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Trey is every bit the geyser of compositional creativity now as he has always been. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any mechanism in place to help him determine which new songs are good and which aren't. My opinion is that in the last ten years, the majority aren't, and in the last four years, they all aren't. Writing good songs is a thing that young people do well. Very, very few people write great songs after the age of forty. Tell me the last good Bruce Springsteen song? The very best - Tom Petty, Sting, Brian Wilson, whatever (you may not like these guys but you can't deny that they are immensely successful songwriters, so for the sake of argument, you agree they write good songs) - all lose it around 40. I think Paul McCartney and Paul Simon both wrote pretty good songs in their 50s and 60s, but they are definitely exceptions to the rule. It's something about a young brain. There's a natural arc to the strengths and abilities that human brains have. Younger people have better reaction times and are more creative. Producing a great song is a mysterious thing but it's definitely something young people do better. Trey has lost it too; this gives me no pleasure to say, because I've been a devoted fan of his music for my whole life. But it's true. He can't write great songs anymore.
Even so, while he may not be aware of the fact that his new originals aren't any good, he would be shocked and dismayed to learn that some fans were encouraging others to ignore their taste and pretend that they are.
Phish can mean many different things to us throughout our lives, and they will probably go through many more changes and eras before it's all over. But I think that anyone claiming they are still producing good new songs is lying to themselves.
People can piss whenever they want