The Susan Boyle saga has just underlined how utterly obsessed we all are with image these days. If she was an absolute stunner in her late twenties, no one would’ve been the least surprised that she could sing, but as it is we were - and we’re all guilty. In fact we probably wouldn’t have noticed if she could sing or not as image is everything. If someone looks like a star then they are 90% there.
It wasn’t always like this. Younger readers may be surprised to learn that, back in the primeval days of popular culture, music tended to be made by musicians, no matter what their appearance, rather than image conscious wannabes. I know this is a concept that is difficult to grasp, but just run with it. I watched a documentary about the Mamas and Papas recently which just about proves this contention. I mean, just look at them: a six-foot plus beanpole with a ridiculous fur hat, a hippy boy with a equally ridiculous beard, an overweight badly dressed woman who can’t dance and an impossibly beautiful one who seems hopelessly out of place. Who, these days, would take them on? Yet when they open their mouths a special kind of magic is produced. If anyone tells me that ‘California Dreamin’ is not a classic pop anthem then I will be forced to stab them with a sharp stick.
During this period of pop, no one really cared what people looked like as long as they had talent – which was just as well for some of them. The bug-eyed drummer with Manfred Mann haunts me to this day. But I can’t help thinking that if Girls Aloud were a bunch of ill-dressed plain janes we wouldn’t be giving them a second look, singing talent or no and this is where it has all gone wrong. Most bands that were forged during the 60s and 70s and subsequently became universal megastars were hardly model material. Have a good look at the members of Led Zeppelin, Who, Pink Floyd etc and tell me truthfully they’d make through today’s talent shows on looks alone. Perhaps I’m being a little unkind but compared to say, Take That and the previously mentioned Girls Aloud, they wouldn’t’ve got a look in. But as they were mainly heard and not seen, image didn’t really matter.
What we need is a return to musicianship and a bit less of the image obsessed culture the MTV generation has foisted upon us. Then perhaps music would dredge itself out of the mire it is currently drowning in.
It wasn’t always like this. Younger readers may be surprised to learn that, back in the primeval days of popular culture, music tended to be made by musicians, no matter what their appearance, rather than image conscious wannabes. I know this is a concept that is difficult to grasp, but just run with it. I watched a documentary about the Mamas and Papas recently which just about proves this contention. I mean, just look at them: a six-foot plus beanpole with a ridiculous fur hat, a hippy boy with a equally ridiculous beard, an overweight badly dressed woman who can’t dance and an impossibly beautiful one who seems hopelessly out of place. Who, these days, would take them on? Yet when they open their mouths a special kind of magic is produced. If anyone tells me that ‘California Dreamin’ is not a classic pop anthem then I will be forced to stab them with a sharp stick.
During this period of pop, no one really cared what people looked like as long as they had talent – which was just as well for some of them. The bug-eyed drummer with Manfred Mann haunts me to this day. But I can’t help thinking that if Girls Aloud were a bunch of ill-dressed plain janes we wouldn’t be giving them a second look, singing talent or no and this is where it has all gone wrong. Most bands that were forged during the 60s and 70s and subsequently became universal megastars were hardly model material. Have a good look at the members of Led Zeppelin, Who, Pink Floyd etc and tell me truthfully they’d make through today’s talent shows on looks alone. Perhaps I’m being a little unkind but compared to say, Take That and the previously mentioned Girls Aloud, they wouldn’t’ve got a look in. But as they were mainly heard and not seen, image didn’t really matter.
What we need is a return to musicianship and a bit less of the image obsessed culture the MTV generation has foisted upon us. Then perhaps music would dredge itself out of the mire it is currently drowning in.
