The Curse Of Fame

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I read a (rather poorly-written) comment piece about Amy Winehouse's Mercury Awards appearance yesterday. Apparently her performance was 'electric' and it was generally agreed that somehow over the last year, Amy had transformed from a talented soul singer from Camden into an International Megastar Icon!!1!1.

"Every generation needs its Kurt Cobain!" wailed the writer, gnashing his teeth and already writing the poor lass off for lost.

Well, does it? Do we need self-destructive pop icons like Cobain/Hendrix/Sid Vicious? If Amy is the latest victim of rock'n'roll, then who will be next?

Comments

And a slight tangent

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Dudes who are clearly immune to rock'n'roll: Bez, Dame Dave Bowie.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the 90s NME cover with "Cobain, Richey Manic, WHO WILL BE NEXT?!?!" underneath a giant picture of Thom Yorke. He wasn't especially pleased by that, iirc. But then he's still alive.

Can the next one be one of Klaxons?

Role models

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Does anyone actually identify with 'troubled' stars? I had a poster of Kurt Cobain on my wall as a teenager because I thought he was a rather good looking chap, not because I hated myself and wanted to die. I liked Justine because she was the supercool frontwoman of her own band and did what she liked, not because she was an enormous junkie. This is why I find it hard to understand people's obsession with eg Pete Doherty, where he clearly has NOTHING going for him at all apart from all the 'ohhhh woez I have written some poetry in BLUD'.

Sort of related

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05424a5e-5a4b-11dc-9bcd-0000779fd2ac.html

This research has been ridiculed more than once this week by Radcliffe and Maconie on R2. Partly because of the dodgy science. But mainly they seemed to be arguing that shorter life expectancy is "a price worth paying" because without the druqks and other excesses these people wouldn't have created the music they did.

Assorted thoughts

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Actually, Hollywood has had a few casualties in recent years: Ted Demme, Chris Penn, Chris Farley – the clear lesson there being that cocaine + obesity really is unsustainable.

Rock star mortality report (http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2161966,00.html) from earlier this week.

I've never had any time for the self-destructive icon business, or what Parsons and Burchill call "the established bourgeois immorality of rock'n'roll" in The Boy Looked At Johnny. It's only interesting at the level of sick comedy when the person in question lives through it: Keith (Richards or Richard, incidentally: he's been both) in the 70s, or George Jones' (quite astonishing) autobiography.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

It's also about the level at which these stories surface: in the heyday of Confidential magazine in the 1950s, the Enquirer in the 80s/90s and the News Of The World over here, there were plenty of stories about celebs on the rocks for those who wanted to read them. These days, everyone is in the act: even the Financial Times had an Amy piece on the front page banner of the weekend paper.

Re: Role models

[perfectputsch.livejournal.com]

is it just me or is amy winehouse actually not at all 'electric' when she performs? due to the fact that she mainly seems to be trying not to fall asleep mid-chorus?

i mean, alright i've never seen her live so maybe i'm not the person to judge but i've seen her on telly and its only magical if you surround it with some kind of heroin-voodoo keith richards style mysticism. otherwise its just this wasted bird with big hair just sort of standing there drooping slightly. the voice is immense, but its hardly great show-womanship.

her funky backing dancers, now they're electric.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I think Amy's the simplest case currently in the press and also the least fame-related; she's just a woman in love with a man she doesn't believe could love her back and she'll do anything to keep him. If she really is on crack and heroin then I would predict it will kill her very soon and it will be a sad waste.

On the one hand, I don't think that living a long time is a virtue in itself but on the other I think "rock'n'roll" deaths are usually far from that (possible expection of Jeff Buckley) and that usually they are deeply pathetic. I have 0 sympathy for Sid Vicious, little more for Kurt Cobain and slightly more for Tupac and Sir Notorious of BIG. I actually quite like Richey Manic, which may or may not be a generational thing (and also god knows I am so grateful when it is MANICS not PHONICS on the jukebox -so help me Wales, if I could change but one facet of your loveliness, etc.) but I find his employment of 'BUT AM I?!?!?!?!' tactics cinematically pleasing.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

According to the oft quoted theory that rock stars die at 27, our Amy still has a fair few years to live. Doherty has already turned 28, and is thus safe.

PS - I'm not sure this is necessarily true, I'd bank on Doherty kicking the bucket sooner than Wino.

PPS - Amy Winehouse was born on 14th Sept 1983, the exact same day as my sister.

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

'we'?

[andthatisthat.livejournal.com]

I remember listening to an irreverent late night radio panel-type show a few years back, which I think had something to do with stating an opinion that was against the commonly-held belief, and one of said statements was a panellist saying that Pete Doherty was an untalented idiot who was only famous because he was the Kurt Cobain of this generation's 17-year-old boys who want to die in a toilet somewhere (not quite sure what commonly-held belief that's supposed to fly in the face of because it sounds utterly accurate to me, but there you go). Anyway, in a move that may or may not have been staged, an audience member stood up to protest about how Pete Doherty is a poet of pain and beauty etc etc, and when asked how old he was, said audience member turned out to be 17.

How is this relevant? Buggered if I know. But I've never seen this need for junkie heroes as having anything to do with music. There will always be people who want a poster boy for their own neuroses, and who better than a celebrity with a severe addiction problem, but said sleb's actual profession always seems to be deeply secondary in the equation. Would Pete Doherty's songs still be poetry of pain and beauty if he and, say, James Morrison swapped places but kept their own songs? I'll have to ask a seventeen-year-old next time I see one, perhaps.

From a personal point of view, I was always rather turned off by musicians who couldn't keep their prodigious gak habits or whatever under control, because I thought it made them self-indulgent and inconsistent, but that's just me.