Entertainment For Lively Minds
Artist Or Intellectual? Creative Genius Or Just Business Savvy?
This video caught my attention the other day when I was looking for articles written by Lester Bangs. I am curious to find out more about his influence on rock journalism but, apart from finding his old reviews at the Rolling Stone website, I have pretty much only been able to find articles written about him rather than by him.
In this recorded interview he is throwing out a theory (or just having a good old moan) that some rock artists such as Brian Ferry and David Bowie are not performing or producing work for the music, rather as an “advertisement for their own ego”. I find this point of view quite interesting and, to me, this theory would most likely apply to an artist whose body of work (I so wanted to say “oeuvre” then, but I stopped myself) I am unable to feel enthusiastic about or understand the many plaudits they have aquired over the years..
I started brainstorming for artists who might come under this catagory and tried to work out why I had included them. Some reasons were their willingness to shift musical genres at will to satisfy the current rock/pop trend or because they just seem to be churning out the same thing over and over again without having anything of weight to express.
Here is my rough list:
David Bowie
Brian Ferry
Elvis Costello
Bjork
Sting
Johnny Borrell
Morrissey
PJ Harvey
Brandon Flowers
Some of these artists I really do respect greatly and it is probably for this reason that they have dropped into my list. Many of them you can imagine landing on their feet and carrying on comfortably if they were unable to continue with their music careers tomorrow. The likes of Bowie, Ferry, Costello, Sting, Borrell and Harvey you can see popping down to the temping agency in the high street and having a six month contract start the next day if it all went “Pete Tong”. Artists like Bjork and Morrissey have found it just a little too easy to whiz around using collaborators and producers to create their “wild new sound” for them and seem to be singing the same songs over and over again just with a different backing track.
Brandon Flowers on the other hand appears to be carving a career for himself and his band out of conducting himself in the fashion of Joaquin Phoenix in the notorious David Letterman Show interview. He comes across as being “out to lunch” both spiritually and musically.
Who would you count as an “intellectual who just happened to get involved in music” and who would you define as being “all about rock & roll”, a person who would probably just flop around on the floor and expire if they did not have a music career?
James
(Sheffield)
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Bangs' bottle of Romilar just out of shot...
That's the first time I've ever seen footage of him. Great writer.
Not certain about his argument though... although I've always thought Bryan Ferry was something of a prat, somewhat in the way that Sting is.
Brandon Flowers??????
The guy is a music obsessive. The only times I've seen him interviewed, he's been erudite, intelligent and self deprecating. Can't say I've noticed anything overtly "careerist" about him (though undoubtedly there must be an element of that to anyone signed to a major)
Have to agree there. He
Have to agree there. He talks with quite authentic passion about Pet Shop Boys on their A Life in Pop documentary. He doesn't seem wholly at ease in interviews, but I wouldn't hold that against anyone.
Collected works, yours for £6.98 at Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychotic-Reactions-Carburetor-Dung-Five/dp/1852...
Seconded...
It's all the Bangs you need.
(and at that price, it's a lot of Bangs for your buck - snigger)
Thirded...
Absolutely classic collection of writings where you feel Bangs is more rocknroll than most of the bands he writes about.
In defence of Costello
He lives, eats and breathes music. His genre hopping is an index of his musical skills and artistic maturity. He was born to be a writer, and I suspect had rock'n'roll not snapped him up, some other arena would. He's a fine singer and guitarist too - lots of guts beneath that mighty intellect of his.
Sting, on the other hand, as Patrick rightly says, is simply a prat. A lucky prat.
A prat yes...
but he made some fine records with The Police.
True
- he got lucky, in that sense.
I'm not denying his talent. He's just so calculating.
The Social Climbing Oil Slick
and The Tantric Lute Spanker in the same thread. I feel rather unwell.
At least the Tuberous one did not sire Otis ( if ever a name was less appropriate... )
Changed mind
I was a big fan of EC back in the late 70s, then went off him big style with that dreadful album with Bacherach (yes, I know some of you like it) and that awful faux croonery singing style he developed.....but recently I discovered his series of podcasts called "The first 10 years" which are presented by EC, very unaffected, full of enthusiasm, modest, and basically I have warmed to him again. Still can't listen to the shlocky stuff but remembered what a good writer and enthusiast he is.
Getting Banged up
The two compendiums of his scribblings are only 7 quid each at Amazon and both are very entertaining.
There's also quite a lot of Bangs at the utterly excellent Rock's Backpages, but it's a bit steep - an annual subscription costs £30.
The ultimate "intellectual who ended up in music"
is, surely, Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno Ole Biscuit-Barrel? Some years ago, I was invited to a lecture he gave about the art of the perfumier. Of course, he MIGHT have been talking bollocks but it sounded convincing to me.
Having said that, Brian May is, in the strictest sense of the word, 'a brainbox' and seems to be (finally) making a success of his career in Astronomy
...as is Brian Cox, although he seems to have broken the LHC @ CERN so maybe he's not THAT clever after all.
Hmm... I see a theme emerging here.
"We all wear masks of some description or other"
would be my response to Lester Bangs' entertaining critique of the "vaccuous" Mr. Ferry. Some people have personalities that are not so different when performing from when they're not performing (cf. Keith Moon) while for others the performance or the process of creating the performance is what drives the personality, rendering them empty husks when out of the spotlight.
Roxy Music for me were always more like an art installation than rock 'n' roll before they were pulled by increasing levels of commercial leveraging of their "art". I've no problem with that compromise either if it meant getting an album as sublime as 'Avalon'.
Seriously
who on earth is Johhny Borrel ? Never heard of him.
Razorlight bloke
- you haven't missed much. I'd say.
Oh Good God
That preening bollox ! Utter Tommyrot.
Could we say the same of a lot of contemporary comedians?
I'm not sure intellectual is exactly the right word, but watching the average comedy quiz show, it strikes me that comedy now attracts ambitious people who wouldn't necessarily gone into comedy thirty years ago. For example, on Mock the Week, Frankie Boyle is the only one who strikes me as really driven as a comedian, and would be at a loss if it fell through. Dara O'Briain and the others would probably move smoothly into acting or a little light journalism.