I dunno, randomly subjectively I don't find it true. I now searched for older and newer Rolling Stones songs and I don't really find old ones all that better. It is quick search, but I had the same observation with other bands I liked. I am more likely to listen to new albums - unless I have particular nostalgia attached to song. (In particular I find old Madonna boring to listen and tend to like 50% of new songs whenever they come out.)

But, they are not the genre that would be interesting to young crowd. Pretty often they don't speak of feelings that young crowd wants to see in music, they speak to people like me more. This stuff is followed mostly by where young culture goes, because they consume the most, pay the most and have interest to discover new things.

> The early deaths of legends like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain etc. are tragic, sure, but does anyone really believe these guys would have put out their best work at 40?

I have listened to Kurt Cobain albums lately and what striked me was that the music was much alike song to song. So he would have to change up (angering some fans as result) or his n-th album would become out of touch. Kurt Cobain is precisely the kind of music that spoken strongly to some young people at the time - it expresses certain generational sentiments.