Old rock stars still playing

Depends on a lot of factors.

Gary Numan was always basically autistic weird. If anything, he puts more emotion into his performance these days than he ever did when he was young. So he gets a pass.

Al Jourgensen melted his brain with drugs. It is extremely unlikely he knows what day of the week it is, let alone which decade he currently inhabits. So he gets a pass.

Mick Jagger is a shambling revenant vector of ten-thousand venereal diseases. He is the faggot who was and the faggot who ever will be. He does not get a pass because (a) his heart left the band at some point during the 80s and (b) he is standing next to Keith.

Bowie is dead and got a pity pass for the last year of his life.

Madonna looks like an advertisement for beef jerky. Her sole contribution to music in the past twenty years has been to consistently flash her labia for the paparazzi. Her labia now looks like a dog's chew toy. Madonna does not pass.

Reznor is a fucking embarrassment who looks like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, if Eeyore overdosed on steroids and was speedballing anti-depressants. Worse, his new music is complete shit. Does not get a pass.

Devin Townsend is three albums past his usual 'run out of ideas, kill the band, start over' phase that keeps him feeling fresh and interesting. Although you know that the new stuff is kinda alright, deep down you know that the bottom of the barrel has been reached and nothing truly good will come of it.

I guess it comes down to why they are continuing to make music. Money is not enough. Desperately clinging to fame is not enough. Bandwagoning atop the latest insipid political crusade is not enough. People need to make music because they have something they need to say; great music shouldn't sound like a product, it should sound like a fucking exorcism.

A lot of the smaller, cult bands that are still touring are doing it not because they want to, but because they have no other choice. Even some bigger bands from the 90s are on never ending tours just to maintain the lifestyle they rooted themselves in when the royalties were good.

It does beg the question of the musician's authenticity. If they're there to keepthe lights on at home when they would rather be doing something else, how authentic of a performance can the audience expect? My dad is just as old as Al Jourgenzen.. You know what my dad likes to do? Nothing.