Age Before Beauty....

Except when it comes to rock 'n roll. Two articles that are particularly harsh on the Osbornes:

Rock stars from the 1960s and 1970s have been hitting Germany's lucrative concert circuit but many of the grandpa-generation acts have disappointed fans and provoked withering reviews in Europe's biggest music market.

The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Genesis, the Who, the Police and Black Sabbath are among the acts appearing this summer in arenas between the Black Forest and the Baltic, in Europe's richest nation with a wealth of top-class concert venues.

...However, the reviews -- and ticket sales -- have been mixed.

"The question is 'why are they bothering?'," said Harald Peters, culture editor and music critic of the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. "Some of these groups are just plain burned out. Others are just old and boring.

"They're getting torn to shreds in reviews. I'm not saying all of them should have stopped at 40. But with some, it's so bizarre and you wonder why. Do they need the money? Didn't they get an education? Can't they do anything else for a living?"

Other critics have mocked the ageing rockers and some newspapers published unflattering pictures of performers who have lived the rock-star lifestyle, looking older than their years.

..."Some people should retire at 30," Mick Jagger, 64, was quoted as telling Kirsten Szastrau of the newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz when she asked him bluntly when he was going to quit.

"I know that there's a lot of talk about that (retirement). But those are rules bureaucrats make. If you're an artist, poet or musician, other things matter. We have the feeling we're still a very good band, and we love what we're doing. Besides that, I'm a terrible plumber. There's nothing else I could do."

Other older bands such as Aerosmith and Genesis have had unenthusiastic reviews.

"The fondness for travel by the senior citizens has nothing to do with art," wrote Jochen Temsch, a critic at Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

"It is business interests that are keeping them going. Sales of recordings have been falling for years in face of the digital challenge and new sources of revenue are needed: live concerts."

Diekmann, whose Deutsche Entertainment is Germany's number two organizer, said revenues from concerts would hit a record 3 billion euros ($4 billion) in 2007, double the value of record sales.

"The live concert market is growing rapidly," Diekmann said.

He said there was enough demand in Germany for the ageing stars. Ticket prices were often higher than elsewhere. But he conceded that not all the acts lived up to expectations and some seemed to be cashing in on past glories.

OLD ROCKERS

"I think you have to differentiate when talking about 'old rockers'," he said, referring to one of the unflattering terms used in Germany to describe musicians with thinning hair, wrinkles or expanding waistlines.

"Some of them have developed their music further, adapted to the times," Diekmann said. "But there are others who haven't.

"The market is the ultimate determining factor," he said. "Where there's demand, there will be concerts. These are artists. They won't be putting on concerts if no one wants to see them."

...Sueddeutsche Zeitung critic Sebastian Gierke said it was "almost tragic" to see Ozzy Osbourne, 58, at a "farcical" concert.

"He kept screaming 'I can't f---ing hear you!' over and over again. You felt like shouting back 'buy a goddamn hearing aid and maybe you'll realize you're singing everything off key'."

And also:

DANNII Minogue's new career as a TV talent show host in Britain has been rocked by an explosive feud with her co-star Sharon Osbourne.

Minogue has been locked in regular behind-the-scenes bust-ups with Osbourne, wife of former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, while hosting Britain's top rating talent show, X Factor.

...Minogue, who hosted Australia's Got Talent, has been reduced to tears after some of her spats with Osbourne, The People newspaper has reported.

"Sharon's nose has been well and truly put out of joint by the arrival of Dannii," one unnamed source told the newspaper.

"In previous series she has been the star of the show. She brought the glamour and sexiness. This year she was hoping things would be the same, particularly as her own chat show crashed and burned.

"But she feels Dannii is taking over. She thinks she is the star of the show. She is younger, sexier and Sharon hates it."

Fellow co-host Simon Cowell, of American Idol fame, has further inflamed tensions by planning to get Dannii's sister Kylie Minogue on the show to give finalists one-on-one coaching and teach them to sing one of her hits.

"Sharon never tried to get her family on the show because that's not what it's about," the source told the newspaper.

"But now with the hype around Kylie's involvement, Sharon feels it's turning into The Minogue Show."