The cult of the ever-youthful dead pop star

One of my earliest childhood memories -- and certainly my first real brush with popular culture -- is the death of Elvis. Of course, I knew not who he was really, although I do recall telling my mum that her boyfriend was dead. Seems I was wrong, though, and it was Alvin Stardust who she had a thing for.

Regardless, the notion of dead pop star as icon and cult was born, for me, there and then, and I lapped up Elvis's music via my dad's record collection. Sadly, my brother and I probably ruined many highly collectable discs in the process.

Other dead icons preceded Elvis of course: Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix to name but a few. I have nothing much to add. I despise The Doors and Morrison. Joplin, whatever. Hendrix, yeah he's all right...

A couple of years later I discovered Buddy Holly. This one had been in his grave a while longer, of course. But so devoted was I, that I soon acquired everything I could. The great thing about picking up on a dead artist was that the output was finite. (Or so it seemed in those days.)

It wasn't long before I turned to punk and the Sex Pistols. Oh, look, one of them's dead. I'm sensing a disturbing pattern here... Although it goes without saying that, as this list progresses, Sid Vicious will be seen as the odd one out, being as he was an untalented loser and all.

The 1980s passed without a real notable pop-star death for me, with the exception early on in that decade of John Lennon, and so we move on to the '90s.

In 1991, the Manic Street Preachers landed in my lap with a bang. It felt good to get in at ground level with a new band. Good look, good music (although I thought my band was better at first).

And then came Nirvana. And within a couple of years here was my first first-hand taste of rock martyr, suicide, or whatever you want to call it. Here was an artist who had meant something to me while he was alive, only to have him do himself in. I was used to having dead heroes, but this was my first dead hero that I knew when he was alive.

And then, about a year after Cobain's death, Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers disappears. He'd been clinically depressed for ages. Is he dead? We still don't know. Officially, though, he is, as a result of being missing for so long -- 11 years and counting. So he's kind of my own second dead idol.

I guess Tupac doesn't really count, since my interest in his music really began with his death in 1996. Going to back to my roots, picking up the pieces after the fact. Despite my voracious appetite for his material, the supply soon outstripped my demand, and I had to stop buying his records once it became clear that substandard work was being released. Shame to do that to his memory.

And then, most recently, Elliott Smith, just a few short years ago, who took his own life with several knife wounds to the chest. Umm, yeah, that sounds feasible. He was more Wife's guy than mine, but we did see him perform live and he was undoubtedly a major talent, desperately underapprecieted in his US homeland.

Invariably these deaths all occurred at a young age, too. Of those cited, Elvis made it to 42 -- hardly a ripe old age; Elliott got to 34. Nobody else even made it to 30. Live fast, die young, leave a good-lookin' corpse.

Where does all that leave us?

Beyond a doubt, I am, on a certain level, a victim of the cult of the dead pop star. A performer's passing makes me want to at least check out their oeuvre and see what all the fuss is about.

But it's also true, as evidenced above, that I am drawn to the music of these lost, suicidal souls way before they go the way of all things.

What does that mean?

Is it inevitable that those artists -- poets, performers, men of the people, who put themsleves out there, stripped bare for all to see -- are ultimately doomed to an early grave? Is too much passion a short cut to the hereafter? And is there any truth in my belief that the first of these tortured storytellers -- indeed, the reason for our obsession with the dead pop star -- was Jesus Christ himself?

“Money makes the world go round / the world go round / the world go round”. Oops, guess I’d better change this heading...

A few months ago, I heard an interesting news item.

Not content with having been victorious over Napster and other file-sharing websites, The Big Global Corporate Music Machine had devised another plan to bring in more money.

Don't get me wrong here. I appreciate that an artist should be rightly rewarded for his or her work. I believe that copyright theft is a bad thing. Indeed, I feel quite uncomfortable using other people's images on my blog as frequently as I do. However, I do it because I feel that no one is actually losing out here, and no one is making money they shouldn't be. That is, I make no money from my blog, so I'm not making money off of someone else's efforts; and if I were to be asked to pay for images used, I wouldn't use them. Simple as that.

So what is it that The Big Global Corporate Music Machine had/has planned to do? You know, this is so simple it's genius. I can hardly believe they didn't come up with it before...

Just as it is illegal for me to put an mp3 of a published song on here -- let's say "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants, since that's also the name of his autobiography, in shops today -- The Big Global Corporate Music Machine proposes that it should also be illegal to put lyrics of published songs on sites without paying the appropriate royalties.

