No Subject

'We are using the models of the 1960s and 1970s to
analyse a much more
fragmented culture,' argues Cosgrove. 'And why is
bigness a value? Sixties
architecture proved that bigness is ugly. Will there
ever be music that
connects more directly with young people? Yes. There
is already and it's not
The Rolling Stones.'

Tony Wilson, founder of Factory Rec ords, hero of the
film 24 Hour Party
People and champion of the post-punk and acid
movements, questions the very
notion of the supergroup and recoils at the idea that
the golden age lasted
as long as a decade.

'People have this idea that The Beatles were a great
band continuously
through-out their existence. But around 1965 there was
a year or more when
they were utterly irrelevant and finished. They were
wonderful in 1963 and
1964 but they kept doing pop for too long. So they sat
down and said 'we
have to reinvent ourselves', and they started doing
Bob Dylan story
ballads.'

Wilson says the 1960s lasted about three years. He
also quotes Hunter S
Thompson, who argued that the 1960s ended when
Muhammad Ali was beaten by
Joe Frazier in 1971. Predictably, for Wilson The Stone
Roses and The Happy
Mondays were as important as The Stones and The
Beatles. Not that he hates
the 1960s per se.

'We do live in the shadow of that era and I don't have
a problem with that.
The problem is that our culture is mediated by us
journos. Whenever another
new generation comes along, it comes along in an era
controlled by people
who were part of the last one and to whom it's never
as good as the last
one.'

Charles Shaar Murray -- veteran rock critic,
baby-boomer, and former NME
writer -- agrees that today's culture militates
against the creation of new
supergroups of long-term appeal.

'What record companies want from new signings is a
fast turnover and
immediate profits. They are not prepared to stick with
a band that is not
going to be successful immediately, they will let the
independent labels do
that. What the cultural imperative demands now is
celeb gossip and trivia.
The dominant cultural ethos tells us that popular
culture is not worth
taking seriously.'

Fragmentation and fast bucks aside, Shaar Murray also
believes there is
something intrinsically special about the bands of the
late 1960s and early
1970s and about the era that produced them.

'The Stones were special because, I think, they were
surfing a social tide.
They were genuinely plugged into the excitement of the
era. There was great
excitement in every cultural area in that time. It was
an era of great
optimism and vitality. We are now in an era of
pessimism and low vitality.
To produce better bands we need a better era. And for
that we need political
change.'

But most people don't like change. Maybe we cling to
the icons of the past
because we have nothing to replace them with. Or maybe
that's just what the
baby-boomers want us to think.
- Juliette Garside

--
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
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