Now let’s take the current crop making their way in. First example Ashlee Simpson, hot, blonde, adored by all the pop media sites and coincidentally lip singing on public television. Yet we still idolize her, lip singing or not. Could you imagine Michael Jackson lip singing?
Or how about Kelly Clarkson? She may push out crazy, impressive lead vocals, but most adults would not place her framed photo beside Blondie’s on the mantel. Today’s biggest artists most often do not display personalities large enough to match their music – an important key to the true rock star. What they do display instead is a meticulous marketing campaign.
A true rocker used to go out on the road, sell tours, sing about things that were sometimes taboo – addiction, incest, money, society, class system, not pop love jingles, sleep in an empty hotel room after selling a packed concert, celebrate Christmas without their families. They did this for their art, they were compelled to embrace risk, ridicule even, compelled to be own up to their voice.
If current society is any guide perhaps we can say that the only true rock stars left are rappers.
Rappers often pride themselves on their transformations from poor kid in the slums to most popular man in the world. Elvis too, was a poor boy from the slums. Michael Jackson began at the bottom. The Beatles played back alleys in Liverpool years before their ‘big break.’ An essential part of the rock star legacy is the fact that these artists lifted themselves out of misery by way of their art and rode it right to the frontline of international attention.
With series like American Idol and many others, the rock star legacy is dying, because there is no need for real rock stars. Record producers can simply add technological genius to a mediocre voice, condition an average body to become rail thin, and therein create a media magnet worthy of millions. This kind of ‘rock star’ only survives a short lifespan in the public eye, often provoking comments like, “Oh, isn’t she so-and-so? She looks just like her. I wonder whatever happened to that girl.” It’s fast food labeled as gourmet, gourmet by design and packaging but junk and stale after the first bite is taken.
The problem with these reality icons is that they all seem to blend together, one face becomes the other, and perhaps that is the intent? These kinds of rock stars are more money making machines than the manic, enviable leaders we truly love. J.LO, who hailed from the penniless Bronx, Beyonce, who every day rehearsed in her back yard, Gwen Stefani, a product of an unknown, high school punk band, are more rock stars than any twenty somethings found in our tabloid table of contents.
What then, is the future for the new generation of children nursing the rocks star dream? After Beyonce and other ballsy, admirable icons pass from the limelight, who will we hoist to the top of the world? Whoever American Idol deems worthy? Britney Spears wannabes, photogenic blondes that lip sing, producer manufactured boy bands that produce countless imitations, wear the same clothes, say the same things and suffer the same syndromes?
The idols currently inhabiting the rock star roles of society seem themselves to be as soulless as the trophies they hold, more than they are seasoned professionals showcasing their souls on stage. Don’t the labels owe an obligation to nurture talent, a voice, not a photo exercise worthy of Patrick McMullan?
Despite the fact that anyone these days can look like a rock star, they are a rare breed close to extinction. Don’t we miss the stories about brilliant bands destroying hotel rooms while simultaneously writing ballads? Will we settle for the less exiting, more practical, plastic models of fame that have come to take the place of legends? Record sales, concert tickets purchased, magazines bought and music videos watched dictate such future details, but we dictate these statistics. It is us then who has killed off the rock star in exchange for reality shows. What type of reality is that?
Perhaps we need to reevaluate the truth, ask what really makes a ‘rock star?’ Appreciate the true conditioning that takes place long before the limelight, in the streets, in the actual singing. The art performed, for the true artist, is a salvation and translates as such to the rest of the world. After all a song is not a song until it’s played to be heard not seen…
For those who pretend, who care only for limousines, hotels and hot photo shoots, the world is available only for a brief time. Their shortcuts measure their success and only allow them a few years of fame. Maybe they’ll get lucky and make it half a lifetime. But, they’ll never be able to break into history the way Elvis and Michael Jackson did. That breed, that bank of rock stars we truly love, who managed to turn the possibilities of ‘half a lifetime’ into the permanency of eternal legend are a dying breed.
Of course we love our legends large, regal and beyond reality, let’s hope that the new legends are out there now…
