Entertainment For Lively Minds
Who is the coolest band ever?
Posted by Mr Fade on 7 October 2009 - 10:14pm.
Come one, you know what I mean by 'cool'. To qualify you must:
1. Make the guys envy you and the ladies show a large interest.
2. Bother the charts but at the same time seem elusive and underground.
3. Be tuneful and melodic but with lyrics interesting enough to make students wonder.
4. Probably best you've split up by now, and even 'before your time'.
5. Look good in photos but look like you're not really trying.
My vote goes to The Teardrop Explodes (not my favourite band by any means but very cool by any stretch of the imagination). What about the rest of the massive?
- More from Mr Fade.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Oops! There's a singular bracket looking very lonely
there...most uncool, but I can't see an edit button...Fraser?
As usual, the answer is
The Clash
No, sorry, they're too cool to be cool
if that makes any sense?
It does
I love the Clash, but they were a bit self-conscious to be really cool.
Clash as 'cool' as Boyzone
Point 2 is 'bother the charts', something that the Clash regularly and often spectacularly failed to do.
That'll be the 'no' Top 10 hits (until, of course, they sold out, i.e. 'not cool', to a 1980's, i.e. 'overwhelmingly not cool' jeans commercial).
They also missed the coolest pop era: the 60's.
And their military look was dire.
However, the coolest group with worldwide recognition is the Rolling Stones circa '66.
The Clash x Pennie Smith =
Ice Cold
Go west
where the air is free ;-)
The Clash did some great singles, but any band that seemingly based their political worldview on the fact that Che Guevara looked the business in a single-starred beret could never be truly cool...
Definately
the coolest band ever
Of course it's the Clash.
"Cool? Cool? Cool is why my
"Cool? Cool? Cool is why my son needs new trainers every month. Cool is why my daughter has green hair and her boyfriend has a bolt through his nose. Cool costs me money. Cool!"
Well, console yourself that in at about in twenty years time
her boyfriend will be playing punk covers on the mandolin badly in between starring in dreadful sitcoms for terrestrial TV.
As usual the answer is...
Dumpy's Rusty Nuts.
I know this one
The Faces
Good
call. Kind of obscure and well known at the same time.
Yes
The magnificent Ronald 'The Leafy' Lane and a bar on stage.
Nearly
The actual answer is: The Small Faces.
Look at a photo, any photo, of the Small Faces and then compare it with a photo of the Faces and you'll see what I mean. They were the very essence of cool.
sort of
miniscool?
A lot tougher
...than first appears. Most bands us guys respect are not generally regarded cool by the the women I know ... and vice versa. Led Zeppelin qualify perhaps but are not really 'cool' in the sense that Miles Davis and Humphrey Bogart were cool. The Stones may have been once but fail dismally on point 4.
Aren't the Velvet Underground generally considered tres cool?
Yeah but the Velvets weren't that sexy
(although their 'aura' was) and they never really bothered the charts. Plus they did the extremely uncool thing of reforming for some none-too-cool gigs...even worse, they did it before they could have stacked a load of cash and released a dreadful CD of the events. ( I must dig that out, maybe it wasn't so bad!)
Me sir! Me sir!
Galaxie 500.
Easy.
Popular?
No. You have to have had at least one chart hit here or over the atlantic.
Bugger!
Never mind. I still think they're cool.
The essence of cool
Will always be Love
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=love+arthur+lee&www_google_domain=...
Except that
I've never been able to get this striking imagery out of my mind (and not in a good way):
"oh the snot has caked against my pants, it has turned into crystal"
Good point
How about this lot:
So nearly..
You'd have to reverse the guys and girls bit in the first requisite.
Otherwise.. Rufus has it thus far to my mind. Coool. The more I think about it, the better.
yes it would seem from the OP
girls and Gay men and woman etc can't be cool oh and they have to ideally white and pretty.
Teardrop explodes Cool? a future smelly druid and a load on 1982 coldplayblokes with one tune sounds icey to me.
