As this post dislodges dai’s delightful 80s top ten thread from the front page to the digital chip paper obscurity of the 2nd page and beyond, I’m left with a quandary from considering and posting a lot of Bauhaus album titles – is/was Bauhaus cool?
Mike_H quoted Christopher Brookmyre saying something about a character’s “love of Queen’s music and pretended to love Bauhaus in his student days, because they were “cooler”?”. Diddley Farquar used to like their ‘cracking songs’. but they ‘weren’t ever cool though. Too arty farty – pretentious basically. All pose.’
I liked them because I thought they were cool – older, sophisticated, dangerous and glamorous – I wanted to be them.
I am left with a lot of familiar questions re-emerging for me. What is cool? In your younger, more impressionable years, were you cool? Who did you think was cool, if anyone? Does ‘cool’ mean anything any more? Is it a positive or negative attribute?
Questions, questions – just not cool. I double dare* you to answer them.
Here’s a rather interesting infographic presenting the history and different strands of cool to help you formulate your answers.
*Did you see what I did there?
Maggie is cool.
When you’re young and impressionable and highly desirous of fitting in, what is “cool” tends to be what the circle you aspire to be in, or wish to remain in, collectively deems “cool”.
The truly “cool” endures beyond mere fashion, I think, but some things turn out just to have been fads. They fade away but can return later to embarrass us. Sometimes hindsight will show that whatever that thing was, it most definitely was not “cool”.
What was cool for you then and now, Mike? There’s no shame in admitting these things. I used to think ‘Double Deckers’ – which I never saw, only the adverts for were so cool. Also the Bionic Man and Status Quo. What did I know? Only that they all had a certain allure for a young pre-teen.
The dictionary definition of “Cool” is any other kid who your parents tells you to steer well clear of
Flares, obviously. Afghan coats and cheesecloth shirts. Military greatcoats. Late ’60s-70s drug culture.
All subsequently uncool.
Denim jackets, interesting t-shirts, affable chaps in well-cut suits, quality comfortable footwear, 50s-60s Blue Note/Prestige jazz, Saab cars, solvency, sexy stylish women.
Still cool.
Leg warmers less so.
Flares were what got me laughed at in school in the early ’80s – that and those pork pie brown shoes and shirts/cardigans with metal rings over the nipples – why ever were they considered stylish? For a while, burgundy jumpers was the thing to wear – burgundy anything, in fact. Until that was dropped like a hot stone (I think for being associated with football casuals). Then clown trousers like what Bowie wore (tight at the ankle, baggy at the hip) were the thing. It was hard to keep up.
I remember getting (very, very short) appraising glances for the Lacoste ankle boots I brought back from Switzerland one year, that I had to beg my parents to let me have instead of Clark’s shoes (which I now prefer). Labels were essential.
So glad to be free from the tyranny of teenage cool ratings.
I understand that the clown trousers were fashionable – but were they actually cool?
With the breeze blowing around your knees, for sure they were. But the tight ankles meant it had to be of your own making.
I think this distinction helps get to the heart of what cool is and is not. Fashion probably isn’t cool – because it gives the sense of a mad rush after an elusive property that an object gives to its wearer.
Style, though probably is cool. As seen in the OP infographic – Anglo reserve, sangfroid and ennui. (typical French to grab all the cool words).
Wait a mo, I’m having difficulty separating cool from hip. Help me with this distinction.
‘Hip’ originally meant something close to what ‘woke’ means (to those who generated it, not to those who denigrate it). Aware.
Yeah, these terms tend to shift. Take ‘dig’ for example. It shifts its meaning from ‘understand’ (Can you dig it?) to ‘like’ (I dig your wig).
The origin of dig is probably the Irish for understand – Tuig, pronounced tig but in a question this becomes An dtuigeann tú? (Do you understand) pronounced “diggin”.
As featured in the classic kneecap joke I’ve explained elsewhere on this forum.
Miles = cool. Dig?
The very definition of cool
As ‘Ivan’ says in The Beiderbecke Connection ” Jazz…cool”
What was cool in the 80s was what the NME deemed to be cool. Don’t underestimate their power. Without them there would be no Linoleum, Tiger, Combat, S*M*A*S*H, Stupidz, Superchunk, Those Animal Men (or was it These?). I was led down many a path in those days. I can’t think of one decent track by that lot yet for a month or so the NME deemed them to be the future of rock and roll.
