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MUSIC:
''POP'S SELF-DESTROYERS!''
The limitations success places on a musician's room for artistic manoeuvre should not be underestimated; neither, of course, should the effect this has on that musician. But most of the Pop's self-destroyers were, are, or have been car crashes, who happen -perhaps to our great benefit, certainly to their ill luck -to songs and sing them for a living. They fear success in part because the experience of it bears no relation whatsoever to the value they place on themselves, and this chasm proves devastating.
And the songs they have torn from the deepest corners of their souls may be applauded for having reached No 1, but to the songwriter this can seem as if they were being treated as fripperies, or celeberated for the wrong reasons.
Kevin Rowland's reaction to the global success of ''Come on Eileen'' was to record the utterly unfathomable Don't Stand Me Down album, and failure -possibly longed for -duly arrived. The album may now be hailed as another lost classic, but it id for Rowland's career, which has never recovered.Lou Reed was so appalled he did it twice. His two biggest albums, Transformer and Sally Can't Dance, were both followed by flops: the doom laden Berlin and the commercially suicidal Metal Machine Music.
The former is now highly regarded.
Billy Mackenzie of the Scottish Band The Associates, -this supremely talented musician, who killed himself 97, hit the self-destruct button just as his band was poised on the edge of a major breakthrough. Amy Winehouse, a world superstar blessed with musical gifts that are the envy of all her peers hit the same spiral!!
What were, are, all these examples tormented by and afraid of? I do not for a minute think it's failure.
Good Night & God Bless!
The limitations success places on a musician's room for artistic manoeuvre should not be underestimated; neither, of course, should the effect this has on that musician. But most of the Pop's self-destroyers were, are, or have been car crashes, who happen -perhaps to our great benefit, certainly to their ill luck -to songs and sing them for a living. They fear success in part because the experience of it bears no relation whatsoever to the value they place on themselves, and this chasm proves devastating.
And the songs they have torn from the deepest corners of their souls may be applauded for having reached No 1, but to the songwriter this can seem as if they were being treated as fripperies, or celeberated for the wrong reasons.
Kevin Rowland's reaction to the global success of ''Come on Eileen'' was to record the utterly unfathomable Don't Stand Me Down album, and failure -possibly longed for -duly arrived. The album may now be hailed as another lost classic, but it id for Rowland's career, which has never recovered.Lou Reed was so appalled he did it twice. His two biggest albums, Transformer and Sally Can't Dance, were both followed by flops: the doom laden Berlin and the commercially suicidal Metal Machine Music.
The former is now highly regarded.
Billy Mackenzie of the Scottish Band The Associates, -this supremely talented musician, who killed himself 97, hit the self-destruct button just as his band was poised on the edge of a major breakthrough. Amy Winehouse, a world superstar blessed with musical gifts that are the envy of all her peers hit the same spiral!!
What were, are, all these examples tormented by and afraid of? I do not for a minute think it's failure.
Good Night & God Bless!
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