Yes, yes, I know, this is still someone else's copyrighted material, and as such it should rightly be protected. But come on. At the end of the day, most sites posting lyrics often use people's best guesses where songbooks have never been made available. These are the online community's version of sitting down with paper and pen and hitting pause on your tape deck every couple of lines, which I'm sure we all did as kids. Who knows what the fuck Joe Strummer, Shane McGowan, and Tupac Shakur are saying half the time. Check out the lyrics on two different sites and the chances are you'll get two different interpretations.

AND NOT ONLY THAT... Of course, all of this is also applicable to fan sites that offer tab notes for guitar players. The Big Global Corporate Music Machine believes it is losing out because people are learning their guitar parts from free online-community websites instead of going out and buying the sheet music or songbooks. That's a semi-fair point, but if I want to learn how to play songs by guitar-based artists such as Bright Eyes or Elliott Smith, there aren't any fucking books available for me to turn to. What then, Big Global Corporate Music Machine, you dumb cunt?

Am I being naive, or is this whole scenario just really fascistic?

But does the movie suck?

As we sat down on Sunday evening to watch Thumbsucker, Wife said, "I think I'm going to be disappointed." This was another one of her picks, which generally are better than mine, it must be said. However, she had chosen it almost exclusively for the reason that it had an Elliott Smith soundtrack. To be honest, though, that's as good a reason as any, Elliott being quite so great a songwriter as he is.

Entirely gratuitous still of half-naked girls that has
very little to do with the movie's plot

The only things I knew about Thumbsucker in advance of watching it were:
1. The soundtrack thing previously mentioned;
2. That it had in the lead role the young lad who played the lead in Green Day's "Jesus of Suburbia" video (a good reason for Camie to watch it); and
3. That I might feel a connection since I, too, was a thumbsucker up until about the age of 12.

So down we sat. Pressed play. Up come the opening titles. The cast list other than the young laddy (Lou Pucci) previously mentioned surprised us both: Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio, Keanu Reeeves, Benjamin Bratt, Vince Vaughan. To some extent, these are all actors who I have some respect for. Yes, even Keanu, who I think is a great comedic talent, even if he ain't all that as an actor actor.

The synopsis: This is a low-key, American, independent movie. It explores the interplay within a family, as well as that family's relationships with other people: girlfriends, school friends, teachers. It's a coming-of-age film of sorts, yes, but also a quirky tale of teenage life. And the story of a normal, not-entirely happy, not-entirely unhappy family. Really, the sort of environment that is familiar to all of us, I'd imagine.

The review: What can I say? Pucci is great in the lead role (even if I have doubts about how convincing he was as a thumbsucker); Keanu is a gem as the kid's idealistic orthodontist; and the supporting cast present some of their finest work, in my humble opinion. The only surprise here is that this is the first feature by the director, who handles the whole thing superbly. Check out Wife's opinion, too, if you like.

The score: This is one of the best films I've seen in quite a while. Well worth 90 minutes of your time. I give it 75 out of 100.

Great websites #2

It's been about a month since my last "Great websites" post, which you can find here, so I figured it's about time I threw another one together.

This time, I want to bring your attention to Grammy.ru. Now, before I go any further, I must first say that I can't vouch for the legality of this site. It seems perfectly above board, and maybe it is ... in Russia! But my guess is that it's not something that non-Russians should know about. Why? Because it offers free mp3 downloads of songs by hundreds upon hundreds of artists. You can pick up virtually anything by Prince, for example; there are some 800 songs each by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; seemingly everything from this year's Eurovision Song Contest... Well, the list goes on and on. There's even a four-CD bootleg box set by Buddy Holly on there, called What You Been A-Missin'.

It's not fully comprehensive, of course. What would Russians want with Elliott Smith, Bright Eyes, Adam & The Ants, and the Black Crows? And some albums mysteriously have one or two songs missing(!). Even so, it's got to be worth checking out if you're looking to top up your iPod.

I wouldn't want to be seen to encourage piracy, so I can't tell you which buttons to push. I will say, though, that the link in this post will take you to the English-language version. And that will make everything look far less scary.

Would it be worth buying the Internet for just this one site? Well, no, possibly not. But it is fucking cool nonetheless.

So, without further ado, Grammy.ru, for services to music, the Web, and the world, A Blog About Nowt salutes you.

Great websites #1

This is the first of an occasional series in which I intend to highlight great websites. Now my definition of a great website may differ from that of some of my visitors. I can't help that, and I shall make no attempt to pander. (Well I might, at the right price.)

The logic behind this series will be: I would get the Internet if I didn't have it purely because this site is so fucking good.

So, number one.

The first site to win this money-can't-buy-it award is Elliott Smith: B-Sides & Other Songs.

