Settling For OK

Something occurred to me, not for the first time, while thinking about this James Blunt dude. I've been unable to decide whether he's the 'new Cat Stevens', a musical genius in training or if he's just another jumped up twonk who thinks he's brilliant but is in fact, just as mediocre as everyone else.

Then I realised what my problem was. If he were a musical genius in training, or if he were the 'new Cat Stevens', there would be no question. I've never, ever liked Mickey Rooney, but he did get one thing right- talking in That's Entertainment, he said that true talent stands out amongst the rest. He was talking about Judy Garland, but he could've been talking about any of the greats. He of course, is and always has been, a mediocre talent.

But you know, I'd have to think about it, but I'd make Mickey Rooney my all-singin', all-dancin', all-irritatin' screensaver over anything to do with Britney/X-Tina/Jessica/Kasabian/Whatever. These are the middle ground, the safe option. None too sexy, none too hard. Nothing that could offend MTV's all-important 12-year-old audience. Nothing to offend the little-minded fools that populate Middle America and Middle Britain. Nothing to rock the boat. God forbid that music should touch upon difficult themes or ideas! Heavens forfend that music should make a person think, should challenge a generation or shake it from its nonchalance!

If James Blunt were a rock and roll god, I'd know about it. I've seen too many greats and too many fools to have trouble telling the difference. You know what the problem is these days? Telling the difference between dire and merely mediocre. There is nothing in mainstream popular music right now to set the world alight. Nothing. The occasional bar band might enlighten their audience, but that's too localised an experience to count for anyone aside from that group of people. There is nobody on a national or international scale right now.

I've been told more than once and by more than one person this week that Robbie Williams is 'very good' and 'oh, he's a great entertainer'. He is neither of these things. He as, at best, a basic singer and hides behind arrogance instead of being genuinely entertaining. Do people really think he's any good, or have they just got used to expecting less than they used to be.

I know a lot of people who hate the Doors. They can't stand Jim Morrison, but even they don't deny the power he had and continues to have, as a rock and roll icon. They might not like his music, but they accept and even respect his effect on the world. I know a lot of people who don't like Led Zeppelin, but wouldn't dream to suggest they were anything approaching mediocre. These guys inspire such strong and polarised opinions from the world entirely because they are anything BUT mediocre! You simply cannot stay neutral when it comes to greatness- it either brings you hope of a great new world or it makes you want to destroy the world!

There's always been dire or mediocre music before. Always been nonsense in the charts. Anyone remember Joe Dolce or Rene and Renata? Anyone remember Baltimora or the thousands of one hit wonders from the days of yore? Problem is, they're all one-hit wonders now. That or they're cretins that fill stadiums for writing unbelievably dull bed-wetter music like Dido or the Kings of Middle Class, Middle Talent, Middle Everything, Coldplay. There is nothing controversial about Dido, nothing difficult and nothing outstanding at all.

Please, dear people, do not settle for 'just ok'. Please do not accept mediocrity for anything more than it is. Find the music that makes your heart sing and your soul soar. Find the music good enough to make your entire being feel whole at last. Find it and hold onto it for dear life, because the imitators and the Less Thans will not do those things. The Less Thans cannot change the world- they cannot even change YOUR world.

Settling For OK

Something occurred to me, not for the first time, while thinking about this James Blunt dude. I've been unable to decide whether he's the 'new Cat Stevens', a musical genius in training or if he's just another jumped up twonk who thinks he's brilliant but is in fact, just as mediocre as everyone else.

Then I realised what my problem was. If he were a musical genius in training, or if he were the 'new Cat Stevens', there would be no question. I've never, ever liked Mickey Rooney, but he did get one thing right- talking in That's Entertainment, he said that true talent stands out amongst the rest. He was talking about Judy Garland, but he could've been talking about any of the greats. He of course, is and always has been, a mediocre talent.

But you know, I'd have to think about it, but I'd make Mickey Rooney my all-singin', all-dancin', all-irritatin' screensaver over anything to do with Britney/X-Tina/Jessica/Kasabian/Whatever. These are the middle ground, the safe option. None too sexy, none too hard. Nothing that could offend MTV's all-important 12-year-old audience. Nothing to offend the little-minded fools that populate Middle America and Middle Britain. Nothing to rock the boat. God forbid that music should touch upon difficult themes or ideas! Heavens forfend that music should make a person think, should challenge a generation or shake it from its nonchalance!

If James Blunt were a rock and roll god, I'd know about it. I've seen too many greats and too many fools to have trouble telling the difference. You know what the problem is these days? Telling the difference between dire and merely mediocre. There is nothing in mainstream popular music right now to set the world alight. Nothing. The occasional bar band might enlighten their audience, but that's too localised an experience to count for anyone aside from that group of people. There is nobody on a national or international scale right now.

I've been told more than once and by more than one person this week that Robbie Williams is 'very good' and 'oh, he's a great entertainer'. He is neither of these things. He as, at best, a basic singer and hides behind arrogance instead of being genuinely entertaining. Do people really think he's any good, or have they just got used to expecting less than they used to be.

I know a lot of people who hate the Doors. They can't stand Jim Morrison, but even they don't deny the power he had and continues to have, as a rock and roll icon. They might not like his music, but they accept and even respect his effect on the world. I know a lot of people who don't like Led Zeppelin, but wouldn't dream to suggest they were anything approaching mediocre. These guys inspire such strong and polarised opinions from the world entirely because they are anything BUT mediocre! You simply cannot stay neutral when it comes to greatness- it either brings you hope of a great new world or it makes you want to destroy the world!

