This rather silly post in The Guardian Music Blog claims that “we are in danger of destroying rock-star mystique because the web is less in thrall to image than traditional media“.
The suggestion is that blogs and social media makes musicians more accessible to fans, and this is somehow a bad thing. I think his real beef is the increasing redundancy of the music journalist as middle-man.
Anyway, I think the whole concept of the “rock star” is overrated. Some of the most sublime music I’ve heard over the past decade has been made by those who, when I’ve got to meet them have turned out to be quite down-to-earth people. The trouble for music journalists, of course, is that they’re less interesting to write about than to listen to. Unfortunately the ‘rock star’ myth is all to often an excuse to justify the sorts of behaviour that no ‘normal’ person would get away with, and ends up with the glorification of sleazy figures like Pete Doherty.
As I’ve said before, in recent years we’ve seen an wider gap between the creative artist and the showbiz celebrity, so it’s the largely talent-free slebs whose antics fill the gossip pages of the tabloids, while musicians are left in peace to do what they’re good at, which is create great music.
And I really don’t have a problem with that.
This goes double for folks who had songwriter status entirely apart from their status as “stars”. Prince, Carole King, etc.