I like Elliott Smith (pictured below, in a great "Bust A Move" T-shirt). I think he's one of the finest songwriters of the past 20 years, and then some. I'm not an über-fan, and it's not my intention to convert anyone. Wife is an über-fan. When I mentioned that I wanted to name this site on my blog, she kind of groaned in that way you do when people suddenly discover an artist you've loved for years. (Yes, I know that's snobbery, but we've all done it!)


Smith, in case you didn't know, is no longer with us. He died of several supposedly self-inflicted knife wounds to the chest. Yah, right. And what happens when an artist dies tragically young is that fans want to get their hands on as much of the unreleased material as possible. For Smith fans, this site is the Holy Grail.

And if this was the only site on the Internet, the Internet would still be worth getting.

But even if you don't like Elliott Smith, you should still love this site for what it stands for: free downloads of unreleased material by a great artist.

Elliott Smith: B-Sides & Other Songs: for services to music, the Web, and the world, A Blog About Nowt salutes you.

Update: On Monday 14 May 2007, I visited this site again, as I do every once in a while. Sadly, I was greeted with a note dated 1 April 2007 that read: "We're honestly surprised that it took this long, but the RIAA finally came knocking. Most importantly, this site is not dead. We won't be able to share any songs that were recorded during the Dreamworks era, but many of the demos will remain. We need some time to update the site, but hope to return next week." Well, clearly they didn't "return next week". Who knows when they will. Let's hope it's soon.

Mojo dickheads

Went shopping at Sainsbury's and – against my better judgment – bought a copy of the latest Mojo magazine, mainly cos it had an Elvis covers CD on the front. Also cos it had "the 100 best albums released since Mojo was launched 15 years ago". I'm a sucker for those dumb lists.

Anyway, Elliott Smith's Either/Or had a pretty respectable showing, at number 24.

I read the review, being quite familiar with the record: Smith is probably Wife's fave artist. And yes, she liked him before his death. We even saw him play in London...

I couldn't help myself from blurting out what those Mojo cocks had written, what they had called Elliott, presumably thinking it was a cunting compliment.

"I didn't hear that," said Wife.

"I'll never repeat it," said I.

"Never say it again," she reiterated.

I won't. Not even here.

Did you know...? The word "mojo" is foreign; it means "tossers who are hung up on the '60s".

Terrible music. And Buddy Holly.

So, as is our semi-usual routine, Wife and I watched American Idol last night. And the music was worse than ever. The show’s “theme” this week was “the 21st century”, so the cuntestants had to choose songs that had been released in the past six years. Well, what a shower of shit. I kid you not, there was not one song that I had ever heard before in my life – not one; Wife fared slightly better (if you can call it better), saying she had heard one of them before. And in addition to that, I think I had only heard of one of the acts that had originally recorded these songs, Creed. [In fact, Wife has just reminded me, a couple of days after I originally posted this, that there were also songs by Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera. Of course, I am familiar with these gals, but not with the particular tracks performed on the show. My bad.]

Now, I fail to see how it is possible that these people have not heard better songs released in the past six years. And if Kellie Pickler really thinks “Suds in the Bathtub”, or whatever it’s called, is so great, then I feel terribly, terribly sorry for her.

The thing is, I hold my hand up here, I’m hung up on the ’80s, man. That is, most of the music I listen to now is stuff I was listening to during my formative years. And most of the new music I discover is actually via Wife. It was she who introduced me to Elliott Smith and Bright Eyes – probably two of the greatest singer/songwriters to emerge in the last 20 years, American or otherwise. (And I don’t mean singer/songwriters in the bastardized sense of James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Jason Mraz, and Katie Melua, all of whom seem to think that playing a guitar means you can write something of substance. Wankers.) Both Smith and Bright Eyes have released albums full of incredible songs in the past six years. Where is the music of this calibre of artist on Idol? Their music is adaptable, too, as is any great song: it is not restrained by its musical style because it is not entirely about the music, it’s about the words. Remember when music had words that meant something?

And yet, these poor kids on Idol, like much of America, probably don’t know these artists even exist(ed). These are the sorts of artist that are undoubtedly bigger outside of their own home country.

Of course, it goes without saying, in that Groucho Marx way, they’re too good for Idol anyway.

As a post script to this post, how can it be that on the “Fifties”-themed show last week, the two worst performances of the evening were the two Buddy Holly songs? I mean, they really butchered his tracks, “Not Fade Away” and “Oh Boy!” And yet here is an American rock ’n’ roll legend. Ah, I see a pattern emerging: Buddy Holly, too, was totally unappreciated in the United States during his lifetime – indeed, until the mid-1970s. He had been all but forgotten after his brief fling with stardom at the tail end of the ’50s. Guess they can’t see the talent under their noses in the States, and all the while they keep lining the pockets of shit-mongers like Garth Brooks, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey....