Photo by Craig Hlavaty

Wanda Jackson performing at SXSW 2010

Age gets us all eventually. I'm only in my early twenties and already I'm having to do stupid things like eating healthier, quitting the smokes, and watching my blood pressure. So it really shouldn't come as any surprise that musicians start to slow down in their old age, especially if they've been plugging away at writing and recording since the 1960s.

Today, however, we'll look at five that started off in the era of free love and still produce records today that don't suck. In fact, these five are still producing amazing and relevant records that captivate audiences of all ages.

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Hey 2013. We need to talk. You've already produced a number of good albums, some even by new bands. But I've got a bone to pick with you, and it's about this new song by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams. It's called "Get Lucky" and it's making waves with its disco revival sound that I'm guessing its 18 million viewers on YouTube thinks is revolutionary in some way.

Let's get this straight though. What Daft Punk has done here is not really new or revolutionary. In fact, it's a pretty huge step back for what were once innovators. Personally, I consider this a pretty big misstep in the Daft Punk canon. It's not that the song is awful, but for a group that did revolutionize electronic music at one time, it's amazing to me that they would make such a half-assed attempt at a genre filled with songs that make this one look so poor in comparison.

I could go on for days, but here's five to check out to put "Get Lucky" in context.

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Photo by Marco Torres

Drake, Houston's favorite Canadian-born adopted son

All month long now, the AV Club has been running a new feature called State Songs featuring performances of famous songs revolving around each of the fifty states, one state per month. This month was Texas, so of course it caught our attention here at Rocks Off. But it made me think about something. Why are all the great shout-outs to Texas coming from Texan artists?

Sometimes it seems like we have the greatest appreciation for our own state. Sure, everybody in the US loves New York or California, but you don't hear many from the northeast saying how much they love Texas. That's why I decided to compile a list of some of the tributes Texas has received from bands who aren't from here but love the state anyway.

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Juan Manuel Parra via Wikimedia Commons

Late to the party as ever, I recently caught up with the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, Push the Sky Away, in light of the hype over their SXSW showcase last week. The album is fantastic, of course, but one thing that immediately jumped out at me upon listening to it was the interesting choice that Cave and his ever-present production partner Nick Launay had made for the sonic landscape: the slick, yet warm sensibilities of it reminded me of one of the greatest producers of our time, Daniel Lanois.

For those not familiar, Lanois has one hell of a track record of classic albums under his belt. Three albums with his stamp on them have won Album of the Year at the Grammys, and four have been nominated. Many might know him today for his indelible contributions to U2's long string of hit albums, but you might find his name in the production credits of any number of your favorite albums.

I decided to revisit those records this week and come up with what I believe to be his five greatest achievements.

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General Dome, the newest album from Buke and Gase.

I have to be honest with you here, readers: when I see a "bands to watch in (insert year here)" list, I usually give it a cursory look, wretch in disgust, and x out of it as quickly as possible. Not because the bands are awful, because they're bland! Almost every list focuses on some flavor-of-the-week indie-rock or punk-rock bands we'll all forget before the year even ends.

So instead, dear readers, I want to point out some bands to you to watch this year who are off the beaten path. I'm talking about weird bands here, doing something interesting and, if not new, at least different from what everybody else is doing. Even if you don't love them, you probably won't forget them in 30 seconds.

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This guy is just as surprised and confused as we are by all these Guided by Voices albums.

Boy, Guided by Voices has released a lot of albums lately, huh? Since their reunion, Bob Pollard's classic indie-rock band has been producing almost nonstop, releasing three albums -- Let's Go Eat the Factory, Class Clown Spots a UFO and The Bears for Lunch -- in 2012, and an EP called Down by the Racetrack just last week. There's another full-length called English Little League coming at the end of April, too.

With all that, you may find yourself saying, "I like Guided by Voices, but I don't have time to listen through all of those records!" Or maybe you're asking yourself, "where do I even begin with all this?" Well fear not, music fan who is short on time! I've listened to all three records and the new EP and herein is your listening guide to the ten best tracks spread out over the course of all those releases!

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Beyoncé, with others

With all the excitement buzzing around the rumored Destiny's Child reunion during Beyoncé's Super Bowl Halftime set on Sunday, one could be forgiven for picking up a copy of the iconic girl group's latest compilation album, the imaginatively titled Love Songs. After all, it includes a whole stack of DC's smoothest, silkiest R&B ballads, and it's even got a brand-new single attached, to boot.

Rewind:

VIDEO: Beyonce Wows Super Bowl Press Conference Crowd By Singing Anthem Live

But don't do it. Do not buy this record. I know it's bright and shiny and new, and that it's been a while since we got a fresh single from these hometown heartbreakers. But since when, exactly, has Destiny's Child been known for their love songs? You think anybody's going to want to hear "Cater 2 U" at the Super Bowl? Hell no!

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Colin Rego via Wikimedia Commons

Mike Patton performing with Tomahawk

Sunday, Mike Patton turned 45 years old. Tomorrow, the fourth album by his long-running project Tomahawk, entitled Oddfellows, will be released. To say I've got a little bit of Patton fever is an understatement. Maybe some still only know him for Faith No More's rap-metal classic "Epic," which still gets regular radio play 24 years later, but the man has a seriously inestimable body of work spread out across numerous projects in countless genres.

Few artists are as insanely adventurous as Patton, especially within the world of rock music, where you're generally expected to do one thing and one thing only. There's a reason Faith No More never topped "Epic" in terms of sales -- they refused to stick to the script. But with so many damn albums, where does one even get started delving into the mind of Mike Patton? That's where I come in...

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How do you know Klaus Nomi? Maybe you know him as one of David Bowie's cohorts back in the '70s. Maybe you know him for his kitschy covers of old pop standards. Maybe you know him for his bizarre costumes and facepaint. Or maybe you just know that he was one of the first celebrities to tragically pass away from AIDS.

Nomi died in August 1983 at only age 39, but were he still alive today would be his 69th birthday. Who knows where he would be, or what he would be wearing? Given his late-career aspirations, he most likely would be singing opera somewhere. Maybe he'd be performing a brief operatic piece based on Bowie's new album The Next Day.

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Photo by Cory Garcia

Nostalgia starts with burned CDs.

I recommend that once a year you dig out your old CD collection (or MP3 archive if that's how you roll) and give a spin to the music you haven't listened to in forever. Everyone should take a nostalgic listen down memory lane now and then; not only is it good to reconnect with old songs, but you also get to laugh about how wrong you were about certain bands.

We all have bands in our past that we thought were going to be more successful than they ended up being. They come in all different shapes: the band with a string of songs on the radio but no actual hits; the band with the unique sound that was too ahead of its time; the band with the mountain of wasted potential.

Twenty years ago, these groups would fade and you'd never know what ended up happening to them, but thanks to the Internet, no one ever really disappears. I dug into my own nostalgia vault to pick out some of the acts I was wrong about to see where they are now.

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