Arf!
I listened to a bit of Linoleum the other week and they sounded very much like Dry Cleaning
L would surely wipe the floor with the young upstarts who stole their sound
Never heard of Linoleum (the band) before but i am now imagining them on a package tour with Kitchens of Distinction and Furniture.
After The Inspiral Carpets, Linoleum always sounded flat to me.
Warmer than Pavement though.
Flat but smooth.
Very influential on Harry’s Tiles, I think.
I preferred Bob Marley tiles. A bit more bounce.
referencing 1970s DIY products – that is quite cool
(is it? don’t know. I make similar nostalgia references – much to the bemusement of those listening, and I’m just considered annoying)
It’s definitely cool I think.
That whole early 90s officially ‘cool’ bands were when I really fell out of love with the NME – by then I had absorbed a lot of other influences from uni friends – and was no longer reliant on one source of musical information. They were so rubbish – a massive misstep and surely the early days of indie landfill?
In the 70s, Nick Kent’s heroin chic and the hip gunslingers of the NME left over from the freak press were “obviously” hipper than Sounds, or, perish forbid, Melody Maker. In hindsight, they really weren’t. The NME has a lot of responsibility for faux-cool posing and polarising of the 80s. I still can’t see people who wear sunglasses when it’s not sunny or daylight without thinking “tosser”. All the NME hipness was dumped when acid house and E brought psychedelics, dance music and rock together in a gurning, tooth-grinding mess.
Huzzah! NME gets well deserved kicking on AW shocker!!!
Disagree entirely. This is a revisionist version of history. Through NME I learned about Can, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Gong, solo John Cale and Nico, Ptti Smith, Blondie, Dr Feelgood, the Pirates, Iggy, and so much more.
It was the antithesis of what it became in the 80s, when I soon stopped reading it.
Yes, at the time we only had the text to go after, which could be outstanding and/or very funny. A great read regardless of how certain writers dressed.
Agreed. For a 17 year old in 1979 it was a revelation. I think it sold about 200K copies weekly or something which is absolutely astonishing.
I do say “in the 80s”. Like all of the above, the NME was my 70s and early 80s Bible, my guide to being a cool ironic outsider with a record collection that would impress girls without my having to know how to dance or mend anything. They directed me to good things, and by selectively ignoring them when it counted, I did not discard that which was good they sneered at. After about 1983/4, the NME lost it. But “elegantly wasted” Nick Kent, Year Zero Tony and Jools, and Mick Farren/ CSM, the poundshop Lester Bangs double act were a portent that the NME was not as cool as it’s trousers.
Cheese it, Big V! If you haven’t learned by now that you can’t slag the NME on here, even in a narrow and focussed way, even if well deserved, even if referring to the ‘80s…well, I just give up!!!
See y’ round the campus!!!
Yours
Hideous Bill Gangrene.
The next week box says “hello”, and asks if the gig page “tit-pic” is going to return.
I think Kent was even on his way out in 1979 at the NME. Probably all publications have periods where they are completely essential, before things move on. I think the NME was pretty good until the mid 80s and then the slide started. Could just be age though. As one moves towards one’s mid 20s then we have a clearer idea of what music we like and are less open to being influenced by the press.
Q started in 1986, and I think it then became more acceptable to like other older stuff different from this week’s fave indie band. Live Aid being a big factor in this with a certain re-appraisal of these “ancient” rock stars who were mostly in their mid 30s.
Well yes but was that better? Not sure it was.
Not sure either, but it was the beginning of the end of the NME, MM Sounds etc even if they limped on for another couple of decades. Not much left. I think Uncut is a decent magazine when I occasionally pick it up. Am guessing their target audience is probably 55 and over though and predominantly male.
Mid-30s? So, finally getting over the sixties My Generation mantra of never trusting anyone over 30.
Maybe also reaching the point when ‘cool’ (as in the youth&beauty version) was no longer seen as essential?
I was a child prodigy I played on the linoleum.
I wanted to be Young Cool Dude, standing on the street corner, nodding at the pretty girls passing by who could not fail to be impressed by the nonchalant way I lit up my gauloises. The girls, by now quite a crowd, watched in teenage awe as I ever so casually blew a sensual, nay sexual, smoke ring.
