Ethical voyeurism

'Rock model' = self-destruction inevitable result of hypersensitivity/catharsis glorification/nasty habits, tied in with career built on expression of same - 'glimpse in darkness' for voyeuristic thrills

'Pop model' - naive ingenue overloaded with work, denied a voice, collapses under weight of significance dumped on them (who knows what's going on Britney's head, esp. now being made the symbol of a country under siege) - Elvis, Garland, etc.

Rock Model is boring as hell by now. Pop model probably offers more scope for different ways to crack-up and is potentially more interesting. Neither is more tragic than the other.

Schlock model: star falls out of public eye and tries increasingly stupid stunts to stay current. Produces the best music.

Seems as if your definition if the pop model isn't "self" destruction at all dave? Also, I had the thought that it may also be stretching it a bit to call Elvis a "naive ingenue" - the man was at least some form of self-aware monster.

Marilyn Monroe, ok so I feel a bit sorry for her. But the morbid fascination that some people still have seems almost unfathomable - as if the only word they've ever heard is "icon icon icon" so her story *must* be all that. Definitely overrated insofar as having entertainment value. Dead dull really.

And Cobain, Morrison, etc.. Saddos to begin with right? Seems very charitable of us to continue to indulge them in death. In this case it's likely the immortality via self-destruction was probably a latent goal all along. Which makes it all the more fucked, and sure perhaps that's mildly fascinating, until we've seen the relevant episode of E True Hollywood Story for the third time that is.

I think we're caring about this stuff less and less because it's become ho hum, formulaic and predictable. For us to be really entertained, an entirely new and improved way to self-destruct in the spotlight will have to come along. And now, isn't *that* the place where the trickiest ethical issues lie?

New way to self-destruct - Gary Glitter? i.e. doing it in such a disgraceful manner that even nostalgia (let alone 'iconic status') is eliminated, effectively removing one's own existence from history?

Joan Jett's covers of his tunes still roXoR.

Schlock model: star falls out of public eye and tries increasingly stupid stunts to stay current. Produces the best music.

Wot, do you mean like Debbie Gibson doing "Shock Your Mama"?!?!?!? (Or to be more fair, N*Sync doing "Dirty Pop"?!?!)

Old Fart!!!!

Good point about Gary Glitter. Quite funny how the public suddenly drew such a hard line there, meanwhile continuing to lap up other nasties like murder and mayhem as if somehow those are just A- OK to sit back and be all enraptured with. Nice fucking norms people.

Wow I'm bitchy today.

Uh, Michael Jackson is in the pop camp, right? I wonder if he'll committ suicide; then all the papers will be like "we did this to him", "what does this say about America", etc, etc.

As far as Gary Glitter, his early 70's singles are absolute classics (as well as J. Jett's covers of them), and occupy a whole chapter in my rock'n'roll bible. So it's gross that he looked at some underage porn. So what, let's forget about that. As Kim pointed out, we seem to be able to forgive almost everything else.

He also didn't marry his 13 year old cousin.

Michael Jackson's nose is really fucked up, man. Almost as bad as that British soap star someone posted who lost the middle of her nose to cocaine (septum? damn near killed 'em!). I think he will eventually die a weird death. I just can't imagine him living to be an old fogey. He seems so alone and just plain out of touch with everything. I bet he's on mood altering/brain numbing pills or something. He should leave his Beatles music to Julian Lennon (that's the one that got dicked over by John and Yoko, right?). Yoko would be furious.

And more importantly, why does he look so Damon Albarn-ish in the Invincible cover art?

Decadence and self-destruction > victimization

The problem with the rock model is that it's so de rigeur as to become sort of necessary - you're not a real band until your smash-up-the-hotel or story gets on the front page of the NME.

Whereas with pop there's still this pressure on every artist to maintain an officially squeaky clean image, so there's more investigative work to be done by fans eg. reading between the lines of evasive interview answers, deciphering the euphemistic codes of press releases etc.

― Tim, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This may seem like a stupid question, but what is the difference? Every crack-up is different, yet every crack-up is the same. Is it different because Pop Idols are supposed to be figures of porcelain perfection while Rock Idols are supposed to be slightly loony angsty hotel-room smashing monsters to start with?

Of course there is an entertainment to be derived, moral or immoral or otherwise, or we would not be so fascinated. It is the ultimate Dionysian ritual- build up a god, live out your socially unacceptible urges vicariously through them, then sacrifice them to your own morality and devour them. Like everything else, it's been going on since the Greeks. (Then again, probably since much longer before, but everyone says it started with the Greeks because they were the first lot to write it all down.)

Is the difference because of the two types of artist? You know, the Apollonian/Dionysian divide? Do we expect our Rock Stars to be Dionysian, burning the candle at both ends, and therefore the end is EXPECTED (therefore both satisfying and disappointing when it happens) while we expect our Pop Idols to be Apollonian, mere cameras recording and projecting someone else's words and emotion, so that if they do crack up, it is totally UNEXPECTED.

Then again, the fact that Carey has flipped out is an unexpected surprise. The fact that Iggy Pop is still alive is also an unexpected surprise.

What it comes down to, I suspect, is, do you prefer to be proven right, or proven wrong? Would you rather be surprised or have your expectations met?

Disagree. The crack-up is different as to if the "high life" of dissolution is to blame or the strict regiment of soldiering chart success.

And Cobain would rilly be more of a popstar than rockstar crackup in that sense -- that he was being marketed as a popstar and couldn't deal.