There's always been dire or mediocre music before. Always been nonsense in the charts. Anyone remember Joe Dolce or Rene and Renata? Anyone remember Baltimora or the thousands of one hit wonders from the days of yore? Problem is, they're all one-hit wonders now. That or they're cretins that fill stadiums for writing unbelievably dull bed-wetter music like Dido or the Kings of Middle Class, Middle Talent, Middle Everything, Coldplay. There is nothing controversial about Dido, nothing difficult and nothing outstanding at all.

Please, dear people, do not settle for 'just ok'. Please do not accept mediocrity for anything more than it is. Find the music that makes your heart sing and your soul soar. Find the music good enough to make your entire being feel whole at last. Find it and hold onto it for dear life, because the imitators and the Less Thans will not do those things. The Less Thans cannot change the world- they cannot even change YOUR world.

Snerk

Surviving Doors Lose Band Name

Quite right too. ONE THING though: Pamela Courson was not Mrs James Morrison. She was not Jim's wife. He was not married, although there was one thing that could lay claim to such a thing: Patricia Kennealy's pagan wedding with him. He was not married to the smack junkie whore bitch Pamela Courson.

I try to remain calm and objective about everything in Jim's life because I was not there. I was not there and I have to accept that Jim came with incredibly good things and incredibly bad. One of the bad things was the redheaded little **** he picked up somewhere along the way that hung on like a limpet. If ever there was a case of a co-dependent relationship that was it. More than anything, even Jim's alcoholism, it was his pathetic little relationship with Pamela Courson.

One of the most convincing heroin death stories about Jimmy's death (the only thing anyone can agree on is that he didn't die the way the death certificate says) is that he took a noseful of Pamela's cocaine, which turned out to be her heroin. She hid her heroin addiction from him as he was supposedly notorious anti-heroin and then didn't tell him what he'd ingested because she thought he'd be mad at her about it. Another story is that she forced him to take it. Another is that the desperation of living with her drove him to a heroin addiction. Another is that she just outright killed him.

There isn't a good story about Pamela. There are some Doorzoids who 'ship' the two of them as some sort of tragic and doomed romance for the ages- Jim called her his cosmic mate once and made some remarks about girls in the songs that could be about any of his girls. Let us not forget he had another redhead in New York to whom he made overtures about leaving Pamela once and for all (although it should be remembered that a great many men promise such things to a great number of Other Women)

The people who know what is true and what is not true are now dead. But Jim was alive when he left for Paris with her and he was dead not long after. I'm not blaming Pamela Courson for every problem that monstrous little bastard ever had. I am blaming her for making things worse. I am blaming him for not doing what was best for himself and leaving the biyatch. I am blaming them both.

She died a few years after he did, in LA after turning tricks to feed her habit. It meant that because she claimed to be his wife, two people who'd never met him (her parents) lay claim to his fortune and rights. Jim did not think much of his parents while he was alive, but at least they fought the Coursons in the courts to get back what technically at least was theirs. He wouldn't want them to have his money, but probably rather them than two squares he never knew. Well, maybe he'd prefer the two strangers to two people he preferred dead.

But the fact remains that Pamela Courson, no matter what she said, was not his wife. Pamela Courson died Pamela Courson, not Pamela Morrison. And there may have been a reason for that. This is the BBC. They should know better.

Snerk

Surviving Doors Lose Band Name

Quite right too. ONE THING though: Pamela Courson was not Mrs James Morrison. She was not Jim's wife. He was not married, although there was one thing that could lay claim to such a thing: Patricia Kennealy's pagan wedding with him. He was not married to the smack junkie whore bitch Pamela Courson.

I try to remain calm and objective about everything in Jim's life because I was not there. I was not there and I have to accept that Jim came with incredibly good things and incredibly bad. One of the bad things was the redheaded little **** he picked up somewhere along the way that hung on like a limpet. If ever there was a case of a co-dependent relationship that was it. More than anything, even Jim's alcoholism, it was his pathetic little relationship with Pamela Courson.

One of the most convincing heroin death stories about Jimmy's death (the only thing anyone can agree on is that he didn't die the way the death certificate says) is that he took a noseful of Pamela's cocaine, which turned out to be her heroin. She hid her heroin addiction from him as he was supposedly notorious anti-heroin and then didn't tell him what he'd ingested because she thought he'd be mad at her about it. Another story is that she forced him to take it. Another is that the desperation of living with her drove him to a heroin addiction. Another is that she just outright killed him.

There isn't a good story about Pamela. There are some Doorzoids who 'ship' the two of them as some sort of tragic and doomed romance for the ages- Jim called her his cosmic mate once and made some remarks about girls in the songs that could be about any of his girls. Let us not forget he had another redhead in New York to whom he made overtures about leaving Pamela once and for all (although it should be remembered that a great many men promise such things to a great number of Other Women)

The people who know what is true and what is not true are now dead. But Jim was alive when he left for Paris with her and he was dead not long after. I'm not blaming Pamela Courson for every problem that monstrous little bastard ever had. I am blaming her for making things worse. I am blaming him for not doing what was best for himself and leaving the biyatch. I am blaming them both.

She died a few years after he did, in LA after turning tricks to feed her habit. It meant that because she claimed to be his wife, two people who'd never met him (her parents) lay claim to his fortune and rights. Jim did not think much of his parents while he was alive, but at least they fought the Coursons in the courts to get back what technically at least was theirs. He wouldn't want them to have his money, but probably rather them than two squares he never knew. Well, maybe he'd prefer the two strangers to two people he preferred dead.

But the fact remains that Pamela Courson, no matter what she said, was not his wife. Pamela Courson died Pamela Courson, not Pamela Morrison. And there may have been a reason for that. This is the BBC. They should know better.