I wasn't saying that at all.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood were very cool though the fallouts and dreadful second album spoilt it. I think Soft Cell were terrifically cool and still love their albums. And as for implying they have to be white?! Where did I say that? As others have mentioned The Wailers and Sly and The Family Stone were extremely cool. So Coldplay are like TE are they? Must be missing something.
New York Monochrome ArtHouse Cool
is the best kind of cool...
See VU comments, below
Blondie - What. A. Band!
Great call.
And probably the correct answer.
Squeeze
Seem to meet your criteria quite nicely.
Might fall down on the early albums lyrics though!
er ... sexy?
Presumably the incarnation NOT featuring Jools.
I know.
Japan.
Archetypal pretty-boy lead singer, girlies got in a terrible froth, very arty, broke band up early, did stuff with avant-garde Japanese people..
But cool.. I'm not sure.
Sorry to be cliched
but didn't that rabble from Liverpool tick all the appropriate boxes over a long period?
There's no avoiding it ...
is there? Obvious really. The HJHs win again.
Please. I know you're right
but can we just do it without them? They're not really obscure enough...there needs to be a bit of mystery. Maybe I should add a new piece of criteria: can only have had under ten books written about them.
Disagree
Didn't look cool post 1966 and the girls reeled away in horror at the face fungus
Sometimes things are obvious for a reason
Had they only done Paperback Writer they would still be number one on this list.
J'adoube
for reasons in reply, I withdraw my HJH nomination. For this thread they are hereby exempted.
The Blue NIle
Surely.
Del Amitri
I just wanted to get this in before Dave Ross did..
One of them had a terrible
tash...therefore discounted. Plus they were dreadful. (Ok, they weren't but Nothing Ever Happens is unbearable.)
If Steps,
& Massive Attack formed a super, über group they would win. God, imagine that. Brilliant.
Er....who's writing the amazing lyrics then?
Pete Waterman? H? Massive Attack?
Well it can't be H can it?
He's dead.
http://img4.imageshack.us/i/stepsy.jpg/#q=h%20is%20dead
Nick Lowe
(white haired version) is the Steve McQueen of pop.
The Stray Cats
on to the next post, this ones done!
Sly & The Family Stone in 1969
Mixed race, mixed gender, massive hits with “counter culture” lyrical themes.
Sounded fresh and exciting. Looked like nothing on earth. Lived on a tour bus. Pretty cool.
And then blew it
- comprehensively - away
...theblew it away....
yeah man, but ain't that cool?
The Smiths
Bit of a Marmite choice, but that's all part of the appeal, innit?
Early Manics?
On a slight tangent, it does seem as if the latest overlooked/ignored band of yesteryear to be re-evaluated by today's young boppers as cool and sexy is... Suede. Quite right, if you ask me.
Smiths
The Smiths tick all the boxes!
the sad thing is the initial criteria
would exclude Lemmy and the Boys and he's forgot more a bit refrigeration than many of the bands already mentioned.
The Jesus & Mary Chain
...are the personification of cool for me, especially with Bobby G on the drums.
Bobby G tries way to hard
and is sadly for him as it's dearest wish to be thought as cool also have you heard early Primals lps Fey isn't the word.
Oh you're totally right...
...tries way too hard but when he was in the JAMC he looked very cool as did the whole band.
I don't like Primal Scream's first 2 albums (love the song Velocity Girl)but Screamadelica is a classic and i also love Vanishing Point & Exterminator.
I'm in the curious postion
off liking the primals' music alot but also at the same time loathing bobby G for is painful utterances .
Country Girl
Best song this decade.
Are you serious?
I find it cringey.
Absolutely
Stones pastiche (again) but it's brilliantly done. Best use of a mandolin since Maggie May
Talking Heads
no question
The coolest band
are the one you wish you were in, so for me it's The Coral or Belle and Sebastian.
If you see a person
pushing past you in a desperate rush to be in Belle and Sebastian, that'll be me.
Tell you something...
It won't be lennylaw...
(No subject)
I might want to be with them..
I'd love to be in a band. Even B&S.
I sit...
corrected!
Guitar?
Gissit here..
Now where's the chords to that "I'm a cuckoo" cobblers..
