Do singers get sick of performing their greatest hits?

Most do , but understand that at show the fans want to hear their old familiar stuff and not new music.

Ka-ching. no

I remember in 1986 during her 'One Voice' concert, Streisand said 'It's so much fun to sing a new song!' after she finished 'Over the Rainbow'. Now there's a not so subtle hint she's tired of 'Evergreen' and 'The Way We Were'.

Stevie Nicks had it the worst .. fans expected her to sing hits about her ex, directly TO her ex, over and over onstage.

But like R2 says, …. 💵💰

No, it's like muscle memory.

Like Kylie Minogue said in "The Residence," "I had to sing Can't Get You Out of my Head ten times! Ten fucking times!"

R3 She's so full of it given how notorious she was at the point for rarely performing live.

Just think of how much repetitive shit you have to do every day in your own job, especially if you have a position in which you need to appear "up for it" all the time and can never seem bored or tired or annoyed. At least performers get rewarded with applause.

R6. In defense of Miss Minogue there are an awful lot of la la las in that song.

I remmeber in 1987, Donna Summer toured to promote her new album 'All Systems Go' which was being released in a matter of weeks. Every song she sang in full was off the new album, which fans weren't familiar with (except for 'Dinner With Gershwin' which was getting some moderate radio play). As for her 'hits', she did those in a very brief medley. She did close the show - as she usually did - with 'Last Dance'. I'm not sure who had this idea to do it - I don't think Geffen was promoting the album, so I don't think they were funding the concert tour.

Overall, I enjoyed it - she was always a great entertainer on stage and her voice was at its peak. But the reviews weren't kind the next day (over song selection), and as we were leaving the theater many fans seemed disappointed. If she continued with this tour for the next few months or so (I saw her in Boston, where she kicked off this tour) it didn't help her album sales at all.

By 1991, on her 'Mistaken Identity' tour, she went back to all her hits in full and pulled a few songs from the new album she was promoting. That was more like it !

What is the alternative? They should be thankful that they have hits to perform

A ble$$ing and a curse!

They always insert a song no one has ever heard of. The energy in the audience always goes down for those moments

That's the cue to go to buy beer and snacks or use the bathroom... when they perform the new shit

I was so sick of "Over the Rainbow" that I had to die to get away from it.

I remember years ago when Cher was on one of her many "farewell" tours, Cyndi Lauper was her opening act.

Cyndi came out on stage with a zither and performed all her hits on it. I love Cyndi, but this was excruciating.

I'm so fucking sick of Evergreen. After the third time, I had had sufficient 40 years ago.

Then you have entertainers like Madonna who had dozens of top ten hits yet for years put a miniscule amount of hits into her set lists. And two of those numbers would inevitably be "Candy Shop" and "Human Nature"

R16, I saw that tour. Cyndi was fantastic! She was almost better than Cher

I recently went to a concert with a 1980’s singing star (wont say which). Wow, he sounded awful. He sang some of his hits but then tried to sprinkle in things like “My new single!” He croaked his little heart out

[quote]As for her 'hits', she did those in a very brief medley.

Donna did that in the early 80's as well. That's during the period when she stopped performing "Love to Love you Baby" and "I Feel Love" because she thought they were too dirty.

[quote]Do singers get sick of performing their greatest hits?

Don Ho hated singing "Tiny Bubbles" and refused to sing it, so he would play it and have his audience sing it for him.

but what else did he have to perform?

Probably. Performing music for a living is like any other job: Some days you aren't into it at all and just go through the motions.

OP has never been to a Madonna concert.

Yes, they do. Some of the ones I like have stopped performing some older songs.

Sometimes it's a matter of being sick of the song, sometimes it's the fact that at 40 or 50something, you can't identify with something you wrote in your twenties.

Of course big hitmakers are obligated to some degree to perform at least a handful of hits, but beyond that, most performers on tour will feature their most recent albums with a smattering of older stuff.

Probably. But can you imagine Swift coming out and saying "I am so over performing Love Story"? The smart & commercially minded ones know to shut up and sing.

Yes. It's what drove Britney Spears insane. She begged for remixes of her songs and felt like an uninspired robot puppet.

I think this is one of life's cosmic jokes. You become wealthy and famous, but the catch is you have to play the same songs over and over and over for the rest of your life - no matter what your mood, what you are going though, or how you feel.

I was a big B-52's fan. I see them now in their 70s with ridiculous costumes and wigs, acting goofy and singing the same songs they've been singing for 40-50 years. Kill me first.

Would you rather go to a Madonna concert and here the entirety of Madame X plus Human Nature and Music?

A few years ago, a friend invited me to see Depeche Mode, who were on tour promoting their new album, Spirit. I was a big DM fan back in the day, but now pushing 50, I hadn't really kept up with them. But I went, and with the exception of 2 or 3 songs, DM stuck to songs from the new album. I sat there watching and listening to Dave Gahan sing, but frankly, I was bored. And from the tepid response from the audience, they were probably bored as well.

Then, last year, same friend invited me to see them again. I was hesitant to go because of the last experience, but I went, and this time DM performed hit after hit, interspersed with songs from their new album. The audience were on their feet the whole time, singing along and their response to the band was electric.

DM probably hate performing Personal Jesus or Strangelove again and again, but these are what the fans want to hear.

