by Eric Anderson

Created on: February 09, 2009

"50 is the new 30!" At least that's what I was told a few years ago by a producer-friend of mine while I was finishing up an album with him. This came on the tail of U2's huge resurgence and reinvention with "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and later, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" U2 are now set to release yet another new album, and show no signs of really slowing down, with all the members getting close to that "over the hill" age mark.

It used to be that your late 20's, maybe early 30's is you were lucky, was the unspoken "cutoff age" for stars in the music biz. How many artists can you think of from the last 25 years that shot to stardom when they were merely in their teens and fizzled out almost a quickly once they reached their no-longer-adorable late 20's? It may have been that they were too young to adapt to the pressures of instant fame and fortune, or cracked, artistically, under the pressure from record companies to churn out hit after hit. But when the physical album was king (in the "dark ages" before digital music downloads) record companies made tons of money on artists they could "mold" and "develop" into stars that would do their bidding in order to reach #1 on the Billboard charts, or get that next Gold or Platinum record, all in the hopes of making enough sales to recoup the record company's generous advance and actually start making money, themselves.

When they're album commitment was up, or they ceased to be viable because of some new musical "trend" (Grunge, anyone?), they were dropped. If you had started out at 18, and maybe put out 7 albums under a recording contract, you may only be 25 years old, but if there was some newer, hotter musical act or trend out there, you were done. So there it wasno
musical career after 30!

But times, they are a-changingLook at Coldplay, for example. They just nabbed 3 Grammy awards for their latest work. All for of them are in their 30s. Radiohead? All in their 30s or 40s. Even though these artists started way before hitting 30, it is still a testament to the changing attitudes in the music business that good music can be created at any age. There new artists being discovered all the time who are just getting their break in their late 20s or early 30s and the digital music age has only helped this.

With artists of all genres and all ages able to market directly to consumers and build their fan bases with online social networking tools, it is easier than ever to gain recognition, and possibly quit your day

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