See
you'll grow to love them eventually.
I have the albums and singles, plus LPs by God Help the Girl and Isobel Campbell if you're interested. You'd probably find Camera Obscura up your street too.
No Contest
Tick All The Boxes For Me.....
I am fairly sure that the word 'dude' was invented...
after someone saw Peter Tosh in that clip and had to find a word to describe him.
Roxy Music
Would get my vote.
I can't believe
I had to scroll through so many wrong answers before you came up with the correct one, Austin.
I would agree
Roxy were the very essence of cool, cool enough to spend a lifetime at McCools never mind one night.
But you can't say that they didn't try to look good in photographs; they tried very hard. It's one of the things that makes them cool.
Going through the 5 rules of qualification up there
Roxy jumped onto my lap, wagging its tail and licking my face.
An early memory of TOTP is Street Life and wanting to be Bryan Ferry when I grew up. Street Life has a finger clicking bit. No-one looks cool when clicking their fingers, but Bryan did.
As for the photos, they glammed it up with the best of them and dressed ridiculously - but dammit - they were still cool, whereas a band like The Sweet in exactly the same clothes would have looked stupid.
kind of blue era
miles davis quintet
by a mile
Rocking the spandex
I give you Earth, WInd & Fire !!!
The Doors
were cool.
Until Jim got fat & started waving his winkie about in public.
(Although, that might be so uncool, as to be cool.)
I'll see your Doors and raise you
The Velvet Underground
Very cool
in the Nico/Cale/Warhol phase.
Also there was a Morrison/Nico interface I think - it's all connected. I love all that New York, anti-hippy, monochrome arthouse nonsense! (I know the Doors were an LA band, before anyone jumps on me...)
Tried to find someone else....
... but anyone else is wrong.
Depeche Mode
I think they tick all the boxes to some extent. Haven't split yet, but splintered on occasions and Dave Gahan has tried several times to 'split' in his own special way.
Agreed
Depeche Mode is my usual default setting - but they are still very much with us so I went for Roxy instead.
Just quietly...have you (or any other Depeche fan reading) seen the new "Hole to Feed" video? It is so disgusting, I am surprised it hasn't made it on here as a what's-the-world-coming-to topic. I could start a thread myself but I haven't got the bottle to do it.
Aye,
you're not wrong there... yuck!
Still listening to Sounds of the Universe
But after seeing the video, I find I have to skip "Hole to Feed" now.
Think
v.hard to sustain cool indefinitely. Cool goes in and out of fashion.
Hendrix/Iggy+Stooges/V.U/Sly/Doors/Sonic Youth/Strokes/White Stripes - all fit bill from U.S side at various points under your criteria.
Two shouts from this side of the pond - would be The Cure or Echo and the Bunnymen - particularly the latter. But perhaps I'm just betraying my vintage.
A cool band from a slightly earlier period were Traffic.
Have always thought
the classic Bunnymen lineup with the late, great Pete De Freitas was pretty cool. That said maybe Mac's eye-watering narcissism puts the dampeners on that.
Also he uses the word "keks"
far too much for a grown man even for a scouser.
Agree
and always banging on about Bowie and his haircut. Pillock.
Apple Mac
just found out this morning that I've won a ticket to an exclusive gig in Glasgow's Apple Store this Sunday where EatB are doing a set.
I was a major fan in the camo days and up till Ocean Rain. Can't stand "The Killing Moon" and don't have time for anything since. If Pete was still alive, would they have rediscovered their mojo?
Can
Can (the Damo Suzuki line-up, that is) tick most of the boxes for me, but I'm not sure that the ladies ever showed much interest...
Simple
It's Little Feat.
Game over.
"Best" ever - arguably so
"Cool"? Not even close
In trying to think of
The Uncoolest Band Of All Time - I find that some of the bands on this list also qualify...
It's like The Word Best/Worst list, where the Best Whatever Of Whenever is also the Worst...
As I suggested The Doors, I'd say they qualify for simultaneous cool/uncool - as do my beloved Depeche Mode.
Also...
Pixies - a foot in both camps?