Instead, me collapsing into a hacking coughing fit to the sound of girls jeering and laughing. The very definition of uncool.
You have to learn not to try too hard, while still putting some effort into the task and not just giving up.
Mistakes will be made. Don’t repeat them.
Not all of them, anyway. Or not all of the time.
Being cool with the aid of money is easier than being cool without it.
But only up to a point.
That Young Cool Dude approach to attracting attention from girls is one I recognize as a tactic I in my socialphobic youth would hide behind (for years and years). I do pity the boy I was back then – better to risk embarrassment and talk to girls rather than affect some form of stylish icon status (that is laughed at or ignored). It’s taken me almost too long to learn that lesson.
Some are born cool, some achieve cool and some walk round with ice- cubes in their underpants.
Is that last one cockney rhyming slang?
Ice-cubes = Hubes, therefore cool.
And before someone says I know it is also rhyming slang for other things found in underpants.
Permanently so – like the best of Python, with this list of writers ( Morris, Iannucci, Steven Wells, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, David Quantick), it is effortlessly, imperiously superior in its intelligence, and hence cool)
A Kaftan
Britannia
I was never cool. Too tall and thin to be cool as a teenager. And I wore glassess.
I suspect that no one who thinks they are cool are, actually, cool. Possibly with the exception of David Bowie. He must have known he was cool mustn’t he?
Generally, people who are cool don’t even waste their time thinking about it. Some lucky bastards are just born cool.
I am as square and boring as they come, but… I have been regularly referred to as being cool, throughout my life. It is bewildering. The only thing I can think of is that I have never given a toss about what anyone thinks, and have a distrust of authority.
A teacher once attempted to rebuke me by telling me that I had no respect for authority, and I politely thanked him because it honestly didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t meant as a compliment.
I got something similar (“no respect for the management executive”) from my head of department when I was 51 years old. One of my finest adult moments – still sticking it to “The Man”, and them upset by me.
I would have thought being thin and tall were prerequisites for being cool – unless you were/are exceptionally and unusually tall. I suppose Stephen Merchant is quite cool – until he opens his mouth.
It is possible that one’s view of cool is driven what one is not.
I think tall and thin is generally a good look in photos but the realism of often banging your head getting out of planes, train and bus seats, hitting your head on slightly too low street furniture, of the slightly too short trouser (before that became an actual thing), of always having to stand at the back in group photos and, generally, having a high level of conspicouosness (especially on dance floors) meant that I never, ever felt cool.
Stephen Merchant isn’t cool. 6 ft 7 is too tall to be cool unless you are an athlete. He is extremely witty, funny, engaging and loads of other aspirational things. And he is way cooler than me. (abd I’m only 6 ft 4) But he’s not quite cool. Not really.
I have never thought of myself as being cool (6’2″ and no longer slim) however some of my daughter’s friends have described me as such, because they like my accent and my impeccable music taste…
In the land of the blind?
In the 80s? Ian McCulloch
I was thinking about Ian McCulloch because he seemed cool in the 80s.
I saw him live about 10 years ago and he didn’t seem cool at all. Largely because he still seemed to absolutely believe that he was. He made a big show of smoking in the venue which came across as very Rik from the Young Ones like.
If you were only cool for a bit, does that make you ultimately uncool?
A few others from the 80s/90s who seemed cool, then didn’t:
Andrew Eldritch
John Taylor & Nick Rhodes
Alex James
It’s probably a youth/cheekbones thing.
Leather trousers have rather gone past their cool quotient, i think.
Theresa May absolutely rocked them not too long ago though.
Those weren’t leather trousers they were a knocked off DFS sofa cut down.
Alex James always seemed to be very much one thing, and one thing alone: a bell end. He’ was chums with Clarkson/Cameron, although he disputes the latter (despite inviting him to a New Year’s Eve party). Graham Coxon was cool, in fairness.
LOL. Yeah, I can see that, but rather a cool-looking bellend, with a fag permanently propped in the urethral orifice* – which probably makes him even more of a belled.
*Also known as urinary meatus, I just discovered.
