Tribal extinction - the demise of the rock star

There is a widely-held belief that rock stardom ended a long time ago, even if the prefix "rock star" continues to be applied liberally, from questionable media descriptions of anyone who can hold a guitar (er..."rock star Ed Sheeran") to politicians ("rock star French president, Emmanuel Macron") and even business people (Branson, Jobs, et al).

For those of us of a generation, the term "rock star" still conjures a certain image. Indeed, simply Google the term and a generic picture appears that conforms perfectly to the stereotype. But, says David Hepworth in his tremendous new book, Uncommon People: The Rise And Fall Of The Rock Stars, the rock star as a concept has grown diluted.

"There are still people who dress like rock stars," he writes, "and do their best to act as they think rock stars would have acted in an earlier time, much as there are people who strap on replica holsters and re-enact the gunfight at the O.K. Corral." But, he says, in essence, the time of the rock star has now gone.

Plenty of acts still trade legitimately under the luminous rock star moniker - the Stones, The Who, Neil Young, take your pick. U2 and Coldplay retain the bombast, even if Bono and Chris Martin have become more irritants than icons. But there is definitely a case that proper rock stardom has gone the way of the dinosaur, leaded petrol and daytime telly closing down after the lunchtime news. Indeed, the original form of the species has been reduced to rare glimpses such as last weekend, amid the joyous rebuttal of extremism that was Manchester's One Love concert, Liam Gallagher - resplendent in a £400 orange coat, hands customarily behind his back, declaring "Tonight, I'm a rock'n'roll star" with requisite aura and swagger.

In Uncommon People, a follow-up of sorts to last year's equally good 1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year (featured on this blog here), Hepworth traces an anthropological arc from rock stardom's primordial root - when Little Richard's Tutti Frutti brought sexual innuendo to the previously anodyne 'hit parade' in the 1950s - to its nominal extinction at the hands of the Internet, around the time of Kurt Cobain's death.

"I wanted to write something about rock stars as a tribe," explains Hepworth, whose long career in music journalism encompasses the NME and Smash Hits, launching the magazines Q, Empire, Mojo, The Word and others, as well as co-fronting the BBC's Whistle Test with frequent partner-in-crime Mark Ellen. "This tribe came along in the mid-'50s and by the mid-'90s had passed away. That meant I could write the story of their rise and fall." Moreover, he says, there was a new angle to explore: "I've always been just as interested in the personal side of it as the musical side, and it struck me that nobody had taken that approach."

That approach is an incredibly well researched piece of work, presenting - almost like forensic evidence for a murder trial - 40 examples from as many years of what contributed to the arc. Hepworth refreshingly avoids some of the well-trodden tales and subjects in favour of more insightful examinations of what contributed to stars' rise to rock stardom (the influence of Hank Marvin, for example, often forgotten as the inspiration for many of our Stratocaster-wielding stage gods) and in some cases unpicking what they finally became, such as Elvis Presley.

When I were a lad, the aspiration to be a rock star was fulfilled quite easily by a tennis racquet and a full-length mirror. You appropriated the attitude, struck a pose and you were done: you'd become whoever it was you'd just seen on Top Of The Pops, doing, apparently, much the same thing. Those who took it to the next stage - applying actual musical talent, amongst other ingredients - wound up as cultural icons, "uncommon people", as Hepworth writes in the book, "...from the masses who got to the top without the help of education, training, family ties, money or other conventional ladders."

Now, Hepworth says, "The game has changed". Rock stars emerged when there was a cultism about rock music, either owning it or seeing it being performed. Today, the competition for attention is myriad, and for all the self-importance we musos still apply to the form, it - and its practitioners - are no longer kings of the hill. That Kurt Cobain came to be viewed as the last rock star might have more to do with his suicide coming in the same timeframe as the Internet's arrival. "The technology revolution was pretty significant," says Hepworth. "I don't think there will be anything quite like rock and roll again because now we've got so many choices. People formed all those groups because they were bored. Nobody's bored any more. Just distracted."

© Simon Poulter 2017

On top of that, the Internet has also impacted what we see of those stars: during a recent recording of a Word In Your Ear podcast, the terrific online discussion shows fronted by Hepworth and Ellen, an audience member pointed out that there is just less mystique surrounding pop stars, thanks to social media enabling them to share everything in minute, unfettered detail. The old days, when access was controlled by a fearsome record company press officer and photography would be just an official 10x8 black and white handout, have long gone.

Hepworth agrees: "The music papers were part of the star maker machinery. It was a business driven by hunches and personal preferences. Now it's a business driven by data. I know which I preferred...".   On top of that, Hepworth adds, rock stardom has lost its impact. "It used to be enormous fun to go and meet Keith Richards and find out what he had to say. Nowadays I can't believe anybody's really interested. It's years since anybody said to me, 'Have you seem what so-and-so said in Q?'. Nowadays they just say it themselves on social media."

"The point of [this] book," Hepworth adds, "is that rock stars didn't have to be anything. The only thing they had to be was stars." So what, then, does Hepworth himself consider to be the model rock star? "I'd have to say Bruce Springsteen. He tells the entire story of rock and roll on stage every night and gives you a glimpse of what he got from The Beatles, the Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan and everything else. I like that about him."