Fascinating debate by us movers-and-shakers as to what is cool.
I reckon it’s easier to say what it isn’t:
1980s post-Hackett Genesis
Barclay James Harvest
The Anti-Nowhere League
Kenny G
Chris de Burgh
Vanilla Ice
Clothes from “Foster’s menswear”
“Mind Your Language” DVD box sets
Reader’s contributions, or have I said it all?
Naff is another level of uncool, as in De Burgh or Kenny. In other words clearly shit, whereas much of the formerly uncool music has become cool. Like Toto or Christopher Cross. So it’s not so straightforward. These days that cool/ uncool judgement has elapsed for me. Just the is it shit? question remains. Well mostly. Listening to The Stooges in your 60s doesn’t have the appeal it used to. Age clearly changes things, well for me anyway.
A lot of shouty, noisy, “jolly cross” music now fails to appeal, and things that needed to be stoned to enjoy, likewise. But I still listen to Iggy and the Stooges and enjoy it. Maybe uncool is just cool that hipsters decide is in or out. Whereas shit is never registered by the hip types?
Based upon repeated sightings in the wild (i.e. charity shops) I would add:
Lostprophets
G*rY Gl*tt*er
R*lf H*rr*s
Black & White Minstrels
There’s usually a lovely lady of my mum’s vintage behind the counter, and I don’t really want to have the “I don’t think you should be selling those” discussion.
Any take Thatter solo album
Most political leaders, Vaclav Havel long gone.
Those ‘Top Of The Pops’ albums which were released in the 70’s, which were chart hits but not by the original artists. These were considered to be extremely uncool by me and my friends, although some of them have now become sought after by record collectors.
Especially as we now know that many of them featured a nascent Elton John.
RHFCP. FFS.
@noisecandy
We used to have the Hot Hits LPs which I think were similar to the ‘Top Of The Pops’ albums.
I remember this one:
I don’t remember what these versions were like, but I still like Resurrection Shuffle, Stoney End and, of course, Sweet Caroline (doesn’t everyone? :)).
@Pajp I remember them well. It was a brave lad who walked into the school playground with one of these albums tucked under his arm.
@noisecandy I was only just 7 at the time of Hot Hits 4, so (luckily, it seems) was never tempted to take it to school.
Thinking about it, I don’t think I ever took a record to school. I only ever had a few records before I was 18 and I was never the kind of kid that brought records in.
I did, however, benefit from others doing it. I distinctly remember hearing Bob Dylan’s Hurricane for the first time in our Sixth Form Common Room because someone had brought Desire in. I loved it. I’d never heard anything like it. Likewise, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird. I don’t I’d ever heard a song change tempo like that does.
My parents had this one. Taped Resurrection Shuffle for their house party mix. Two ticks for fast. Everyone was up on the floor.
Stoney End I loved, from the Streisand cover. Also Rose Garden. That was on the radio a lot. Chestnut Mare fantastic. Us kids were happy with these versions. 1971 that came out I believe. I knew these songs, yet to know the albums that Hepworth eulogised.
The sexy covers were of course of no interest whatsoever. That was the norm in those days. LP covers, paperbacks poster.
I found the picture I posted on this blog:
https://hitcovers.weebly.com/hot-hits.html
It’s interesting to see that some of the Hot Hits LPs later in 1971 made the charts. Hot Hits 6, for example, was No 1 on the official UK album charts in August and also made No 12 on the NME album charts.
No, the covers were of no interest to me either, as 7 year old.
We also had the “footballer” and the “rugby” LPs. Both of those covers seem to me now to have a certain innocence about them. Other cover shots are a bit more knowing, but that would have been lost on me at the time
You have to admire the tenacity to feature a different sport on the cover each time.
Once the main ones had been covered, they moved to archery, tobogganing, snooker, croquet and fishing.
I have all of Queen’s albums*. and 90% of Kiss’s albums. Does any Afterworder have a less cool record collection than me?
*well, the Freddie ones. The others don’t count.
I suppose that depends…is prog cool at the moment?
Cooler than Kiss, Fitter, cooler than Kiss.
Oh, frabjous day, calloo callay!
I’ve just checked and I’ve seen two on @Vincent ‘s list. I thought I’d seen CDBleurgh supporting BJH at Leeds Town Hall but checking he was supporting Supertramp. However he appears on a BJH album, is that non cool squared?
I saw CDB supporting Supertramp, too. I also saw Gallagher and Lyle supporting Supertramp. (and Joan Armatrading and the Movies). I suspect attending a Marillion weekender isn’t cool, either. Uncoolcore!
I find Elon Musk perpetually uncool.
Both Democrats and Republicans are uncool.
American politics generally is not cool.
Ours is not much better either.
