Pop music
Success is so unfair
Marcus Berkmann Is it really tough at the top? Furious debate on the subject continues to rage in rock circles following Phil Collins' savage denunciation of Eric Clapton in last month's Q magazine. 'How can he stand up there in a £5,000 suit and play the blues?' asked Phil, and the world nodded its head sagely and asked, 'Yes, how can he?' By charging £22.50 a ticket for a dozen gigs a year at the Albert Hall, that's how, but of course poor Eric took the question serious- ly, and in a long and heartfelt interview tried to justify his existence. 'The point is . . . that blues is a state of mind, it's got nothing to do with acquisition. I can have all the money and cars in the world and still be very unhappy.' Tears welled from my eyes as I read these almost unbearably moving words.
And yet some rock stars genuinely do find success hard to cope with. This week, for instance, it was revealed that M.C. Hammer, the noted American rap artiste, 'Nearly finished — just paint the bar code.'
is on his uppers and threatened with bankruptcy. Three years ago, a series of hit singles and albums earned Mr Hammer £25 million — a useful little nest-egg by any standar:- s. But then he made the classic mistake: he changed his name. Overnight `M. C. Hammer' became mere 'Hammer', and the resultant association with the films of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing vir- tually destroyed his career. His next album sold poorly, and an enormous tour of the Americas made suitably enormous losses. Meanwhile he bought 15 luxury cars and 18 racehorses, while dropping an incautious £4.5 million on a luxury palace. He 'parted company' with his record label, and then announced that his next three albums could be snapped up for a mere £18 mil- lion. 'He had lost touch with reality,' said an anonymous source. More recently he was refused £80,000 credit by a casino after failing to pay other gambling-related debts. And all this while sales of rap music contin- ue to rise to unprecedented levels. Next to molesting small children or releasing a country and western album, it's hard to see how he could have blown it any further.
Even in Britain, the reputation of the modern pop star as a solid, worthy burgher with several houses in Surrey and a long- term ambition to join the local Rotary Club has recently been undermined in the High Court. Mr Lawrence 'La Tolhurst, erst- while drummer of The Cure, has been suing his old chums for a larger part of the group's proceeds, and part of his 60-page submission was a detailed account of their antics on tour. In one night in 1986, while travelling on the Orient Express, the group and their entourage ran up a bar bill of just under £2,000, a figure that accurately reflected their general enthusiasm for the sauce. Mr Tolhurst admitted that he too liked a drop. 'In the first few years of our career, I was able to handle my drinking, although following the release of our album, `Pornography' , I noticed that as my drinking continued, I could no longer toler- ate the situation and would pass out.' Eventually, according to the group's leader, Mr Robert 'Fat Bob' Smith, Mr Tolhurst's contribution to the group was 'minimal'. And yet, according to Mr Tolhurst, Mr Smith and the group's bassist, Mr Simon Gallup, mopped up the stuff to an even greater extent, averaging a superb five bot- tles of wine each a night, enough to floor most major species. According to the Daily Telegraph, Mr Tolhurst also accused Mr Gallup and Mr Smith of spitting at him constantly — although after five bottles of wine each that was probably their way of telling him to ring for a cab.
So you can see Eric Clapton's dilemma. He did all this years ago, but miraculously survived, and is now healthy and extremely rich. And what does he get for it? Oppro- brium, contempt, and Phil Collins carping on about his expensive suits. Life is so unfair. Perhaps it is tough at the top after all.
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