In my previous post, I owned up to a foolish public declaration as a teenager that Creedence Clearwater Revival “shat on” The Beatles. That was essentially an adolescent rebel yell in the face of peer authority, clumsy and misdirected, but rooted in a perception that I consider legitimate to this day – that the masses are prone to stampeding. Such was the case with The Beatles. They could do no wrong. Every single was a smash hit, every album hailed a work of genius. The adulation, the mass approbation, was overwhelming and, it seemed, indiscriminate. Lennon’s wry observation at the peak of The Beatles’ fame that they were “more popular than Jesus” sparked outrage, but it wasn’t far off the mark. Continue reading We’re So Pretty, Oh So Pretty…Vacant
Category Archives: Music
A Portrait of the Iconoclast as a Young Twat
One of the refrains of my childhood was my father’s 6-syllable sing-song admonition, “you’re anti-everything.” That wasn’t quite accurate, but I do have to admit to an inbuilt contrariness that asserts itself at the faintest whiff of hype or herd approbation of – well, just about anything. Continue reading A Portrait of the Iconoclast as a Young Twat
Peter Garrett – How Do You Sleep When Your Cred Is Burning?
First up, I should declare that I’ve never liked Midnight Oil. I attended my first and last Oils gig in the late 70s at a half-empty Osborne Park Hotel – obviously, this was before they attained the popularity that would launch them as an Ozrock institution. Musically, I didn’t like their sound on record, and live this night I found them uninspiring. Garrett, in particular, irritated me. His trademark open-hand theatrics I found contrived, his lurching about the stage ungainly and distracting. Continue reading Peter Garrett – How Do You Sleep When Your Cred Is Burning?