But the coolest people care not a jot about being cool & couldn't tell you what cool is...
Kim Deal described Pixies as 'ruined cool' - how about that for, er, cool?
Not cool anymore but...
At the time The Police were very cool. Ticked all your boxes, four good albums and they've gone, plus they were good musicians too to please the purists.
Other bands that also had it too were (natch) The Stone Roses and more recently The Strokes.
It's a physical
It's a physical impossibility to sing "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" and be cool. It's also impossible to be the only band John Peel ever regretted giving a session to and be cool. Its impossible to have a name like the Police and be cool. It's impossible to jump on a bandwagon (punk) and be cool. It's impossible to write a clunky, clever dick line like "Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov" and be cool. The Police were never, ever cool.
"And that m'lud
concludes the case for the prosecution - other than to add that with the exception of The Stranglers - The Police were considered the least cool of all contemporary beat combos - 'round our manor like"
Sham 69 in Hounslow
Anyone with the Hersham Boys named stencilled on their bag was the target of merciless mocking
Peel regretted giving The Police a session?
Odd that I never heard him express similar compunction about having given Barclay James Harvest* the session that jump-started their whole career.
____
* Fabulously, there are now two competing BJHs doing the rounds: Les's and Leesy's. (Woolly gave up sheep-farming and threw in his lot with the latter. The drummer - oh, yes, I'm afraid so - died.) I wonder which one bagged the Mellotron.
I'm amazed he wasted
I'm amazed he wasted valuable air time on this bunch of Birthday Party-alike no hopers too (music lovers press play at their own risk):
Hmmm
1. I'll give you that one.
2. So what? Peel was a splendid fellow, but he could be as capricious and irrational as anyone else. EDIT: I see Archie has alluded to this, sort of.
3. I totally disagree.
4. Which of the punks weren't jumping on the bandwagon?
5. I also disagree about the Nabakov line; firstly, it was buried in the middle of the verse, and is very easy to miss, what with Sting singing in that funny falsetto; secondly, I like the way it's pitched, as if he can't remember the title, but knows it has that resonance; and thirdly, Lolita is actually pretty well-known, even to those (like me) who haven't read it. All that said, when the Police re-recorded the song for their Best Of, they took all of the goofy charm out of the original, and you could hear the smug, didactic Sting.
4. While there were many
4. While there were many second rate latecomer punk bands, at least they appeared to be genuinely inspired by the movement and have a bit of integrity about them (e.g. The Lurkers) but The Police we're a bunch of muso's with absolutely no connection with punk, but were happy to exploit the look and the superfiscial attitude to their own ends. Not cool.
My head's still below the parapet...
but I always took The Police to be a the forefront of 'new wave' rather than punk. I can't imagine Andy Summers ever thought he was in a punk band.
They were cool round our way - those Breton long sleeve t-shirts under a thin-lapelled jacket and skinny jeans. Da Do Do Do was the shark jumping moment, though it can also be seen as Sting saying 'I can write any ol' shite and it'll sell' too.
John Peel's regret at having them in session was probably hindsight, ie when he realised actually they weren't as cool as he thought at the time when he (like the rest of us) twigged that Sting was a prat.
If I recall correctly, Peel
If I recall correctly, Peel said that the only reason that he gave The Police a session was to get Sting off his back as he was constantly badgering Peel at gigs, so I think he knew at the time that they weren't right for his show or his audience. I wish I could remember where I read/saw that but I know I'm not imagining it.
I think the Nabokov line
is actually the punchline - ie the final line of the final verse. It's a very sucky line.
They're never there when you need them
As I recall The Police started off uncool (NME-wise, as was the arbiter for many years, though now no more so) being not quite right in the hair and trouser department, for the strict year zero punk rules - there was the OGWT incident with very bad sunglasses for Sting, though to be fair this was related to a problem with his eyes, as I understand it, then what happened was there were some good singles, especially Walking On The Moon, and there was a re-think, clever drumming, interesting echoey guitar, and more in keeping with post-punk sensibilities, and that went on for a bit but then was world domination and too popular by far, but then there was King of Pain and Synchronicity II and the quality couldn't be denied but then there was the Sting solo career and uncool pontifications, and so retrospectively The Police became tainted, yet perhaps now we can say - you know what they had some cracking tunes - and so it goes so often, this complicated business of cool that comes and goes.
