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Article text courtesy of Economist.com. FOR those rock icons unlucky enough not to die young, remaining relevant and cool can be a problem. Over the years, ageing rockers have tried many strategies to overcome this. Some become esoteric and anti-commercial, with such a sneering disdain for popularity that they are worshipped by the cognoscenti (we might call this approach “The Scott Walker”). Others simply hang around doing what they have always done and wait for the zeitgeist to swing back their way (aka, “The Weller”). Another strategy is to become stingy with your output, thus avoiding the problem of turning into a sad self-parody, and ensuring that the world waits with bated breath for every new release. The danger with this last approach is that, while the level of interest can become frenzied, so do the expectations. In the end it can be impossible for the music to outstrip the hype. On January 8th, on the morning of his 66th birthday, David Bowie released “Where Are We Now?”, his first new record for ten years. It caught everybody by surprise. He had withdrawn almost completely from public view (he was the only British artist to turn down the chance to play at the Olympics closing ceremony). Nobody, it seems, had the slightest inkling that he had been working on new material. [url=http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/01/return-david-bowie]http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/01/return-david-bowie[/url]