The stereotyping and comodification of Hip Hop via the focus on fast cars, fast women, and even faster money has a rough parallel in the world of rock n roll. The fast cars are muscle cars, the women slightly more clothed yet willing to gyrate all the same, and the money? Well the money is less visible as rock icons are less willing to throw around hundred dollar bills in front of the camera, yet it is still there. The smashing of expensive guitars and equipment, the stadium sized events and towering stacks of Marshal amps, not to mention the copious amounts of liquor on tap. Yet the genre would have you believe that the money isn’t everything.
Where Hip Hop admittedly and unashamedly presents the monetary imperative of music as business, Rock music hides the fact behind layers of self-righteous animosity. Every rock and roll band is supposedly founded in a band member’s garage and every dollar earned comes in second to the initial and continued love of music. So what if the money comes later, the champagne parties and Bono inspired designer sunglasses are by products of the initial buzz. But does that really make the world of difference?
Take for example, the top ten grossing tours of musicians or music acts for 2006 as complied by Billboard Boxscore. Number one was of course the Rolling Stones with approx $437 million, with Bon Jovi, U2, Aerosmith and Motley Crue also featuring alongside a couple country acts and one or two forgettable pop acts. Thus all the big money is being earned by aged rockers via overpriced tours; which is nothing new. But the fact remains that rock music continues to deny commercialisation yet criticises the same in Hip Hop.
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I think the commercialisation of rock and punk is an often overlooked relationship, overshadowed by the power of authenticity as used to define these genres.
Though punks decry the claim to authenticity made by rock, it is an essential notion to rock itself. A recent example of this is Pete Doherty, beloved by his fans because he is a 'poet' who performs in his squalid flat.
The fact that he is also a muse to ex- Dior designer Hedi Slimane and is able to live a romantic life of poverty because he is supported by his supermodel girlfriend does not factor into their equation of authenticity. Instead it rests on the image of romantic poetry he prefers to project in between spates of Kate-paid rehab.
The relationship between punk and commercialism is also an interesting one in the way it has developed since the late 1970s. In particular I am thinking of the economic transitions of Malcolm MacLaren and Vivienne Westwood.
MacLaren adopted tracts of the Situationist movement in his promotion of the Sex Pistols using absurdist and provocative action to effect social change. A big part of this was through the clothing and lifestyle he sold in his and Westwood's shop SEX.
It is in light of the ethos of the shop and the promotion of the Sex Pistols, that I find MacLaren and Westwood's career paths very interesting. Westwood went on to become one of the UK's most famous fashion designers, selling a punk aesthetic to high end customers through commercial publications such as Vogue.
McLaren strayed from his roots even more so. In the late 80s, instead of using music and image to pioneer change as he had done with the Sex Pistols, he was now using it to promote the British Airways. If one could go back in time to the Queen's Jubilee and ask MacLaren whether he could ever envision himself promoting the national airline it would be interesting to see how he would justify using his music for this highly commercial venture.
However the crowning glory in MacLaren's curious career arc is his participation in a leadership conference in Auckland last year. Having once decried authority and capitalism in all forms, I find supreme irony in the fact that he was headlining the conference with Saatchi and Saatchi world-wide creative director Bob Isherwood, and Trade Me founder Sam Morgan for his own financial gain.
MacLaren, Doherty and Westwood thus embody the tenuous link between punk, rock and authenticity. As although all lay claim to origins of authenticity, these three embody the complex layers to which one can lay such claims.
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