It’ll be 55 next year

reat musicians can be active for half a century. Composers and producers even longer, as they usually need not sing, dance etc. They just need their brain to work and creativity is not about memory, it’s about taste and experience.

Sister Sledge, as it turns out, is still sort of active (some members are broke) and its ‘brain’ Nile Rodgers is still alive with some involvement in Coldplay.

Given his age and physique, maybe he can be active for 70+ years.

He has not changed much, has he?

rowing up in the 1990s, I listened to a lot of music. Walkman was a thing back then, Discman came when I was in my early teens. My sister was collecting albums and I mostly “borrowed” (from her shelves) her music, which meant my taste in and exposure to music was heavily influenced by hers.

I am mostly grateful for it.

One thing that I can never forget is that she won many CDs by answering questions on the radio. Sometimes she phoned “too much” and won “two much”, so her little brother (me) phoned instead. I don’t know or cannot recall how many CDs I won this way, but I roughly remember which ones I won.

I listen to one of them right now (Warren G) and it always astounds me that something shipped to me 30 years ago still works impeccably. Stuff manufactured today is very unlikely to be usable or playable in 2056.

hese days I use two media players to play my CDs (mostly 1990s albums and collections). One is KDE’s Dragon Player (because it’s based on Qt), the other is VLC. The latter has a lot more functionality but higher RAM footprint. In the past I used even leaner applications to achieve the same functionality. Those are no longer compatible with this setup (a lot changes in 20+ years in this sector).

I might write a detailed analysis about this some time in the future in a more Linux-centric site, but I need a unique and useful angle. I don’t have that at the moment.

he music of the past is better and more complex. A year before I was born Lisa Jane Stansfield (from Manchester) won Search for a Star and I still listen to her music in 2026.

Why is it that nobody in today’s “music industry” (the term industry seems misplaced, it’s meant to be an art form, not manufacturing) can still replicate what was accomplished when vocals could also play 2-3 instruments? Have the standards been lowered?

Similarly, computer programs used not to ship until they were well tested, solid, reliable. There was no “patching along the way”.

We’re settling on worse quality for the sake of “profit maximisation”.

‘ve just found this 15-year-old performance by 10cc. I particularly like how ~40 years later they still sound mostly the same (I assume they’re not smokers) and can play reasonably well, recreating their work from the mid-70s. The fact all of them are alive and mentally well (enough to go on stage) is a sign of good health and happiness.

Many musicians (both new and old) don’t last long. They perish (die) or become unable to perform within a short period of time. It’s a form of burnout.

Lo and behold, Wikipedia says: “On July 2nd, the record label Breaking Wave announced that it had signed 10cc to release a new album later in 2026″ (that’s last month).

Enshittification as standards lowered.

wrote about 10cc last night. It was a local band that reached international fame and had very creative number-one hits.

By 1974, they had a large enough portfolio to put on a good show on BBC. Despite it being 52 years old, the music has aged well and the talent extends from instruments to vocals (they have both). Earlier today my father agreed with me that music has gotten a lot worse and simpler – and not in the flattering sense of the word “simpler”. He too misses some of the old music.

This music is still available – for those who wish to access it.

We also spoke about the hospitality sector and how competitive it has become (again, not in the good sense of the word “competitive”). He told me that the health club he once managed had in it a member who was the mother of the owner of a local (nearby) hotel and a wide array of similar hotels worldwide. It’s now hard to compete with those “giants”. Back in the 90s the consolidation and ripoff that follows wasn’t so bad.

Prices of things will continue to soar, global warming will make life harder for many, and the media hardly even mentions climate change anymore.

The media too has been subjected to “consolidation”. A lot is now owners by the biggest polluters. Human civilisation does not matter to these people.

t was 54 years ago in Greater Manchester (Stockport, Salford etc.) that 10cc was formed, one among so many great bands that came into life in this music-rich place. It has a great story to it and good lyrical as well as musical legacy.

I only recently discovered and explored their “lesser famous” work.

The band didn’t last long. Social issues and ego got in the way, as is so often the case with bands and groups.