Rocketman (Elton John), Bob Dylan, Lou Reed

Rocketman (2019) is an absolutely electrifying movie in how it deconstructs the typical rags-to-riches, sex-drugs-and-rock’n’-roll story: it starts with the downfall and uses the comeback path as its map for exploring how it all came to be. Recovery and redemption mirror rise and fall. The film opens with its damaged hero—a stunningly good Taron Egerton— stalking into rehab in full “Elton John” regalia: a jumpsuit in tangerine sparkle-flames, devil horns, feathered wings, “electric boots.” And as he tells the tale, in extended flashbacks, about how he came to sink so low as to be taken over by drugs and alcohol even as his career and renown skyrocketed, he strips away the fantasy persona to get back to the Reggie Dwight he was born as. It’s group therapy, literally in the context of the film, and figuratively with us as his confessors. The terrific script is by Lee Hall, who wrote the in some ways similarly themed, and definitely fictional, Billy Elliot. As a vision Elton has of his beloved grandmother (Gemma Jones) tells him during his stint in rehab, “You write songs millions of people love, and that’s what’s important.” Source: www.flickfilosopher.com

The first-look photos from Martin Scorsese’s new Bob Dylan film Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese have been released. The eagerly anticipated film, which has been give a summer release date, will hit streaming platform Netflix on June 12th and will also be premiered in a select number of cinemas. The film will follow the 1975-1976 tour that saw Dylan work with a handpicked group of collaborators such as Joan Baez, T-Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, Scarlet Riviera, Patti Smith and many more. Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream, ‘Rolling Thunder’ is a one of a kind experience, from master filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Scorsese’s previous Dylan documentary No Direction Home, was released in 2005 and won a Grammy Award for best long-form video. Source: faroutmagazine.co.uk

The rise of streaming through websites like Soundcloud have without a doubt changed the nature of the music industry. It is becoming less and less of a possibility for bands and individual musicians to receive widespread recognition. The culture of rock music had a large role in society's culture  and was at its peak in the mid to late 20th century. With electronic and hip hop basically taking over the mainstream, record labels are unlikely to sign rock bands in the current music climate. I believe there will always be young people starting rock bands, and they may even tour, but never again will a rock band achieve the level of fame and recognition they did throughout the 20th century like The Beatles or Nirvana. There will never be another group like The Beatles for the same reason there will never be another Beethoven.


The genre has been perfected through its evolution and it's virtually impossible to surpass its peaks. So irrelevant is rock in the music industry at large that the Grammys didn’t even bother to air its rock category awards at this year’s ceremony. The metal band Avenged Sevenfold, seemingly through some sort of unfortunate clerical error, was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Rock Song” but had the good sense not to show up for the untelevised award presentation. But even though things look grim for rock, here’s the bright side: The genre has always best served as the underdog. It's not seen as cool music now because of its association with (mostly white male) guitar theatrics. All of the young kids that had a rebellious spirit and didn't "fit in" in the grunge era were put on Ritalin and turned kids into zombies. If you ask me there is a deliberate effort to rid the mainstream of rebellious attitudes and push people towards materialism and submission to the system. Source: www.vice.com

It was 50 years ago since the release of the Velvet Underground’s 1969 LP. It’s also been just over half a decade since the death of the band’s lead singer, songwriter, and creative visionary: Lou Reed. Throughout his life and work, Lou Reed constructed and deconstructed his own masculinity. Panic attacks, anxiety, and depression plagued his teenage years. His condition only worsened during his freshman year at NYU, when his parents  made the ill-advised decision to pursue electroshock therapy and brought him home in a shell-shocked state. Reed would feel the results of the treatment throughout his life, including short-term memory loss. After graduation, Reed moved to New York to be an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records. Reed’s innovative spirit was present long before he met John Cale and Warhol’s Factory. Heroin featured just two chords played ad infinitum. In lieu of harmonic change, the tempo mimics a user’s heart rate while shooting up: speeding up, slowing down, on the brink of emotional collapse. Cale’s screeching electric viola punctuates the final segment, one of the gnarliest sound ever put to tape. You have to remind Heroin was written in 1964. In ’64, the Beatles were singing “Can’t Buy Me Love” in suits on The Ed Sullivan Show. Years before the Summer of Love, Reed was face down in a gutter.

“Pale Blue Eyes,” off 1969’s Velvet Underground LP, covers more traditional rock ’n’ roll material: a classic affair-with-a-married-woman confessional. Drawn from a real relationship, “Pale Blue Eyes” is neither regretful nor celebratory of its affair. It is modest, painful, and candid. Absent is the machismo of the “Back Door Man” of Jim Morrison from The Doors. Love was not a conquest to Reed, even when it was a sin. Reed treated relationships, sex, and masculinity with a sense of simultaneous distance and intimacy. Just as femininity, sex clubs, and drugs were something to look at, so was masculinity. Reed’s explorations of identity  evolved  from rocker to strung-out junkie to effeminate songster to middle-aged intellectual. Reed was actually a doofus from Long Island who also happened to be one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Reed’s version of love, of life, and of masculinity was devoid of any sense of machismo. He was never Robert Plant, linen-shirt open, on stage soaking the crowd with a flick of his wrist. When The Velvet Underground closed up shop in 1970, he had to move back in with his parents. Reed was never a cavalier perusing the New York nightlife with a sense of empowered aloofness, he became that world. He lived what he sang about: drug addiction, free love, hopeless love, botched medical experiments, and being a sad sap washed up rocker living in his parents’ basement at 28 years old. The understated beauty of his lyrics, the ceaseless boundary-pushing of his compositions, reflect a dialectic vision of the world: beautiful and ugly, infinite and claustrophobic. Source: www.yaleherald.com