I watched the Blur documentary and Wembley set on Sky Arts over the new year. We all know that Graham does the BVs, plus touring keyboardist Mike Smith, even Dave gets the occasional use of a Shure Beta 56.
Not Alex, though – there were no mics anywhere near him.
Bauhaus were cool, and yet came from Northampton. They must have worked hard at it to reach escape velocity, so deserved their success.
There are not many places less cool than Northampton, except perhaps Corby.
One of my pet theories is the best music comes from the worst places.
Cambridge is a lovely city yet has produced the Floyd, Olivia Neutron-Bomb, Clean bandit, Charli XCX, some local bands who once did a session for John Peel (many of whom I am friends with).
Manchester was a bit grim by comparison but I could fill the rest of this page with brilliant musical acts.
Nottingham has always been low on cool bands, hasn’t it? And Leicester, too. Kasabian are from there and are very silly.
Family? Seriously cool band – and from Leicester.
I rest my case.
Leicester did produce the Psychedelic Furs and Diesel Park West.
Is it something to do with rain that keeps people indoors and honing their craft?
The music of California holds little interest for me, compared to that of New York. Give me the music of Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield over Cambridge, Norwich and Felixstowe.
There’s a paper in there somewhere.
Those are two resolutely second-division bands, though. The Furs were always considered with a bit of suspicion, and Diesel Park West were really good, but never contenders for anything.
I rest my case!
I think the sense of escapism and “I’m different” helps create a sense of cool though. If Daniel Ash had come from Chelsea or Kensington, he would have been able to join a gang rather than having to form his own.
As a band, Bauhaus were cool though. The music was fleetingly great, the name was brilliant, someone in the band went to art school and the hair and cheekbones were superb.
Pete Murphy was good looking but the music was pretty terrible. Best off appearing in commercials for cassettes
As the afterword’s Northampton correspondent I am happy to confirm that it is not a cool place. Does/did have some cool people living here (Danny Ash, Pat Fish, couple of blokes from spaceman 3/spiritualized, Alan Moore) and for a while they all drank in the Racehorse pub, which was a decidedly cool place. I also drank in the ‘horse, but I was nowhere near cool.
I think having the guys who gave us “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” as well as the guy who gave us “Mind the Oranges Marlon!” is a pretty good showing.
I saw The Jazz Butcher at the Joiners Arms in Southampton, back in the early 90s – a fantastic show and Pat Fish oozed cool in a delightfully languished manner. I’m not sure who the Spacemen 3 blokes were, but collectively, their stoned/zoned-out stylings must have added to the sense of an Algonquin Table of Midland hipness – or at least Dormouses at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
So-called Cool dudes who never seemed convincing to me:
Arthur Fonzerelli
Lou Reed
The Boomtown Rats – particularly guitarist, Gary Cott
New Muzik’s bass player – who played with one hand while wearing sunglasses and chewing open-mouthed
Debbie Harry and Clem Burke were cool – the rest of Blondie were gurning idiots
Roxy-era Brian Eno (but he was up against the perma-cool Bry)
I remember Boomtown Rats as being extremely uncool
Yes, definitely.@dai Mark Baverstock laughed at me and threatened to beat me up because I’d written “The Rats” on my school bag.
The first three albums are marvellous but they were never cool.
Wearing pyjamas while playing the piano – possibly cool … certainly had an effect on Stuart Pearce who took to wearing his pyjama top to gigs (and is seen on the cover of a Lurkers album)
I think Chris Stein was and is cool. He takes pretty good black and white photos, and more importantly, he’s been in a relationship with Debbie Harry since the seventies.
They haven’t been in a relationship for many years
But he’s still cool.
Agreed. Cooler than Clem Burke I would say. CB had too much hair.
Great drummer though.
A cool drummer?
Are there any?
Or is playing the drums antithetical to coolness?
Charlie, surely!
Not when behind the kit, because the nature of the task makes that impossible IMO.
At all other times, certainly.
Keith le Blanc RIP was a very cool drummer.
Agreed.
It was Jimmy Destri who was cool in Blondie I think
It lasted quite a while and they stayed close. Nitpicker.
They split in 1987, a whole five years after the dreadful The Hunter album. Anyone who saw the videos could tell that he was ill and she/they were (both) on hard drugs.
Still, in AW terms, that’s last week.
1987 – in AW terms, that’s last week.
