July 16th – Bit sort of spacey and hippie today;
might have something to do with this prolonged and unseasonal warm spell we’re
having.
There’s juxtaposition, a real dichotomy between what popular
music professes to be, what we expect it to be and what it is, and I’m not at
all sure which is the correct interpretation; maybe you can help out?
The Performer: Portrayed both as beings apart and yet one of us I’d think, against all my
instincts, that the protagonists of Punk came the closest to the viscera of the
public in their stage persona (although we all knew puppet masters like Mr.
McClaren were just pulling the strings on both performer and cash-spending
audience; never has there been a more apt title than The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle; Liberace wasn’t the only one who
laughed all the way to the bank). But Punk just ended up as another fashion
statement, and isn’t this true of any and every popular musical movement; a
case of never mind the quality, feel the width which is probably a true
reflection of the performer in the public’s distorted mirror? Enough of this
Sartre shit. The message of one against the many that is a central tenet of
much of the work of the 60’s thro’ to the beginning of the 80’s seems like so
much hot air when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. From the 80’s and
onward, with ever growing self assurance has developed the selfish,
self-aggrandisement that has figured in much of the musical genres and
performers.
Pink Floyd, Def Leppard, Queen and such others that were
lambasted for their stadium tour mentality and their hedonistic view of why the
world was there (theirs) have been overtaken now by the stadium tour mentality
of Madonna and Beyonce, of Take That and The Spice Girls; if it walks like a
duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck then the chances are…?
The Message: From peace and love to I spit on
you, the message has been ostensibly one of soft rebellion and sometime active
dissention towards the power of money and privilege. In essence we all know
that’s the right way life should be lived, as part of collective whole where
the good of all comes before the good of self but, hopefully, not at the
expense of self. Set up as sages and seers, some performers take on the mantle
of prophets, but it’s us who stitch together the cloak they wear.
The Backup: Some would say that we have to be
careful, that we’re dealing with the performer’s fragile ego; I think the short
answer to that is;
‘’Bollocks.’
Make someone feel special enough and after a very short while
they’ll begin to believe it, unfortunately often not in a good way. The
performer is the vortex, the central core around which all the debris spins.
Everything depends on him or her getting exactly what they want when they want
it, otherwise the debris is jettisoned. If the performer decides in a fit of
pique that they don’t want to do it any more the gravy-train stops so the
entourage has a vested interest in making sure the void facing the performer,
should they decide to stop, is endless, bottomless, cataclysmic; the groupies,
the drug-dealers, the toys, the booze, the hangers-on and claques are all there
to keep the driver of the gravy-train on track and functioning so as to keep
the A&R men, management, agent, promoter, tour manager, shrink, personal
trainer and publicist gainfully employed.
I’ve mentioned before my unhealthy thoughts about the soul of
the music industry. What’s become more transparent in the vast majority of
cases is a;
‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’
mentality that has permeated each musical revolution and, with
very few exceptions, has metamorphosed into a story about the self. It should
be all about the music but we know it’s all about the money. The sorts of fees
demanded by top performers from all sides of the entertainment industry are, in
honesty, often immoral, but I guess if someone’s fool enough to pay it then why
should the performer be fool enough not to take it? But taking it and what you
do with it are two different things.
Neither because he’s an easy target, nor because he’s dead,
but on this day in 1996 the Sultan of Brunei paid Michael Jackson 15 million
dollars for him to perform at his birthday party; one performance, on one day -
$15m…
Probably gave it all to a kid’s charity…either that or spent
it on tasteless furniture…
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