For me it's The Meters...
It Has To Be The Beatles
Especially in their Hamburg Days with Stuart Sutcliffe
It Has To Be The Beatles
Or the early moptop days
The Stone Roses - tsk.........that was easy..........
Girlies all over Monkey Boy Brown and floppy fringed Squire. Had the proper gang mentality for the boys and walked the walk and talked the talk.
Looked fantastic, sounded fantastic and prior to Fools Gold and TOTP were under the mainstream radar....one 5 star album, one cocaine fuelled patchy follow up......you can't ask for more
No chance of a reunion either....
Remember them this way on the Other Side of Midnight with Anthony H.
Also - "Holy Bible" era Manics. Again - image/sound in perfect harmony. The panda eyed girls loved Richey and Nicky whilst the boys wanted to play like JDB.
The answer is...
The Grateful Dead.
Effortless cool :-)
Spawning
effortlessly cool "Deadhead" fans
Primal Dead > Country Dead
I'm as big a Deadhead as anyone but I'd argue that they were only cool until the hiatus. It was indeed downhill from there (although I have a soft spot for eighties dead - especially Brent Mydland's voice).
The Clash The Clash The Clash
For everyone I know of a certain age, male or female it's The Clash. Maybe not effortless, but we are talking about bands and musicians. It's all studied when it comes down to it isn't it?
I did want to be Kevin Rowland though. The first incarnation of Dexys were cool as.
Ditto The Specials and The Beat.
Prince around 1984-88 was so ridiculously cool too. And ridiculous.
And finally: Adam & The Ants. I declare that Adam Ant was the best pop star ever.
The Girl factor..........
Whilst they were on my cool list, I didn't plonk for Dexy's, The Clash, The Specials or even The Jam. Huge appeal for the young males but, with the best will in the world, I can't imagine your average 15 year old girl (in 1980) pinning posters of Mick Jones, Kevin Archer, Jerry Dammers or Bruce Foxton on the wall....
I know what you mean...
...but the girls I knew loved Paul Weller and Terry Hall.
Not Kevin or Jerry sure...
But surely for most girls, cool doesn't matter as much as it does for boys.
Otherwise Marti Pellow, Take That and bloody Boyzone wouldn't have had the followings they did....
A fair point....
...well made!
She's a Lady
Can't spot any other girlies on this thread yet, so I'll let you into the secret - Pulp.
Jarvis is a god, even with a beard. I've got His'n'Hers playing in my head now, and still get shivers down my spine.
The Fratellis
End of argument
*folds arms*
No it has to be the Kooks
no hang on it's scouting for girls no wait the wombats they are really cool.
Dammit...
... I forgot about them. Conceded. The Kooks are even better than Razorlight it pains me to admit...
like, duh?
like hello - Killers? And - wait - Green Day? Like Come.On.! Oh wait - shit - shoot - I mean - like true love waits? Like Kings of Leon - kinda gross - sorta cute though. Anyway - so Vance has asked me on a date - which is totally weird. So I'm going. He has these guns and stuff? I guess it's cool.
New Order (especially up until the demise of Factory)
This, as they say, is "what it's all about"
I sometimes forget
I sometimes forget how much I loved New Order "back in the day". They were undoubtedly cool up to and including Technique. But then... a long slow slide into corpulent irrelevance, with one or two exceptional tracks (Regret, Crystal, Behind Closed Doors, Waiting for the Sirens' Call). They were cool though and that is a great clip!
INXS (+ The Doors)
With Michael Hutchence. Good songs. Slightly left field. All the women wanted (and usually did) have sex with them.
Dead singer, who died in mysterious circumstances at a young age.
Though they defiled their legacy a bit by trying to get a new one.
And a second voted for the Doors. You can apply all the same arguments to them too.
INXS?