We are spinning out AW straplines at the moment – can we not mutiny and demand a monthly poll for the next one?
It ended 40 years ago, not sure that is nitpicking.
I remember thinking that Bryan Ferry being able to whistle at Live Aid was soooo cooooll! Then any time I see him moving with his graceless shuffle like a drunken uncle, it evaporates! So cool is transient.
I think true cool requires an appearance of comfort in one’s own skin and identity. Stylish clothes are a help but not essential. Talent helps and the absence of any visual faults or truly odd mannerisms seems a pre-requisite. Cool is also totally subjective so general definitions are elusive or impossible to defend. Uncool is generally easier to get broad agreement. Intelligence and the ability to radiate it as well as wit rather than humour are useful.
I may have been cool in the past or at least convinced myself that I was. I have young children now who do not need to be asked to offer their opinion on how uncool I am. That ship has sailed Chez Bamber.
Ferry always has this pained expression on his face when singing. Come on Bryan it’s not that hard to sing
Always looks like he’s nursing a poo to me, a bit like Raye. Speaking of whom…? No news..?
Nothing since mid-December. I hope her publicist is OK.
She’s going to have to start going door-to-door soon, just to keep her name in everyone’s minds.
No, no, no, no, no, no…
Eno remains cool: in all incarnations, under all circumstances, in all time zones, Roxy-era and beyond.
Bryan – well, I can’t put it better than Bamber below (or possibly above, depending where this lands): “Bryan in not perma-cool shocker!”…
But then Eno has produced U2 and Coldplay, albeit their better albums. And lately, he’s become a rather dogged, hard left Corbyn apologist type, sailing into Roger Waters. 🙁 Uncool tendencies.
Interesting. First time I’ve seen anyone equate Eno and Uncle Rog!
And “albeit their better albums” suggests that your heart wasn’t really in that particular “coolness” metric…
Cool denotes ironic detachment. So sincerity about politics – nah, not cool. And particularly not 70s-style leftie posturing. MAYBE a bit of post-modernism (80s-style leftie posturing).
Arf!
I did say “Roxy-era” Eno. Otherwise, he is coolness personified. With Roxy, it seemed he was vying for the camera’s attention with bizarre attire and MPB-denying hairstyles. There’s no point in doing this kind of thing when you have an undeniably cool and good-looking lead singer.
The Blondie boys were an embarrassment as they monkeyed around behind Debbie Harry. Only Clem stuck to the job, drumming up a storm and not caring about being wacky or getting in the frame. That’s why he was the cool one.
You absolutely did – and I took your point. I just didn’t agree with it.
@black-celebration Clem was/is a great drummer. Jimmy Destri was the cool one though. What with his smoking and all.
John Lennon summed it up for me in Hey Jude: ‘For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool / By making his world a little colder.’
I didn’t heed his warning, unfortunately. I now realise I missed a lot of life’s opportunities because I thought it ‘cool’ not to get involved. Absurdly, I was never by any definition (except my own) ‘cool’!
One of John’s very best. Up there with Eleanor Rigby.
And Yesterday
I regarded Hey Jude as my song, as it was Number 1 when I was born, and was written for my namesake – for a while I asked people to call me Jude, as I thought it was cooler than my actual name. Jude the Obscure, St Jude – not particularly lucky people, it has to be said.
I admitted to similar feelings of trying to be cool and missing out on opportunities, but it is never too late. I deliberately try not to be cool now. I am happy to be the clown (on here and IRL), and it is much more fun (generally) than being aloof. Also, some opportunities lost, others found. I bet you could still grasp opportunities, Munster. ‘Nobody is looking at you’ is my new catchphrase for ignoring public embarrassment.
What is cool?
Me.
Always.
(I’ve never been cool.)
I never cared about what was cool and what wasn’t when I was young (nor do I now).
I would raid our attic closets for strange old clothes left in there for decades, just to avoid looking like everyone else, because I rather despised the cloned look I saw around me in the 80s. And when I bought clothes and shoes I went for the extremes – bold colours and patterns, odd designs.
Nobody thought I was cool, they just thought I was weird. But I liked it, so I wore it.
I’d always get accosted on the night bus on the weekend by people my age who wanted to know if I was a mod or a punk, and when I said neither, and they asked “then what are you?” I just shrugged and said “nothing – I just wear what I like” they looked confused as if this was unheard of.
