No More Heroes?
With Shaun Ryder going into the jungle, John Lydon promoting butter and Iggy Pop telling us to get Swift covered, are we at risk of our heroes selling out?
Throughout the 1970s and 80s things like the punk revolution and the Hacienda brought drastic changes to the way music was listened to in Britain.
With it came rock stars which we ‘the fans’ idolised. But in today’s ever-changing society we now see our heroes ‘selling themselves out’.
If you had of asked John Lydon 30 years ago if he would be on TV prancing about in tweed singing about how he loves Country Life butter I think he would have laughed at you.
If you mentioned to Shaun Ryder during the Happy Monday’s hayday that he would be sharing a camp with Stacey Soloman from (dare I say it) The X Factor, in a very polite and traditional Mancunian way he would have told you to fook off.
So why is it that all of their morals have suddenly jumped out of the window? Keith Moon (drummer of The Who, pictured) once jumped into a limousine on his way to a gig but then stopped the car only to make the driver reverse back to the hotel so that he could go back up to the room to chuck the TV out of the window.
On his return to the limo he explained to band mates Daltrey, Townsend and Entwistle that it was "lucky he didn’t forget to do that." Rock and roll at it’s best. I’m in no way saying this is right because the TV could have hurt someone, but this kind of mad, stupendous attitude has gone from not only ageing greats, but new ones too.
Alex Turner has turned to the quiet life in New York with his girlfriend, Alexa Chung. What? These are the highlight years! I want to see him crawling out of taxis and smashing up hotel rooms.
This article is ridiculously biased, but surely more of you would like to see the return of the good old-fashioned rock star?
3 Comments – Post a comment
CLICryan
Commented 4 months ago - 20th January 2012 - 15:46pm
Lydon spoke about the butter ad at the PiL gig in The Cardiff Coal Exchange last summer. He basically did it to fund the PiL tour, which I guess you can understand and respect if it means the difference between them touring or not.
CeefaxOfLife
Commented 4 months ago - 21st January 2012 - 15:37pm
I think Johnny Rotten probably would have spat at you rather than laughed, keerrrrrrazzzy punks.
Bearshead
Commented 4 months ago - 22nd January 2012 - 23:05pm
I guess on the one hand, it's good to know that teens' role models aren't thugs, and they're taking things seriously - keeping their head down and writing music. That's their job, after all.
As long as they still produce inspiring music, I don't think it matters if they blow up toilets or not. Moon the Loon was a pyrotechnic legend, as well as an insane drummer...but I can't see it happening with Snow Patrol, Bieber, or Arctic Monkeys, if I'm honest...