So many candidates: several of the
cūli emeritus causa, Robert Preston waffling from ignorance about Chile, but Lynskey on the Rolling Stones wins it going away.
The Stones' unpleasantness was integral to their uncanny power. In an era when many young people saw rock stars as potential heroes of the revolution, the Rolling Stones appealed to less altruistic desires: sex and money. If the Beatles were rock's questing superego, then the Stones were the slavering id.
They are an R&B band, for chrissake. Are we to look for the "questing superego" of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry and all the others who got a new lease of life thanks to the reverence shown them by English white boy blues?
We shouldn't be surprised by Richards' reactionary words. While Jagger has often told people what they want to hear, Richards tells the truth of the Rolling Stones. He represents the side of rock music that is amoral, hedonistic, self-serving and red in tooth and claw, offering in place of noble aspirations a guiltier, more primal thrill: the licence not to give a damn.
What a wanker.
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What on earth is this guy on about? R&B or not, they're just a band.
ReplyDeleteUnpleasant? How?
Self-serving? Who isn't?
Hedonistic? Their choice.
The Fab four probably took as many drugs than the stones until they finally disappeared up their own behinds.
Questing... If only all bands could be so giving as the multi-billionaire Beatles. Where would we be without them?
As I said, he's a wanker!
ReplyDelete'Transgression' under the label of 'therapy' was the popular collective amusement of the sixties/seventies - to onward generations. Freud was pitted against the popular cartoon of 'Victorian morality' and 'doing your own thing' somehow represented an original individuality.
ReplyDeleteCharacter was replaced eventually by 'style'as
Art by 'performance art.'Being 'different' became the cliche that it is today!