Pop music
Wrinkles are in
Marcus Berkmann
Pop music's greatest strength has tradi- tionally been its capacity to surprise, and there can have been no greater surprise in recent years than the current resuscitation of the Velvet Underground. We've become used to the sight of bands re-forming when a promoter offers them a titanic amount of money to do so, but no one can really have expected the most revered of all the late Sixties art-house bands to follow the same course. The band that for millions of disaf- fected teenage boys have come to embody low-life dissipation were surely too cool to get together again out of purely financial considerations.
But then someone mentioned enormous cheques, and here they are again. A live album of their current world tour is expect- ed soon and, who knows, there may even be a studio album to follow it. And yet, despite the disdain of all the old hippies who object to people cashing in on their good fortune, the simplest joy of the Velvet Underground reunion has been the visual evidence of decay the band have brought to our tired and cynical eyes. Those photographs of them looking not just old but decrepit have been greeted not with the usual youthful contempt but with silent approbation that these people should have let themselves go so utterly. Face-lifts have clearly never been on the agenda. Indeed, the band seem quite proud of how revolting they look. 'We've lived,' all those wrinkles and bags seem to say, 'and you haven't.'
A few years ago, such shameless evi- dence of infirmity would never have been tolerated. Pop culture has always been pro- foundly illiberal on matters of age: keep young and beautiful, as the song says, if you want to be loved. Even when some rock stars go out of their way to look as dis- gusting as possible — one thinks immedi- ately of W. Axl Rose, the fish-faced and heavily tattooed lead screecher of Guns N' Roses — it's on the understanding that they could look nice and clean and fresh- faced if they really wanted to. But Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker have no such option. They look mottled, worn, as though they've been left at the bottom of the laundry bas- ket for far too long.
And as a result, age has suddenly become hugely fashionable in pop circles. Attitudes seem to have changed overnight. Cher, who was always regarded as a tri- umph of form over content, a living monu- ment to the powers of plastic surgery and soft-focus photography, is now suddenly a silly old bag who can't accept that she's get- ting on a bit. Van Morrison, once widely lampooned for his remarkable resemblance to a gentleman of the road, is now a lov- able old grouch and all-purpose rock icon. For any aspiring pop star, there's simply no point any more trying to look your best. What are needed are no longer bright eyes or bushy tails, but rheumy eyes, leathery skin and, ideally, a really bad cough. And if you can tell interviewers that your rheuma- tism is playing up something rotten, so much the better.
This must have come as a surprise to all the young pop shavers who are used to hav- ing everything their own way. A young singer called Jamoroquai — real name Jason, Darren or Damian, I forget which — has recently released a very pleasant lit- tle album influenced to an almost action- able extent by Stevie Wonder. In the past, no one would have minded; indeed, most critics will probably have approved, just as they all adored all those terrible rap acts who ripped other people's records off wholesale. But now Wayne or Shane or Duane, whatever his name is, is getting it in the neck. How dare he rip off the sainted Wonder? Who does he think he is?
How far all this will go is not yet clear. Pleasant though it may be to imagine rock stars drinking Complan in publicity shots, or complaining incessantly about their elec- tricity bills, it seems more likely that this reverence of age is a mere fad. Next month, no doubt, it'll be back to 17-year- olds with nice teeth and outrageously rosy cheeks. But for now at least, age rules. Pass my reading glasses: it could be time for an early night.
Previous page