Pub band with decent frontman. Surely?>?
absolutely
same goes for the Doors - good pub band, admittedly, but Manzarek wasn't cool.
Badger has a point.
Michael Hutchence and Jim Morrison were PROPER rock-stars. They looked dangerous. They could moisten a gusset at two hundred yards without concentrating; up to mile if they put their minds to it. They could wear leather trousers and get away with it. They met premature ends.
There can only be one conclusion......
My definition of cool is a person or persons who deliberately effects an air of superficial emotional detachment designed to make others notice them and admire them for their apparent autism.
With this in mind, Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you...The Velvet Underground!
Can't believe no one has
mentioned Joy Division.
I know we've had New Order but the original line-up seems to address alll the issues.
The answer is...
The Fall
Has the line up every
stayed static long enough to take a photo iconic or otherwise . I would say they are my idea of cool the OP is nearer to athena poster view of the world all leather jackets and ray bans but then i use yo have a picture of Kurt Weil on my folder at school .
I claim dannyboy3000's prize
The answer is Steely Dan.
I saw Little Feat further up the blog, which made me wobble, but the correct answer is still the Dan.
Cool or what!
What
'
Big fan of the Dan.
I doubt they've been posters on that many teenage walls though.
The Dan are very cool, however..
Wasn't the back cover of Countdown To Extasy the first use of an Ellen "Calm down, girls - they're married" caption?
Forget bands..
Look up "cool" in a dictionary and there should be a picture of Chet Baker..
before or after he lost
his teeth and took way too many drugs?
Cool shpool
Most of this thread seems to be about people looking moody in black clothes, ideally in black and white photographs. Is that really what cool is? I find the whole concept of coolness a bit daft to be honest. ps this is not a troll on DB3000
With one exception
Jimi Hendrix was cool.
Also
Miles Davis was cool. Noone has been cool since about 1969, they are all just playing at being cool by pouting and posing and trying to look like people from before 1969, as in many in this list. Proper artists don't give a toss about coolness, their talent is enough.
Peter Noone was never particularly cool
though I do like some Herman's Hermits' songs.
That was my thought as well!
In all seriousness though, this is a heck of a tune (written by Graham Gouldman, no less):
The Kinks
In my ignorance, I thought they were kind of like the Beatles.
Then I heard "You Really Got Me", "Harry Rag", "Some Mother's Son", "Strangers" and "Powerman".....
The Davies brothers were really breaking new ground and their stuff from the mid 60s to early 70s still stands up today...
Did girls fancy
the Ramones? I think they tick most of the boxes otherwise.
I don't think they did.
They were super cool though. I think Johnny stole Joey's girl at least once, maybe twice.
the velvet underground...
followed by The Clash... the Orange Juice, the Jesus & Marychain, The Jam.... and the aforementioned Stray Cats(although Lee Rocker's solo stuff is starting to challenge them for quality!)
all of them wrote the soundtrack to my life at some point.
when really the coolest band in the world in the world is one that only you and a few mates have heard of, and whom you have am almost pathological place in your heart for... therefore i give you THE WILD SWANS.
girls
do complicate matters
Not sure girls did like The Clash - except Paul Simenon. Did girls like The Bunnymen? Well, McCullough a bit. The ones who did English and were a bit goth and came from the Tiverton area. No girls i knew liked Teardrop Explodes.
All the girls did like - oh you know - yes, him. My usual answer. Which is kind of weird. But that's girls for you.
Ok -
my choices have been named by others - Clash, Sutcliffe era Beatles, Velvets, but I'd like to proffer Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for your consideration too.
Cheekbones on Stun!
I would say The Clash but these guys ruined my wardrobe
Oh dear, seems Jerry Lovelock has pushed The Word envelope.
sorry
hmmmm
how could you tell behind all the dry ice.
oh and put "width=300" after the url in you pic link but before the little arrowy thing > and it'll fit.
Well, you're all wrong.
