rock as a young man's/woman's game? I mean, we have tended to bestow far more respect on elder bluesmen and jazz artists than the so-called 'rock dinosaurs'. If this is true, the drop-off in artistic achievement might well owe as much to perceived irrelevance as it does to waning talent.
This may be changing slightly - the notion of a 'late-flowering' rock/pop artist is starting to become a little more acceptable. Jarvis Cocker didn't achieve popular success until well into his thirties; Richard Thompson's post-Fairport Convention career has had peaks well beyond that; and Scott Walker's become more experimental and respected as he's grown older. Also, Radiohead are now all in their late 30s/early 40s, and their age is not considered an issue when discussing In Rainbows.
However, I think there is still an issue in that areas of the mass media is still obsessed with youth, and this could actually be worse than it was ten years ago. Witness the storm-in-a-teacup 'scandal' over The Ting Tings allegedly lying about their ages (due to the fact that the record industry might struggle with the concept of a new duo whose combined age was 57). Again, this shows the polarisation of modern pop culture - the emergence of a monthly music press aimed at 30- and 40-somethings (Mojo, Word, Uncut) can sustain older, more established artists a little better. But the more youth-obsessed teen-aimed media demands that its new stars (like Miley Cyrus) be younger than ever, while someone like Britney Spears is considered virtually washed up at 27, already having to launch a 'comeback' album in order to regain momentum.
In conclusion, I think that pop music culture is now so piecemeal, with various fragments flying in their own orbit without touching any of the other fragments, that it's now hard to make any generalisations. Different rules apply in different situations.