On Late Style

droid

Well-known member
Its his 39th studio album, and its actually pretty good. His voice sounds the youngest it has in about 30 years.
 

Leo

Well-known member
ah, maybe 60th with live albums and comps included. read that number somewhere. not that 39 isn't impressive.
 

jenks

thread death
I remember a discussion on Dylan a few years ago in which K Punk was having none of it. The new album is great, if you like Dylan. It’s not going to convert newcomers, I think. There’s a great deal of humour in there, knowing winks about his own legend, some outrageous rhymes that just hold, wry jokes but also it does feel like he’s doing some summing up - his review of the twentieth century on Murder Most Foul and his inward glare on Multitudes. Whether you buy into that or just think it’s a series of cheap tricks is up to you. It feels sincere to me.
I’ve kind of got to that stage now where I generally think about most things - I like it but I don’t necessarily expect anyone else to.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Mandelbrot:

Some time back, I tried to draw up an informal list of those who have done their best work late in life. Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell published their celebrated Principia Mathematicae between 1910 and 1913. Therefore, Whitehead was about 50, and before the Principia had not produced anything of significance; Russell was just 30. Yet the cover page lists the co-authors in inverse alphabetic order, meant to emphasise that the senior author was Whitehead. He had been in charge of the mathematical part of the book but Russell was a famous high aristocrat, well known for pacifist views; he went to prison, etc. As a result, Principia Mathematicae is usually considered the work of Russell 'helped' by Whitehead, while the inverse would be more just.
Another deeply entrenched myth is that a mathematician who interrupts his work for 10 years "forgets everything", "loses his ability" and consequently is destined to disappear. Inversely, a writer or composer can stop for 10 years and come back stronger than before…
 

sus

Moderator
Three weeks earlier, [Paul] Simon had released a new album, “Stranger to Stranger,” with its cover taken from a portrait that Close painted of the musician a few years back. Then, the day before I saw [Chuck] Close, Simon announced that the album would be his last. “I called him up, and I said, ‘Artists don’t retire,’ ” Close told me. “I think I talked him out of it. I said: ‘Don’t deny yourself this late stage, because the late stage can be very interesting. You know everybody hated late de Kooning, but it turned out to be great stuff. Late Picasso, nobody liked it, and it turned out to be great.’ ” Close reminded Simon that Matisse was unable to continue painting late in life. “Had Matisse not done the cutouts, we would not know who he was,” Close said. “Paul said, ‘I don’t have any ideas.’ I said: ‘Well, of course you don’t have any ideas. Sitting around waiting for an idea is the worst thing you can do. All ideas come out of the work itself.’ ”
 

version

Well-known member
I read a review of the new Refn thing, Copenhagen Cowboy, that simply said:

"Is it possible to exercise late style before exiting your prime?"

😂
 
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kid charlemagne

Well-known member
i searched and this is the only thread that mentions murder most foul. listening before i go to bed. its so remarkable that he put something of this magnitude out at the age he is. i am also a huge proponent and admirer of "late style", specifically bob dylan, lou reed, paul schrader, scorsese, abel ferrara.
 

Ian Scuffling

Well-known member
I'm mad that you mentioned most of the artists I immediately thought of, but the earlier mention of the inverse being true for music got me thinking as I definitely find that to be my thinking with music, The Grateful Dead, Dylan, and Modest Mouse for example whose earlier work I rarely stray from. But I also thought of an exception, a musician whose last album I think is his best work, our shared beloved David Berman whose last album Purple Mountains functions as his suicide note and is definitely the one where his caution is most windswept, in his lyrics about failed relationships especially. I wonder if we could then consider those whose "late style" is most lauded are those most tinged with regret? Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice comes to mind as evidence of this even if it is explicitly hopeful in the end.
 

version

Well-known member
Coil's later stuff's at least as good as the early stuff, if not better. The same goes for Autechre. My favourite Baudrillard and DeLillo are from their later periods too. Some people's style falls apart with age whilst others go through a process of refinement.

Bacon's last known painting's another favourite. It's this ghostly, half-formed bull in the doorway of a barely-there room. Perhaps he just didn't finish it, but it being his last obviously adds a certain poignancy to that sort of disappearing image, like Bowie climbing into the cabinet and closing it on himself at the end of his last video, although probably not as calculated and stagey.

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kid charlemagne

Well-known member
I'm mad that you mentioned most of the artists I immediately thought of, but the earlier mention of the inverse being true for music got me thinking as I definitely find that to be my thinking with music, The Grateful Dead, Dylan, and Modest Mouse for example whose earlier work I rarely stray from. But I also thought of an exception, a musician whose last album I think is his best work, our shared beloved David Berman whose last album Purple Mountains functions as his suicide note and is definitely the one where his caution is most windswept, in his lyrics about failed relationships especially. I wonder if we could then consider those whose "late style" is most lauded are those most tinged with regret? Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice comes to mind as evidence of this even if it is explicitly hopeful in the end.
i was considering whether tarkovsky would count, because those last two films were the ones outside of russia and certainly different than the russian ones
 

sus

Moderator
I don't think Modern Times was actually Late Style, Dylan was very young when he entered the folk scene, he must've been in his early 60s when he recorded most of it. I think given increasing lifespans, 70s is when Late Style really begins. 60s is practically middle age.

Shadows in the Dark OTOH.

The Presley's not really Late Style but it is deathgasp music.

I think Paul Simon's a big believer in Late Style, based on his conversations with Chuck Close, and has probably put out my favorite Late Style stuff in recent memory

 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Need to listen to murder most foul one day, love time out of mind thru modern times. Is it really up to that standard?
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I went to see him with my dad around Love and Theft time thinking this will probably be the last opportunity, amazing to think he's still going. He was brilliant.
 

william_kent

Well-known member
Burroughs - Port of Saints, Cities of the Red Nights, Place of Dead Roads, Western Lands.

his best


edit: "blade runner". total perv distillation, heavy pre cog `'open source' NONCEsnce
 
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