I started wearing weird shit early, my mum had a terrible time taking me shopping for clothes as a small child even, because I had such particular taste and was so strong-willed that she knew it was pointless buying something I didn’t approve of, I’d just refuse to wear it. Stubborn as a red pig, as we say here.
I was always called contrary, but I’m not. I just don’t share your taste, OK? 🙂
It’s clear that you were far cooler than you realised.
Textbook coolness.
In retrospect, sure, but nobody thought so then.
(My 57 year old version of that “I don’t care” attitude is that I have five sweaters I’m comfortable in and one pair of jeans, and I never wear anything else – not quite as cool! 😀 )
…all 5 sweaters at once could be a bold move though?
And getting through doors could pose a problem.
and keeping cool.
It’s Stockholm!
Are you telling me that the reason they’re called “sweaters” isn’t because we’re meant to sweat in them?
I must reconsider my strategy then…
I no longer love it
I did think about whether one can be cool and sweaty at the same time. I concluded that in order for this to be the case, some kind or exertion is required. And the exertion can’t be mundane like running for the bus.
On this basis, I would conclude that it is difficult (but not impossible) to wear 5 sweaters and be cool at the same time. It very much depends on what you are doing at the time.
There’s a certain piece of music that only us cool people will recognise as being the indicator of cool. We never tell anybody else what it is. You can only claim to be cool if you know what it is. If you hear it and know that’s the one you will be cool. Unless you get it wrong.
Hampers are cool.
Those that try to be cool are not cool.
A bit like if someone says they’re a bit nutty, then they aren’t
My fidge – that’s quite cool.
And with this cold weather and lacklustre central heating, so is the rest of my flipping house
Ditto my tumble dryer, which packed up on Saturday when faced with a load of wet bath towels. Mind you, it was nearly 14 years old.
Cool car #1.
Cool Car#2
.
The owner had 2 other classic Citroens parked there too.
A DS and a DS station wagon.
That’s cool.
The DS is indeed a cool car, but for my money I pick the SM over a DS
(although if someone gave me a DS, I wouldn’t say no)
Alright Jeremy but what’s sub-zero?
I believe that’s Waterloo and there are always two or three old Citroens parked around there or were in the mid to late 90s.
It is indeed Waterloo.
Roupell Street. Just down the road from The King’s Arms pub.
A short walk from the amazing (and getting-dangerously-popular) Bus Garage Café.
Roupel Street it is. I used to work in New Kings Beam House (just opposite Kings Reach Tower, former home of the NME! Cool!) and would walk along here to Waterloo station regularly.
Sometimes having to pass by a film crew eternally filming Call The F*****g Midwife.
And this is super cool. A convertible, or décapotable if you will.
When I first met Will Self he was working very hard at being cool and drove an SM, or what he called a Citroen Sado-Masochist. He claimed that he would buy them cheap from junkers and just throw them away and get a new one when they gave up the ghost. Not sure I believed him…
I agree totally. My dream car.
In the 1980s The Waterboys were cool until’The Whole Of The Moon” became a top,10 when it was re-issued.
Just made the top 30 on its original release in 1985 and then fell away.
Awareness was raised but coolness was saved!
I like them, but never thought they were cool at all. I had a nagging doubt about the band in the beginning: who are these people? Why is so much money being put into them? Is that an accordion? Why are they pretending to be Irish? – whilst still happily buying the records.
The Waterboys were cool until after Fisherman’s Blues. From !985 – 89 they were the best band in the world, and l will not listen to any other view.
How are you with other views in writing?
I was a big Waterboys fan and Fisherman’s Blues and the stuff they were doing around then tested my faith. I disliked Bob Dylan intensely back then and their efforts to emulate his 60s vibe really irked me. I grew to love the album and their covers of Girl from the North Country and I’ll be Your Baby Tonight within a few years but they ceased to be my favourite band. Their advocacy for the Saw Doctors further alienated them as they were as anti-cool as possible to a Dublin music snob. I have since grown to appreciate the Saw Doctors for what they are – good fun.
