by Daniel Mallon

Created on: June 10, 2008

I don't for a second believe there's an easy answer to this question, for starters, Paul McCartney's style has still got the jaunty, quaint sound it always did, the sound of "When I'm Sixty-Four" or "Lovely Rita", hardly "rock" by any standard, and in fact far closer to the Vera Lynn, and, dare I say it, Norman Wisdom, type of music that he grew up with.
If anything, he's too young for it.

That said, with all due respect, for most people, Paul McCartney isn't really a solo artist he's the guy from The Beatles, John, George and Ringo's mate.

Age has little to do with it here, no-one can be The Beatles, not even Paul, and tea and scones always struck me as more his style than twisting and shouting.

Paul McCartney can't be The Beatles, but he can be Paul McCartney, and I'm sure he's got enough know how to pull it off live. He's not pretending to be twenty, if you're expecting him to be what he was in the wild days of the sixties, well it's a long time since you've listened to any music and who's fault is that?

But then there's the Rolling Stones, who, without a sliver of a shadow of doubt are still trying to be twenty.

It's horrendous to watch, old men in make-up kissing on the lips before going on stage to perform songs that should have four instruments with a backing band close to the size of an orchestra, backing singers harmoniously vocalising lyrics that were made great by the rough and ready rasp they originally carried.

These former wild men of rock, now look, and act, more like a bunch of stereotypical vaudeville theatre queens.

It'd be comical, if it weren't so depressing, to watch what used to be giants of music, and they were, perform like a second rate covers band, and worse still to realise they don't know it themselves.

But that by no means should convince us that all old rock stars are past it, because they surely aren't, Page and Plant, of Led Zeppelin fame, can still blast out new albums, and do, and they're magnificent at times. ZZ Top can still rock your socks off, nearly forty years after the release of their first album. Carlos Santana is still fantastic, live or not. Pink Floyd. It doesn't even need an explanation, just those two words.
Pink Floyd.

So no, The Stones have stopped rolling and sank, Paul McCartney can't be The Beatles, but nor should we expect him to.

Stars like these should stick to the royalty collections, and not try to pretend they're still twenty (although I think McCartney does this), but that doesn't mean that there should be a sell by date on musicians.

So long as they remember to do what they're got at, and not what they used to be good at, they're fine, even magical at times, but no magic will roll back the years.

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