The oldest artist to record a number one album
The pop music business has forever been labelled a young person’s game. Many artists peak with their debut album released as a teenager and fail to hit the same heights again. However, there are always outliers to the rule and artists who stay relevant despite being comfortably into their autumnal years.
The musical landscape traditionally caters to artists at the start of their careers for a variety of different reasons. Typically, when an artist becomes mainstream recognised, they have years worth of material stored away, ready for when they finally earn a record deal. Additionally, there is a hunger to tour around the world and work relentlessly, which is hard to maintain once the money arrives.
As Bob Dylan said in 2015: “Passion is a young man’s game, OK? Young people can be passionate. Older people gotta be more wise. I mean, you’re around awhile, you leave certain things to the young and you don’t try to act like you’re young. You could really hurt yourself.”
Dylan has followed his own advice, and as an ageing artist, he’s stayed true to his older self rather than trying to roll back the years. If you go to see him perform live, the singer-songwriter puts on a show representing where he currently is in life, and he’s refrained from becoming a nostalgia act painfully clinging onto the past.
In 2020, Dylan released his album Rough and Rowdy Ways, which topped the UK Official Album Chart, marking his first number one since 2015’s Shadow In The Night. Following the album reaching the pinnacle of the chart, the singer-songwriter became the oldest artist to score a number one LP with a studio album.
However, the record was only Bob Dylan’s for 12 months, as octogenarian crooner Tom Jones knocked him off his perch. Aged 80, the Welsh singer scored his first number one album in 22 years with Surrounded By Time, earning him a place in the history books.
After becoming a record-breaker, Jones said: “I am thrilled beyond words with the reception for Surrounded By Time, and to now hold these UK chart records is tremendous, just unbelievable. I am so proud of everyone who helped me create the music, I had a ball working with them, and to get this result is just incredible.”
He added: “It’s wonderful that the public has allowed me to be musically expressive at my time of life and have shown their support. I am forever grateful.”
Before the release of the album, Jones exclusively revealed to Far Out that he had no plans to retire anytime soon and hoped to release many more records before eventually bowing out. “When people used to say to me, ‘How long do you think you’d want to be on stage?’ I said to them about 97. Now, I don’t know why I came up with 97, but I did. I want to sing as long as I can. A lot of old people lose the flexibility, especially with their vocals,” he remarked.
Listen to Surrounded By Time below.
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