Happy Halloween, y’all.
What they say about death and the artist is frustrating, and predictably true. Even those who are most celebrated in life achieve a greater footprint in the culture once they have passed on. This is especially true of graphic-oriented artists. Their works tend to arrive as single editions unless they are printmakers, and even then, there are limited runs and variations from image to image. But death, on the other hand, stops the factory. From here on out, everything that came before is a limited edition – limited by mortality – and scarcity amplifies value.
It’s sort of true for the musician. In 2018, perhaps less so thanks to reconfigured half-done recordings, demos, unreleased tapes from the vault and so on. Thanks to various hologram tours, the dead can rise and dance for the amusement of the living. There is no rest for the weary when there’s a buck to be made.
Further, remember the immortal words from The Stranglers: “Everybody loves you when you’re dead.”
I bring this up because this weekend the Freddie Mercury/Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody will debut in theaters. It looks like it will be a huge hit and will be a highly entertaining film. This is not a knock on the movie at all, because I have not even seen it yet. But here’s the gristle stuck between my teeth: prior to Mercury’s death, the public’s indifference to the music of Queen was undeniable. The Miracle and Innuendo both received decent enough reviews but the audience had moved on. The band was treated like has-beens.
Four things helped revive the glory of the band. First was Mercury’s death because, now, the prospects of new Queen music were dim. Second, Wayne’s World. The Mike Myers comedy based on his Saturday Night Live sketch returned “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the public consciousness in a memorable scene. The third jolt of revival came from American Idol as every potential singer gravitated to that track as an ultimate showcase. Finally, one can’t discount the impact of Vanilla Ice and “Ice Ice Baby.” That hit sampled Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure,” a song that was never a hit prior to “Ice Ice Baby,” which forced people to revisit the source material. You could never tell that by the modern public recognition that it, and Hot Space, the album it originated from, were seen as flops in their day.
Speaking of Bowie, he had the same problem. After the problematic Never Let Me Down album, he spent many years stretching his legs creatively as the audience moaned sarcastically, “Ugh, he’s too good to do another ‘Let’s Dance.'” The majority of his Virgin Records releases were lightly praised but, much like those Queen albums left in the wilderness, were admired from afar and infrequently. Things changed a little after 2002’s Heathen which reunited him with producer Tony Visconti who helmed many of Bowie’s biggest and most daring ’70s releases.
Things really changed when, after a long hiatus which was presumed a permanent retirement, The Next Day was launched in 2013. Blackstar arrived in 2016 and, two days after the release, he died. Not only did Bowie have the attention he deserved for the totality of his work – the sarcasm removed from the crowd’s same statement, “Wow! He’s too good to do another ‘Let’s Dance’!” – but he left the world’s stage with the ultimate mic-drop.
What’s my beef? It’s not with the music, of course. It’s not with the biopics or museum retrospective, which are well deserved. I suppose it is with the retconned fascination of some fans, the folks who did not care about albums X-through-Z, and could not even muster enough care about how much they did not care, but now will fight you tooth and nail to prove they were never indifferent.
And it’s not just Queen and Bowie. I’m seeing people praise the last Prince albums with as much enthusiasm as they trashed them upon the release of Plectrumelectrum, Art Official Age, and HITnRUN Phases 1 and 2, blissfully blind to the reality that their former criticisms still resided in online purgatory. Same goes for Tom Petty. I liked the last official Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album Hypnotic Eye (2014), although I thought it could have been much stronger. I’d be a bald-faced liar if I said I was not disappointed by 2010’s Mojo. “I Should Have Known It” is a terrific song. I wished at that time the rest of the record lived up to its piss & vinegar energy. I still do. If someone came to me asking for suggestions for a Petty entryway, it would not be Mojo.
I suppose the real source of my angst is the way we wear artists like fashion, which is not any grand revelation. At any one time, The Bay City Rollers, Jewel, Limp Bizkit, etc. were big stars. Hootie and the Blowfish had one of the biggest-selling records of their decade with Cracked Rear View (1994). It was cool to like them until it wasn’t.
This is not an insinuation that any one of these artists is better than the previously mentioned ones, but they’re not worse either. In fact, when it comes to the Rollers, they evolved into a very sturdy power-pop group after the dazzling burst and flame-out post-“Saturday Night.” It would be annoying at the least to the band’s longtime fans if the remaining members passed and, suddenly, the enlightened claimed that they always loved 1979’s Elevator, and proclaimed the utter brilliance of everything they did. There was a period in all these careers where Bowie, Queen, Petty, and Prince were looked at with the same “Oh, ick” rejection. In some cases, death provoked a critical, positive reassessment of the work. In other cases, death offered a beatification of the work. In both cases, scarcity increased value. Death should not be the license (excuse?) that allows us to like something in public.
I wonder: what would it be like if we appreciated artists with just as much fervor while they’re still alive to appreciate it?