Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Hit the road Jack

Two movies here's looking at you kid has seen recently and really appreciated are 'Ray' and 'Walk the line'. Maybe its his love for music from the golden era or his childhood dream of becoming a rockstar, but these two movies has really captured some mind space in the past few days. The fame, the adulation, the groupies, the drugs, the creative blocks that sometimes lasts for years, fickleness and immaturity that is conveniently ignored as attributes of genius.... can there seriously be a better career?

Here's looking at you kid thinks that most superstar careers follow similar paths right through to stardom. The childhood struggle or trauma, the escape to music, the initial struggle, the second-thoughts just before the first superhit, the stardom and the consequent tumult in family life, the getting used to fame and subsequent abuse of it, the fall in creativity and the resurgence. The road to superstardom is standard. There is no standard end to their careers however, some like Cobain, Hendrix etc are lucky and die due to substance abuse in their glory years and are forever etched in rock journals as legends, the others gradually fade into oblivion as new styles of music divert public attention, and are remembered only by a select group of true fans. A fight against racial segregation may have given Ray Charles his temporary resurrection, just like the concert 'Bangladesh' gave George Harrison his, but lets face it, an hour of fame remain still just an hour even for the greatest superstar.

Here's looking at you kid uses this occasion to repledge his undying (albeit fading) allegiance to the original superstar Elvis!

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