There's nothing truly committed about a Brian Ferry or a David Bowie.
-Lester Bangs
I guess it makes sense for two of my favorite rock musicians to be criticized on the grounds of being uncommitted. But when it comes to music, who needs commitment? Part of the whole point of the glam/punk scene's pointlessness was being an effective antidote to the ultra-sincere, ultra-committed school of bands like...well, The Band. Bangs asserts that Ferry "doesn't care about rock and roll at all," but maybe it would be more accurate to say he didn't revere the genre as a religion. He cared about rock enough to deconstruct it, to remake and remodel it.
Sometimes it's better to be fake. During his Ziggy period, Bowie sometimes wore a fake anchor tattoo under his left eye. A big part of his influence was the impermanence of his aesthetics, the constant openness to change and stylistic evolution. A tattoo may show classic, rock-ish commitment, but it limits you to carrying that expression for eternity. Better to slap it on for a while, then wash it off when you find a new persona to explore. Freedom, and then inspiration, comes from not having to worry about the permanence or sincerity of something. As Ferry says, "There isn't much time to stop and think, 'what am I doing this for?'"
Thuggage gets the Lester Bangs treatment as well. We've had 'serious' rappers get offended by our shows or songs, and they feel it's their responsibility (as true believers) to knock us for being fake or uncommitted. "They've never ridden low." There's a lot of honor in hip-hop, a lot of pride and exclusivity, so for a group to come along that is knowledgeable and unconcerned with authenticity is like a magician exposing the secrets of their craft. But the magic of artifice is the ability to try on different masks and stay fresh while sincere, committed acts settle into redundancy (50 Cent, the Eagles, etc.)
Of course, the joke was on Bangs. Not only are Bowie and Ferry still playing sold-out shows, but the influence of their 70s work is immeasurable, and there's a whole slew of bands today that seem (ironically) very committed to carrying their legacy. Looks like the artifice payed off.
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