The answer was The Byrds original line-up. I think. Or should it be Big Star? Or Scritti Polliti? I don't know, but I think I got a bit carried away with Teardrop Explodes last night having heard Passionate Friend again and thought, 'Wow this is amazing.'
fraid changing your name to "Roger"
knocks you off the cool wall :)
Shhh!*
*You're right of course. I saw him this year. He's really not cool. But he's great though. The other four more than made up for him.
Microdisney
but then i thought about point #1, which is debatable. So will have to go for Sonic Youth, supremely cool
let's settle this once and for all
ah but you missed out
the rat boy drummer and Joe god love him was a bit sweaty in a ricky gervais sort of way .
how about...
1. Make the guys envy you and the ladies show a large interest.
David Bowie
2. Bother the charts but at the same time seem elusive and underground.
David Bowie
3. Be tuneful and melodic but with lyrics interesting enough to make students wonder.
David Bowie
4. Probably best you've split up by now, and even 'before your time'.
Well, he is a solo artist...
5. Look good in photos but look like you're not really trying.
Er, well ...
A good set of points, glen.
But whichever way you look at it, he's not a group. He's so bloody skinny he almost doesn't make it as a solo arist.
Oh, I don't know
He's a chameleon, comedian, Corinthian and caricature...doesn't that count as a group? :-)
Cool has never been a concept that's interested me...
particularly, but Bowie did look great in photos!
Surely
the coolest band are number 62 in Paul Beard's cryptic music quiz?
62. Dynamic, brilliant group of musicians.
Has to be The Clash for me
especially this clip:
Clash 1, Law nil
as one of our mentors said
Neil Young & Crazy Horse perhaps?
I like the "just jamming" vibe. It´s so relaxed it´s almost falling backwards.
Then again...this is how guitars should be held...
These chaps were damn cool too...
How about...
Brian Jonestown Massacre?
Yeah, right on!
Stooges circa 1970
down on the street
You're all talking utter utter shite...
...because this...
...is what we in science call absolute zero.
No need to wait any longer for the man
As some right-thinking sorts have already pointed out, the name you are looking for is of course the Velvet Underground.
However, Orange Juice is also an acceptable answer. Failing that, how about electric-era Dylan? He looked pretty cool in some of those pictures.
Quick! Get the shades on and look grumpy!
In my opinion, VU had all the hallmarks of coolness but they tried too hard. Same goes for The Doors and The Clash. The greats of Cool are comfortable in their own skin and ooze coolness wherever they are and whatever they are doing. I would guess that Johnny Cash buying toilet paper in Netto on a Tuesday morning would still manage to do that in a cool way.
Agreed.
I've always loved the VU but I think it should be a prerequisite that the world's coolest band would be one that didn't rely on shades...and maybe smiled once in a while.
Surely The Jesus and Mary Chain circa 1986
Not my favourite band by any means but I saw them on tour during 1986 (Officially The Worst Year For Music Ever). They played for 25 minutes and looked mightily impressive, impassive, detached and as heterosexual as its possible to look when you're dressed from head to toe in black leather. Like liquid nitrogen.
COOL
There is only one true cool band and they are Television,and one cool man who has stood the test of time and that is Tom waits
Cool dude
Ian Hunter.
Ice cool dude.
Never quite got
the big shades 'n' curls look m'self.
I thought we'd settled this
weeks ago.
It's Love I tell you. One of the definitive albums. Played with Hendrix. Interracial. Incredible style. Great story. Great songs. Great front man. Trouble. Drugs. Crime. Death. What more do you want?
http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/a/arthur-lee/album-love.jpg
Actually it's Kraftwerk
Watching the Krautrock programme on BBC4 (excellent, catch it on catch-up soon) and the following Kraftwerk concert film, I reckon they are pretty much the dog's bollocks when it comes to that nebulous concept called cool. Their unique music, their quiet irony, their visual aesthetic, the fact that they were crucial formative influences not only on synthpop but hip-hop too. Peerless.
Thin Lizzy
how can you go past Thin Lizzy ? Speaking of keks (as you were), I seem to recall an article (obituary?) noting Lynott as one of the very few people who could get away with leather keks. Not so elusive or underground I suppose, but adds the drugs and tragedy to the cool and sexy (well I was jealous anyway).