The Cure For Creative Ageism

At what age is your best creative work behind you?

Researchers at Ohio State University suggest the answer is more complex than you might think.???

That’s because they’ve found there are two types of creative thinkers: conceptual innovators and experimental innovators, and each peak at very different stages in life. Conceptual innovators are those who defy convention to achieve creative breakthroughs. They peak around age 25.? Experimental innovators are those who accumulate knowledge and experiences over a lifetime and then find innovative ways to interpret and present that information. They are at their peak around age 55.

I share all of this in the wake of having listened repeatedly to The Cure’s stunning new album, “Songs of a Lost World.”? It’s an incredibly self-assured and expertly crafted piece of art, and the public have taken note of just how truly exceptional it is. This week it hit number 1 in the UK, marking the first time in 32 years that The Cure has topped the charts.

Listening to that album got me thinking about how a band like The Cure can continue to sell out arenas and remain creatively relevant decades after their last hit record and 16 years after their last release. And immersing myself in this masterpiece has left me wondering how a band could go 35 years between their arguably two best records, this one and 1989’s “Disintegration.”

Could it be because Robert Smith, the force behind The Cure, has been blessed as both a conceptual and experimental innovator, capable of highly relevant creative genius in his twenties and then again at age 65?? He truly seems to be someone who’s enjoyed two creative peaks over a long and storied career.

Smith and the Cure are not alone.?Some of my favorite albums in the past couple of years came from artists who released some of their very best work decades after bursting onto the scene with chart-topping albums or songs. Tears for Fears’ 2022 album “The Tipping Point,”? Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning “Just Like That” from the same year and Crowded House’s album “Gravity Stairs,” released this summer, are all late-career stunners. They are records that don’t necessarily break exciting new ground, but are brilliant reflections of both artistic mastery and the lessons and relationships gained over a lifetime. Experimental creativity at its finest.

All this also gets a fella thinking about the implication for the creative industry in which I toil.? Ageism is a very real issue in advertising.? Look around, my agency friends. How many of your colleagues, especially those in the creative discipline, are over 50?? Probably few if any. In fact, studies show only about five percent of our industry is over 50. And that’s a problem precisely because we are severely limiting the impact of those creatives who have accumulated decades of knowledge and experiences and have the ability to achieve peak creativity later in life.

Artists like Robert Smith and Bonnie Raitt are proof that we are not limited to one creative peak. And there are plenty of artists and musicians who first hit creative peaks and finally found some commercial and critical success later in life: Bill Traylor, Howard Finster and Sharon Jones, to name a few.?

“Youth,” George Bernard Shaw famously said “is wasted on the young.”? Creativity in our industry should not be left only to the conceptual thinkers who are blessed with the gift of youth. Let’s make more room for those gray haired experimental thinkers who may still have their best work ahead of them. As Robert Smith and The Cure are so beautifully demonstrating, sometimes the moment calls for the kind of creative brilliance that can only come from having seen some shit.