I have never listened to Pete Doherty’s music. I never heard Babyshambles and I ignored the Libertines because they sounded like any number of crappy Euro-rock bands that have tried in vain to sound both emotive and rocking at the same time. I stopped listening to Oasis about five years ago, too, for the same damn reason.
But Pete Doherty is a fucking rock star.
Not only does he look like he’s constantly fighting a losing battle with some
schizophrenic voice inside of his head that is urging him to murder some groupie, chop her up and then do lines of blow from her recessed chest cavity … he seems not to grasp whatever normal sort of behaviour makes us even vaguely aware of what proper protocol is in our society.
So, in short, he’s a fucking rock star. The last rock star left on planet Earth.
The fact that he looks so certifiably drugged-out and crazy while simultaneously appearing frail enough that I could wrap my arm around his neck, swing him around a few times and fling him at least 20 feet … that just makes him a fucking British rock star. Seriously, that’s how they make ‘em over there.
I, for one, am just glad he still walks among us. Music may not need his actual music, but Music needs Pete Doherty: The Concept.
Why? Well…
If your defining characteristic is a soulful voice, a depressive personality, a fear of cars and a lazy eye — you are not a rock star.
If you’ve been staging feuds with your brother and releasing greatest hits albums and bringing in Ringo Starr’s kid to drum for you in the hopes that you’ll somehow return to prominence — you ain’t rock stars, either.
And if you have a fucking reality show airing on any network anywhere — You. Are. Not. A. Fucking. Rock. Star.
If your kids get more press than you — You are so totally not a rock star it isn’t even funny.
On the other hand … if you show up so late to a drug arrest hearing that the judge has already issued an arrest warrant, and if you stand convicted of using heroin, crack, marijuana and ketamine (in the same incident) and you are still banging a model who claims to have gone through rehab …
Then you are a fucking rock star. And if you keep it up, once you die in some horribly grotesque — but absolutely unsurprising — manner, then I will finally listen to your albums. I promise.
(More updates soon. I was busy again with real work. Excuses, excuses. Fuck you, too.)
1 Comment
July 6, 2007 at 2:54 pm
You have to admit, letting Kate Moss get up on stage with them at Glastonbury was appallingly lame. You woulda thought groupie girlfriends everywhere had learned the lesson that Yoko taught us: stepping beyond your natural boundary and getting involved with the actual band spells doom for everybody’s coolness factor.