(no subject)

[rivkat]

Really interesting article on the 80s revival in music, from the Cure to Prince to George Michael to the Beastie Boys. accommodatingly, thoughts?

Comments

Chicago people

[accommodatingly.livejournal.com]

I don't think Prince and Morrisey had much in common, musically or personality-wise, other than mild rebellion against gender roles. I also think the author doesn't quite know what his thesis is. Prince, Morrisey, Robert Smith: do we love these 80s stars because they're self-made men (note that they're all men), in contrast to today's manufactured pseudostars? Do we love them because the industry has brought them back? Does Prince's comeback album have anything to do with the fact that many hot bands from New York and Nebraska are influenced by Joy Division and the Cure? I'd say not really. Robert Smith has come back because today's hot young bands cite him as an influence. Morrisey isn't any more of an influence now than he was five or seven years ago, probably less (because Belle and Sebastian and Cinerama/ David Gedge don't interest the press anymore), but he happens to have made his best album in a while, and older music journos never stopped liking him. Prince, I dunno: he makes a comeback every few years.

Like a lot of other PopMatters pieces I've read, this one suffers a bit from the (University of Chicago) tendency to treat all things not as ends in themselves, but as carriers of broad cultural meanings and trends. What did YOU think?