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Punk is Bunk

The Lives and Deaths of Heroes

How to Beat Speed Cameras

Some people know they could never hack it as good people and so try instead to be different. Criminals try to be hard men. Idle layabouts make eating, drinking and sleeping into virtues. Drug users delight in their reputation for consuming vast quantities of drugs. Musicians find it is easier to get a reputation by trashing hotel rooms and driving cars into swimming pools than it is to become an excellent musician. If you draw up a top 20 talent list and a top 20 bad reputation list you may be surprised at how many musicians have made it big more by bad behaviour and good looks than by good musicianship. Average talent, bad reputation will often get you further than excellent talent, average reputation. Examples? I am sure you can imagine the kind of people I mean. In the MTV age image sells, and it is much easier to get a reputation for being raunchy, sexy, aggressive, promiscuous, rebellious or rolling in money than it is to gain a reputation for being thoughtful, compassionate, caring, loving or a strong person willing to defend the cause of justice. Being a bad dude is so much easier, it takes much less time and much less effort. Selfish is easier than altruistic, slut is easier than virtuous virgin bride, it is easier to bite the head of a bat than it is to save a rainforest, or write a socially meaningful lyric.

What can we do to make antisocial behaviour less attractive? Asking rock stars to act nicely is not going to work, they can see it is bad for their business. Making a big furore about the behaviour of such people only enhances their reputation; when the BBC banned the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen they guaranteed it would be a hit. Malcolm McLaren and his ilk are a very difficult enemy to deal with, he tells the truth, he admits his bands stink and their publicity stunts are publicity stunts and it is all fake and still it works out just as he wanted it to, a Great Rock and Roll Swindle indeed. I used to wonder what he really thought about it all, I know their self-justifications will be as good as anybody's, good enough to convince themselves, because that is all that matters. If you don't think what I want you to think about me I will believe that I don't care what you think. If you agree with me or care about me I will believe I am interested in you and your beliefs. We always care what people think about us, but we cannot afford to believe we care when people think ill of us.

Working on my rep

Is there any way we can solve the problem of the asymmetry of reputation?

Britney Spears appears on MTV in a schoolgirl costume and dances sexily, she instantly gains a reputation. The Sex Pistols record a third rate song called God Save the Queen on the Queen's Silver Jubilee and organize a few publicity stunts, they get their record banned and it becomes an instant hit and an instant classic. Part of the Sex Pistols initial notoriety came when they started swearing on TV, oooh how big, how clever. And why did they swear? Because they didn't like the idea of a middle aged man (Bill Grundy) having an interest in an attractive young woman and actually expressing it. Is there anything more thoroughly pathetic than one generation trying to suppress with scorn the sexuality of another? What a bunch of pretentious over-hyped talentless tossers. I thought that in 1977, I've seen no reason to change my mind.

Twenty six years on the professionally “outrageous” John Lydon is trying to resurrect his career profile in the execrable “I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here” along with a footballer's wife, a silicone inflated topless model and a radio disc jockey many people thought (hoped?) had died ten years ago.

In youth/rock culture being bad is not only easier, faster, cheaper and surer than being good it is really the only way to become noticed. Unless you have had the vice President's wife protest your lyrics, or been shot at or had a concert cancelled because of gross indecency you are just a wimp, and not to be taken seriously. Acts that just do their own thing and go home afterwards are seen as so uncool you might as well listen to your parent's CD collection.

Isn't it time people started to buy music because it sounds good rather than because the musicians behave badly?

At one year old children are attracted to anything in bright colours. Later little girls are attracted to pink dolls and fancy make up and bouncy pop music. Later it seems the cues change. No longer is bright and bouncy the way to go, it becomes loud, coarse, aggressive, dirty bass-lines. Nowadays children as young as eight are proclaiming their status as fans of aggressive and “rebellious” music like Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Linkin Park and so on, buying their way into the anti-parent sub culture usually starting with the uniform first, the music itself much later.

Is there any way to break this cycle up? To stop our children rejecting all the good values (even if usually only for a decade or so) our society has to offer? Is there no way we can have a more positive and creative outlet for children to sample rather than the anti-heroes of rock, rap and gangsters? In Stockport there is a little scruffy black shop which sells badges, hooded tops, cheap chunky jewellery and posters. It has everything the kids need to follow their “alternative” lifestyle: except the sex, drugs and rock and roll. You could spend your whole day in there and not come across any trace of virtue, goodwill or nobility. And or course there is no trace of genuine rebellion or original thinking on display, everybody expects the kids to behave in that way.

Where are the rock heroes? Many figures of stature got where they are by taking short cuts through posing as rebels, outsiders (that's a laugh!) or by cultivating an image of being naughty, doing what your mother would not approve. The women are all sluts. The men are all lazy self-indulgent substance abusers. Is there anybody you see on MTV that you would really be happy for your daughter to bring home? Perhaps a couple of those nice lads from Travis, but most of them are just badly behaved anti-heroes. They might be fun to hang around with, but you wouldn't want anybody you care about to hang about with them without you. That's the test. Why is our society and culture so screwed up that it fails to produce decent role models for our children?

Where are the good people to look up to? Is there any source of good heroes for our young people anymore? Science, technology and engineering are now heavily dominated by teams so few figures come to public prominence. Just think about the names and faces you do not know; the Space Shuttle, Concorde, the Channel Tunnel and the human genome project are all anonymous team efforts. Science and technology produce advances, and a few icons, but very few concrete heroes or heroines. Warfare is far too politically incorrect and much of the time now there is little obvious honour in defeating third world enemies with high technology weaponry. The leaders of business and politics are all branded as hate figures, cynical manipulative people only out for themselves. That leaves sport, music and the media as the only sources of hero figures, and what do they ever really do to deserve such honour?

Why do music critics comment on the lifestyles of musicians? Why should we give a flying fuck? If you want to listen to music buy some (yes, buy it, don't steal it and certainly don't try and make out that your attempted theft is in the nature of a political protest) because you expect to like the sound of it, that is the only valid reason to ever buy music! If you want to change the world set out to change it. But don't kid yourself that buying a CD is a political act or making a positive contribution to the future of our species. Music is just sound, and business.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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