If the pop charts functioned like the workplace, older artists might have a nice age-discrimination suit going for them.
Aside from 52-year-old Carlos Santana, whose “Supernatural” album holds strong in the Top 5 after 21 weeks, things haven’t been going well for stars of a certain age (read: over 40). In the entire Billboard Top 200, only 17 artists have lived beyond their 30s. And none of them places terribly high.
The 50-ish quartet Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young got together last spring for their first joint album in 10 years (only their fourth release in three decades). But in just two weeks, “Looking Forward” has nosedived to No. 57 on Billboard’s Top 200 album list. Sales, cut nearly in half from its first week, whittled to a thin 26,538. The group’s plans to tour in the new year, for the first time since 1974 in this configuration, will probably move more catalogue items than new platters, since this whole project lives and dies on nostalgia.
Paul McCartney has also been huffing and puffing with his latest work. While his last album, 1997’s “Flaming Pie,” was one of his best reviewed LPs and earned major Grammy nominations, the new one has impressed fewer people. “Run Devil Run,” a spirited collection of ’50s cover songs, plunges to No. 163 after five weeks. Most likely the paucity of original material had a hand here, as did the idea of a 57-year-old performing such youthful material.
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McCartney and CSNY may have 10 years on the members of Eurythmics, but the 40s duo has also been struggling with its new one. The group’s first album in a decade, “Peace,” has dipped to No. 75 in its third week after a so-so debut at 25. That the group only performed two live dates in the U.S. to back it up didn’t help.
At least Eurythmics did better than Smokey Robinson. The Motown mainstay put out his first record in seven years last month. “Intimate” only made the Top 200 for one week, then sank into oblivion. Total sales so far? An alarming 44,000 copies.
Age must have also hurt “Viva El Amor,” the latest LP from the Pretenders, led by 48-year-old Chrissie Hynde. Though it ranks as one of the group’s best efforts, it has only sold 72,000 copies after five months in circulation. That far outdistances the new one from Iggy Pop. The 52-year-old’s “Avenue B” never even charted, selling only 8,000 copies in two months.