Sheena Easton has said she used to get tired of singing her hits but at one point realized just how thankful she was that she had hits and people still wanted to hear them. So she started singing them with new vigor.

Don't ask me for sources but I remember reading that Courtney Love hates singing Violet, Sheryl Crowe hates Soak Up the Sun, Thom Yorke hates Creep and REM hates Shiny Happy People.

Greatest hits are easy to lip sync

Radiohead went through a very long period of loathing Creep and refusing to perform it. They had a single on the follow-up record, basically calling all the people who liked it stupid teenagers.

Madonna has said that if she had known that she would be called "The Material Girl" for the rest of her life, she never would've recorded the song.

r10 Donna Summer's idiot husband Bruce Sudano was her manager and there were a lot of mistakes made in the 80s. Donna needed a competent, professional management team to handle her career but unfortunately she was too devoted to her idiot husband.

[quote]Donna did that in the early 80's as well. That's during the period when she stopped performing "Love to Love you Baby" and "I Feel Love" because she thought they were too dirty.

And she would stop the show to talk about God and Jesus and then she'd sing spiritual songs. That was the last thing that Donna Summer's audience wanted to hear, and it hurt her brand. Again, her idiot husband was in charge by then and she didn't have effective management to tell her to knock it off with the Jesus stuff and sing the fun slutty disco songs that people were coming to her shows for.

[quote]Sometimes it's a matter of being sick of the song, sometimes it's the fact that at 40 or 50something, you can't identify with something you wrote in your twenties.

Grace Slick has said that this was the reason why she retired from the music business circa 1990. She was around 50 and she said she felt totally ridiculous singing all the 60s and 70s songs about drugs and fucking as a middle-aged person.

Madonna sings her top hits in concerts, but she usually changes up the musical arrangements or mashes them up with other songs or sings abridged versions or builds whole new conceptual vignettes around the songs to keep them fresh and interesting.

^^that's the way to do it.

Alison Moyet won't sing Invisible any more because she hates it. It was her only solo top 40 song in the states but few people that attend her concerts seem to mind.

R27 That makes sense. Taylor is a good salesperson for her music. It's shit on a shingle and people still eat it up. Sia, for example, is someone who has better music and should be more famous by music merit but isn't as good at selling it.

To be fair R31, Memento Mori is probably Depeche Mode’s strongest album since Playing The Angel in 2005. Spirits was quite weak. Their MM tour had fantastic reviews.

Barbra talks about going to Marseilles to hear Jacques Brel, and he disappointed her by not singing his greatest hits. She explains that's why she still performs 'People'.

No, it doesn't appear so......

Janet Jackson doesn't. She always plays all of her hits.

They do it because they know that it's what you want to hear and it's making them millions.

I'd rather fly into a mountain than perform "Garden Party" ever again.

I’ve seen Betty Buckley in concert 5 times over the years. She’s only sang Memory once in those 5 concerts.

Madonna can’t get sick of songs she hardly ever sings. After Blond Ambition, the only two tours she sang a lot of hit were Reinvention (and even then not a whole lot, just more than her avg) and Celebration where she sang all hits and a few non hits. What a shame seeing as she has a fuck ton of hits. Imagine how huge some of her tours would’ve been had she sang all the hits plus just a few new songs? Her tours would’ve been huge.

Some only have their hit.

Metallica HAAAAAATES Enter Sandman

I can’t believe they don’t. But I also can’t imagine doing the same part in a play month after month.

I can see acts who play over 200 shows. Madonna has always had very limited tours. Until 2008 her tours had very few dates as she hated to tour and she only liked to tour during the summer. What’s her excuse? Still, even with limited dates her tours were the top tours. Imagine if she’d done the # others did?

I've always seen between 10-20 live shows a year. I do not expect the musical act to be a jukebox. I want to hear some more recent music, maybe some lesser known songs that were not hit singles off albums, and maybe a cover song, but everyone in the audience does expect at least a few of their hit sings during the performance.

I still recall in 1989 when I saw Lou Reed and his band at the St James Theater on Broadway play his new album, New York, in sequence order for the first act. For the second half they played about half dozen of his previous well known solo stuff and a couple of Velvet Underground songs. That show was a stand out.

Plus when they sing their hits, there’s rarely any emotion -just singing them straight through. I watched Elton John’s final concert on TV—he rushed through everything like he wanted to get out of there

My advice- do not go see a performer you loved decades ago. They will sound terrible and nothing like you remember. The will talk-sing their song. They’ll kept turning the microphone to the audience to actually sing the songs.

It’s always sad and disappointing. Wait for the 3D AI re-creation tours. They’re on the horizon

That’s why Barbra Streisand is a trouper. She still belts out People with the best of them!

R58 there’s zero Fucking way I’m going to pay money to watch a projection play and play in a concert.

I read that Todd Rundgren apparently plays all his newer and new stuff first and put his top 40 "hits" at the end of the show, so if you want to hear "we got a get you a woman" or "a dream goes on forever" you're honor-bound to stay till the end

^^^^ gotta

Not really an "oh, dear" because autocorrect but oh, dear! anyway

OP, I am bleary eyed after work and thought you typed “do sinners get tired of playing their greatest hits.”

Even Streisand sounds pretty old and croaky nowadays