Posted by Anniversaries Make Me Cry on September 26, 1999 at 21:39:28:
In Reply to: It's dark and Keith's wearing sunglasses posted by steel driving hammer on September 26, 1999 at 20:48:07:
To be precise, I said they died the day the released the trend-seeking, technology-driven B2B: September 30th, 1997. The two years of brilliant touring that followed can't be taken as a sign the band is still healthy. It was just an afterglow, just like thousands of stars we see shining brightly actually died 200 million years ago but it takes so long for the light to reach the Earth we still think they're alive. Once you start allowing yourself to self-consciously seek trends rather than rely on your soul (as they did with VL and Stripped, combined sales 11 million worldwide); once Mick and Keith start essentially working separately even on the same album, using computers to suggest rhythms do the drumming and different bassists on every cut, and hiring pinhead pop producers--once you produce a B2B, in other words (combined sales of B2B and "No Security" about 3.5 million worldwide), you've lost it. You've abandoned your soul. You can still put on a brilliant tour, living on the light still shining from older gems. But you're too shaky, too uncertain, too worried about what others will think, whether the music will seem contemporary, whether it'll be "relevant," and all that bullshit, to be counted as still truly a creative force.