Joni Mitchell called it starmaker machinery and Billy Joel claimed it was just a fantasy, and not the real thing, and both got it right. So much of the music industry is about selling an image, and always has been. From murder ballads about Stagolee (or Stack-o-Lee, or…) to the supernatural blues of Robert Johnson, to the souped up R&B of Ike Turner and Chuck Berry, to the outlaw fables of Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins, to the shimmer and fire of Elvis and Jerry Lee, to the fab-ness of the Beatles, to the drugs and free love of Woodstock, to the satanic debauchery of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Kiss, to the dancefloor freedom of Disco, to the androgynous sexuality of Boy George, Annie Lennox, Madonna and Prince, to the leggy models in ZZ Top videos and the g-string clad butt-shakers in hip-hop videos, there’s always some kind of fantasy lurking beneath the music. It might be death, sex, money, fame, freedom, or less mundane spoils, but it’s usually there. If you’re looking for a connective thread that ties together every kind of music over the last hundred years or so, you could do a lot worse than that…
Tags: Billy Joel, Black Sabbath, Boy George, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs, Ike Turner, Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Marty Robbins, Robert Johnson, The Beatles, ZZ Top
30 January 2011 at 10:40 am |
as country records, this is not a good one, IMO. way too much schmaltz. but definitely a chart topper. and ain’t that what it’s all about?