In Ireland IIRC the Waterboys became the figureheads for the loose Raggle-Taggle movement, broadly disliked by anyone not directly involved in it, so that made them uncool to many. I remember the Fatima Mansions t-shirt slogan “Raggle-Taggle, Nein Danke”.
With the benefit of hindsight I can see that this was all my issue – someone disliking the musical evolution of their pet band. The Waterboys in their various incarnations have continued to produce great music and are one of the greatest live bands ever any time I’ve seen them. Respect is due!
Think they got cool around Fisherman’s Blues actually for me. Before that they seemed very unfashionable,
Their upcoming album sounds very intriguing – a 30-song double concept album about the life and career of Dennis Hopper, presenting him as emblematic of the evolution of the (counter) culture across the later 20th century. So there. 😉
Really looking forward to seeing them on tour in May.
Have you made this up @black-type?
No! That would take a leap of imagination way beyond my capabilities…
https://www.uncut.co.uk/news/the-waterboys-announce-new-album-life-death-and-dennis-hopper-148378/
Crikey!
I confess, I had also assumed that this was the first move in an elaborate prank…
Wow!
They’re playing the Corn Exchange in May but it is 50 quid a ticket and I don’t want to take the risk of ‘and here’s one from our new album’ at that price.
Maybe they’ll play the complete 30-song cycle, then leave the stage without allowing an encore to sully the purity of the concept…
It still wouldn’t be the worst gig any of us have been to.
I wonder if Mr Fenton would agree, when he’s £50 down and 29 songs in?
I’ve seen them a couple of times since the Fisherman’s Box tour. I doubt I’ll go again, a bit too guitary for me now, much as I love This Is The Sea.
There is an argument to be had that The Waterboys were a guitar band who went on a Celtic-acoustic excursion with Fisherman’s Blues etc. and have now returned to their guitar band roots.
Much like RT, I used to see them every tour, but realised I only liked every other one (usually the more acoustic sets). I walked out of the A Rock In A Weary Land gig, such was the relentless “everything turned up to 11” assault.
I haven’t seen them for over a decade and I’ve lost count of where we/they are.
What is cool is having such a great community of people all willing to join in on a discussion, taking it off in all sorts of directions and bringing all sorts of perspectives to the subject – thank you all!
Yeh cool.
You can always rely on the advertising industry to tell you what’s cool…can’t you?
I think I always had a sense that “cool” is time-limited and have tended to avoid people who seemed to be trying too hard. That said, some of the nicest people I’ve met have been, and they’d all agree, complete posers, but they’ve all carried it off in a tongue in cheek way.
The truly cool, I think, are those self-actualised folk who have the confidence to develop their own style without needing to follow trends or seek acceptance and approval from others.
People trying too hard…like Bobbie Gillespie??
He’s someone who tries very hard. You can imagine him queuing in the toy shop in Bridport for some rare Ramones Lego figures to arrive, even though there’s nobody else in the queue. Then he pops over the road to see if the cassette of MC5’s new album (yes, there is one!) has come in.
(disclaimer: I’ve seen him in the toy shop there.)
I despise the concept of ‘cool’.
The problem is enshrined in that other thread of ‘what is not cool’. For ‘cool’ to exist, there has to be an outside, looked down upon, shunned, sneered at. Frankly, the world could do with less of that, especially when distinctions are built on such frippery as looks and whether you jumped on the bandwagon before it started moving.
Let’s also have a think about the following.
Smoking is cool.
Taking drugs is cool.
Until you end up in a hospice or A&E, or unless you still believe that dying young is cool.
If provoked, I will also rant about the glamourising of ‘attitude’.
Cool is a slippery concept, I feel. Many of the examples in the comments above, including my own, are foolish and ephemeral, particularly those that demarcate people according to what they wear or how they look or behave.
But I love the look in my daughters’ eyes when they talk about something and say “that was SO cool!” – because they’ve discovered something new to them for the first time, or they’ve had a great time with their friends. It’s just a natural expression of wonder.
That goes along with a growing sense of derision at things they don’t like, of course, but I think that’s inevitable.
I think that’s the social bonding side to determining what is and isn’t cool, which inevitably creates that oppositional aspect of cool/not cool. But it’s not static. I don’t think smoking or taking drugs (and certainly not drinking alcohol among the young) are cool any more. Tastes, and what is cool, changes.
