“A performer who sings while doing dance choreography is going to train differently than a drummer who’s constantly seated and in a more hunched position. Festivals came back, smaller venues that survived the pandemic have been hosting shows since early summer, and a couple weeks ago, in a climactic jolt of normalcy, Billy Joel restarted his residency at Madison Square Garden.Īccording to Battle, the physical preparations for a touring schedule vary based on the exact tasks and maneuvers someone is executing on stage: Physical fitness has definitely been front of mind for musical artists this year, of all years, as the music industry crawls back from an 18-month quarantine to what’s been hailed as a triumphant return. Early on in her career, Jennifer Lopez was frequently told that she “should lose a few pounds.” Carrie Underwood would read comments from her own fans on message boards that said “Carrie’s getting fat.” Long before that, in the mid-80s, Bruce Springsteen aggressively strength-trained for his Born in the USA tour in an effort to channel a working man’s masculinity, completely transforming the lithe frame that graced the cover of Darkness on the Edge of Town. Seventeen miles a day on a treadmill.”įor others in the industry, both men and women, fitness represents the weight of expectation. As Eminem said in 2015, “When it came to running, I think I got a little carried away. For some, it’s been used as a replacement addiction for drugs. In an era when former sitcom role players like Kumail Nanjiani are now building six-pack abs, lifting weights is now as compulsory as reading lines.įitness has intersected with music for years as well, if too often in problematic, fragmented ways. Consider that Michael Jordan’s fabled day-drinking before games probably wouldn’t be so warmly received in an era where basketball stars spend over $1 million on their bodies a year, or the way Marvel has revolutionized how A-listers prepare for roles. As one study concluded a few years ago: “Musicians may be at increased risk to develop unhealthy lifestyles, and even a variety of health problems, due to the stress, anxiety, and the physical efforts they have to carry out.”īut in recent years, mimicking the health kicks of athletes and actors, professional musicians have started to take their bodies seriously. Many researchers have pushed that narrative in a different direction, pointing out that the notoriously destructive lifestyle that attends rock ‘n’ roll isn’t always a choice - it’s often a hapless reaction to a stressful, strenuous job. We’ve long lionized the rockstar way of life all these bad habits are regarded as the just reward of “making it.” They drink whiskey, eat burgers, snort coke and have unprotected sex with strangers … on Tuesdays. They put their bodies through exhaustive travel schedules. Musicians keep irregular sleep-wake cycles. It’s also - obviously - a function of the stereotypical rockstar lifestyle. That number is dragged way down by 27 Club incidents - the many chilling homicides, suicides and accidental deaths that seem to befall bandmates at a rate inconsistent with the rest of us. An eye-popping study from 2015 calculated that “popular musicians” die an average of 25 years younger than the general population. Historically, professional musicians haven’t exactly been bastions of longevity.
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