There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask The Beatles, or at least the surviving ones. When Beatlemania started, and fans all over the world were crazed with delight at the mere sound ot their name, did they find it pleasurable, or terrifying? I know in many cases they thought they might be crushed to death, or pulled to pieces, but I’m speaking more of psychological terror. Can you imagine how disorienting it must be to go over the course of around 18 months from being a hometown favourite in a little urine-reeking subterranean club in the north of England, not exactly rock and roll Ground Zero to that point, to inspiring mass nearly global hysteria? Did they think it was something they were doing, or that it was just the universe being all zany and capricious?
I’d also like to ask The Who, or at least the surviving ones, something. By all accounts, Roger Daltrey was the group thug, even in the days when he teased his hair and wore ladies’ shoes and shawls. What could emboldened him to allow Mr. Townshend to try to steal his lead singer's spotlight with his implacable exhibitionism? And how did Mr. Townshend summon the gall for such exhibitionism when there was hardly a guitar player in the UK whose chops didn’t surpass his own by miles and miles and miles and miles and miles? In this, he might have been the exact opposite of Rod Stewart, who four years later would have to be coaxed out from behind the amplifiers when he toured with Jeff Beck. (I am of course well aware that, as of around 1975, many began wishing that Rod would go back behind the amplifers.)
I would like to ask the countless millions who derogate Kenny G, Nickelback, and Phil Collins, to name the three who spring most inexorably to mind, if they imagine that doing so makes them appear with-it-, arty, and cultured. I believe it has the opposite effect, especially when the disdain involves the use of the word suck, as in Phil Collins sucks. I recently became aware that Nickelback, of whom I’d heretofore managed to steer clear, are indeed really obnoxious, but since when is obnoxiousness something unusual in popular entertainment? I don’t perceive the gap between Kenny G and Branford Marsalis, say, as any wider than that between the late Tom Petty and a genuinely talented songwriter. And Phil Collins is a little bland, but is he any blander than Petty was? While I’m here, in this paragraph, I would like to ask the hundreds of millions who regard Bob Marley as the iconic reggae artist if they’ve ever heard of Jimmy Cliff, who’s far superior in my own view.
(I have rarely hated a colloquially popular word more than I hate suck, which I’ve always found particularly obnoxious, and commonly indicative of intellectual impairment. I would be willing to bet that a large majority of those who commonly describes things as sucking voted for Donald Trump, and in many cases even own Make America Great Again baseball caps. I don’t suppose that all mullet-wearers deploy the expression at the most negligible provocation, but have no doubt that an unusually large percentage of those who say, for instance, “It sucks donkey balls.” have mullets.)
I would like to know why people so rapaciously disdain Sting and Bono. Both seem pretty self-infatuated, and Bono’s self-branding as The Savour of Africa makes one’s flesh crawl a little bit. I’m further aware that he benefits from some tax-avoidance strategies more befitting someone like Donald Trump appointee Stephen (May I Have a Vowel, Please, Carol?) Mnuchin but would we really prefer that our richest rock stars not speak out on behalf of the Amazon rainforest and deprived Africans just because we find their self-regard rather…much? Would we really prefer that they be preoccupied with their collection of exotic sports cars?
Another question for The Beatles. In the days after John Lennon declared that he was no longer wiling to be chained to a rhythm guitar, and took to appearing on stage in sequinned harlequin leotards, toe shoes, garish feather boas, and more makeup than Dusty Springfield, dancing like Tina Turner, pouting suggestively, and generally camping it up a treat, were Paul and Ringo embarrassed?
No comments:
Post a Comment