Who knows, an oppositional sense of cool may even exist on the Afterword? Hence Vincent’s thread, (which is very cool).
I think that though there is an overarching and pretty nebulous Cool that is universal, there are also lots of smaller still-important-but-also-nebulous Cools that are dependant on geography, timing, social status, ethnicity, etc.
I don’t think the concept of Actual Cool necessarily depends on a concept of what is Uncool. You don’t need to worry about or sneer at what’s Uncool to be Cool. The apparent effortlessness of Actual Cool precudes having any concern about the Uncool.
Light-hearted thread turns serious – cool or not cool?
Overly-serious is probably uncool.
Never been noted for my seriousness, but also never been noted as a cool guy either.
A couple of local kids were heard calling my car cool, summer before last, as the soft top folded itself down on a (rare) hot and sunny day. These days the soft top is no longer operational and I don’t have the money to get it fixed. Uncool.
Not specifically aimed at you, Mike – yours was just the last comment on this small sub thread. You must be cool – just look at all the jazz you listen to…
😎😎😎
In my musical appreciation I came quite late to jazz.
So that’s me aspiring to coolness.
Which is uncool by definition.
Definitely uncool – if I can take a thread subject and waffle it into a lengthy unread thesis, I probably will. People learn to scroll past such unneeded interjections and continue with the bants, I am sure.
I should have added a disarming smiley emoji! 🙂
I don’t mind either way. Responses are good, but the AW has always seemed to be a bit of a ‘sounding board’, where it all goes into the mill (and comes out as pulp).
I realised today that ‘cool’ would be to leave the thread early, with more unspoken than said, leaving the audience wanting more, but that isn’t my way.
No offence intended, Sal. And no intention to inhibit your natural “way” – just a one-line observation. Cheerio!!
None taken.
Anyway, I think it’s quite reasonable that after a few posts, you end up with a fence – it kind of marks off the territory of a thread – particularly if nobody takes it. I think I may be stretching this pun way beyond its natural limits.
The epitome of cool is me walking round the park getting some air when the kids playing football knock their ball over towards me and I do the equivalent of this:
(Coach Dragan Stojkovic volleys into goal from the half way line)
He squares up to do it as well – not a lucky punt. That’s very cool indeed.
Is it though? Is it not a bit show off? This, in my humble opinion, is way cooler. Hands in pockets, subtle skill and a little smile of acknowledgment for the cheering.
Us Norwich fans still think he is so cool
I really like him. We are top of the Championship, 5 points better than last year at the same time, 7 points better than the season Bielsa took us up as Champions and, yet, there are still fans grumbling that we are too, measured and not gung ho enough. I still can’t quite fathom why Norwich gave him the boot.
And, despite many things (his hair, his choice of footwear and, possibly, his speaking voice,) he is super cool.
Lovely chap and still gets a warm welcome at Carrow Road. However, took Norwich to the Premier twice and both times a disaster. I’ve never really liked Leeds Utd but I really hope (and you’ve got more dosh than us) he makes a go of it third time round.
Leeds are not really designed to be liked. Although the team and players have been, generally, a cut above for the last few years. (a lot of that is down to Bielsa’s approach which has left lasting goodness at the club.
Some of the fans are a bit shit though. And really good at being a bit shit.
I hope DF gets his chance in the Prem. I think he is good enough to make a go of it.
Here’s a thought that just occurred to me. Coolness is a social quality, isn’t it? You can’t be cool on your own.
In one sense it is a judgement made of you by others, but in an other, it is an ease in public spaces, a comfort with one’s own self under public gaze. The opposite of embarrassment, which seems to the state dreaded by most teenagers.
Uncertain: coolness I associate with loners, even within a group of people all seemingly together. It needs a sense of distance. q.v. Stuart Sutcliffe in early Beatles snaps.
Though being a loner didn’t work here.
Mebbe. I think it fits introverts who like being with other people – they aren’t the outspoken ones, but they don’t hide themselves away.
A discussion I had with a visiting friend last week in the excellent café at Waterloo Bus Garage.
I keep my smartphone in a smart black faux-leather case that covers and protects the screen when it’s in my (front left) trouser pocket. This, he told me, is something that only old people do.
Cooler, younger folks keep their phones unprotected in a back pocket of their pants. And the screens are usually cracked.