Me
To me “not cool” refers not to your naff ‘n’ cheesy Lieutenant Pigeons or Black Laces but to perfectly competent performers whose music for some hard-to-pin-down reason we were wise to keep quiet about actually liking when they were at their peak. There have been quite a few of them over the years – and some have subsequently been acknowledged as having indeed been cool after all, sometimes decades after their heyday – including but not limited to:
Gilbert O’Sullivan
Jake Thackray
Moody Blues
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Vegas-era Elvis
John Denver
Wings
Climax Blues Band
Billy Joel
The Sweet
Mud
ABBA
Status Quo
Queen
Meat Loaf
10 cc
Level 42
Phil Collins
Ocean Colour Scene
U2
Coldplay
In the past 24 hours I have heard tracks by 4 of that lot.
Oh, yes, and I’ve seen at least four of them live. But when they were at their most commercially successful, did you or would you?
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 3 times from 1976 to 1979, Queen 1976, ‘Ver Quo 1977, 10cc 1976, Phil Collins (with Genesis, Brand X, and John Martyn) from 1977 to 1980, Climax Blues Band 1979. Does that answer your question? Wasn’t I an uncool cat?
(I will point out that in these years I also saw all the main early punk and post-punk bands except the Sex Pistols.)
At the risk of ridicule, I don’t think any of these gigs are really seriously uncool – but especially not Genesis at that point, Brand X (extremely cool), John Martyn (very cool), etc
…and does the punk comment in the brackets make you more cool?
In the two circles I moved in at the time in Brighton, the proggy-hippie and punk crowds were pretty distinct and respectively scornful of the others. I was one of the decadent folk that was either very uncool for being in the intersection, or, as I preferred, being cool for being in both. Cool I don’t care about, fun and cheap thrills I do – and got more than I would have being tribal. A good lesson. But I did find the 1980 Genesis concert a bit of a bore, TBH. Not a patch on Earl’s Court or Knebworth.
Oho! Post-Hackett. Fair enough then – not cool.
Genesis were briefly cool when Gabriel used to have a bass drum onstage to smash up and a stand for his flute.
Some light and shade in their music instead of the chugga-chugga fare most others provided at the time.
Before that bonkers part-shaven haircut and the costumes came into play.
Phil Cool. If youre so insecure about yourself you need to make your stage name ‘cool’ you aren’t.
I also love Gabriel era Genesis but by default any band that has Phil Collins (Coolings?) in it cannot be considered, in any meaningful way, cool.
Sorry, there is just no possibility. Whatever he brought to the table as a preternaurally gifted drummer is outweighed by his horrid smarmy, ersatz soul, & finger-down the throat MOR ballad drek which thus tainted everything else by association.
The state of this barnet, the Balding Mullet; acceptable in the 80s indeed…
When Hackett and Collins came in to replace Phillips and Mayhew respectively, in Genesis, it wasn’t a hugely noticeable change musically. Hackett was a bit different as a player but not an improvement per se, because there was nothing at all wrong with Anthony Phillips’ playing. Collins’ main addition to their sound, when he arrived was his harmony vocals. Anthony Mayhew was a perfectly good drummer for that band. Phil Collins’ vocals worked really well set against Peter Gabriel’s lead vocals. A step up IMO.
I quite liked the first couple of post-Gabriel Genesis albums, but not as much as the Gabriel ones, for all of their flaws.
Gabriel was right to leave when he did, though I didn’t recognise it at the time. The Genesis formula was getting stale.
Way past cool, to bring us back to this thread’s theme.
By the time Hackett left I’d pretty much moved on from that style of Prog (as no-one was yet calling it) and was no longer interested.
That’s just nit-picking…
Somehow these threads end up in the holy wars of ‘my favourite band wasn’t as good after X left and I’m still angry about it.’ Usually ‘that’ quote about Genesis comes up, too. Therefore…
If you ever wonder why Steve Howe looks in such a bad way, he’s probably looked at all the people taking a dump on his efforts to keep working and stay positive in the spirit of ‘Yes’. That would wear anyone out.
I find Deep Purple interesting, they never seem to have given a damn about any of this stuff, and keep going, play their new material in concert, get good reviews (the reviewer is usually surprised)… and stay aloof from it all. I think they might be accidentally very cool indeed.
…just to say, taking the piss out of bald people is quite funny on this forum. Like that guy who calls us all ‘dodgers’. Well, yeah.
“The Balding Mullet””. If The Massive ever open a pub, that’s it’s name.
Cool and bald.
Yul Brynner, in his day? Yes.
Telly Savalas, any day? Nah.
Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, Michael Stipe, Ed Harris, Dwayne Johnson, John Travolta? Yes.
Sean Connery? Cool with hair, even cooler bald.
Billy Corgan? No.
Coolness is a concept I utterly diskard. In fact being repeatedly told someone is cool is enough to put be off them.
NME all over again, innit? “Coolness Wars” based on your politics and whether your haircut faces forward or not…
My haircut doesn’t even face upward/outward any more.
Haircut? What haircut?