People say this about even Chris de Burgh??

Though, in all fairness, it took me a while to get round to addressing these points myself in The Ethics of Criticism.

That shit is like 20 years old, man.

But why is wanting to see New Order perform Blue Monday nostalgia?

Feeling nostalgic for the Nation of Ulysses:

I’m not talking about a Beatles song
Written 100 years before I was born
They’re all talking about the round and round
But who’s got the real anti-parent culture sound?

Where I live the folks in the orchestra call the crowds that turn out for this stuff “bluehairs”.

Right. I do, however, think this isn’t quite comparable in ways that have everything to do with the previous discussion about rock music and authenticity and all that. If it were comparable, then people would be happy to fill stadiums to watch an accomplished band do covers of the Rolling Stones.

Nevertheless, to some degree it is comparable. And you can see this in theater and opera, too. There’s a large constituency who wants to see the standards and can’t stand anything new and they greatly intersect with the group that is relatively very uninformed about music (or theater, or opera) and is attending these shows primarily for a number of reasons which are entirely independent of aesthetics.

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven…all nostalgia acts!

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven…all nostalgia acts!

Originality and contemporary relevance can come in performing previously written music, not just writing new stuff. Especially since most modern music styles allow for significant improvisation.

Bonnie Raitt is pretty good, actually—not exactly a nostalgia act. Go!

I can see that. There is, of course, a continuum and there are a few of these kinds of performers who are worth seeing at one end of it.

It seems to me, though, that the relevant distinction here is the point at which performers stop evolving and being relevant within their genre in an ongoing sense. A good test is whether, at a typical show, they can get away with performing mostly new music, or whether their fans demand mostly or entirely their favorites from yesteryear. If it’s the latter, then they’re a nostalgia act. Personally, I can’t think of any popular music act I’d like to see in that context, up to and including (as a counterfactual) the Beatles.

I recognize that I’m snobbish about this and so I’m wiling to accept as reasonable seeing nostalgia acts who are widely regarded to have been very good and important. (Grudgingly.) But .38 Special? Van Halen? I graduated from high school in 1982 and my friends and I were crazy for Van Halen. I’m sorry to say that some of them still are. I find this, well, pathetic. And these concerts tickets aren’t cheap.