Of public image...

John Lydon

Toaster Mantis wrote: Anderson III wrote: That's actually a good point! But I feel that people can be prejudice against artists without a carefully constructed image too. As shallow as such an opinion might be on paper, I think it's not so crazy... I mean, would you ever want to see live a death metal band who looked exactly like the main characters of Superbad, no matter how good their music was?

I wouldn't want to see a death metal band live if every member looked like Halle Berry ! But I think I can honestly, like really honestly, say I don't care about a bands image. To prove my point here's some of my favorite bands: Gentle Giant, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, FZ and the crew...

Anderson III wrote: That's actually a good point! But I feel that people can be prejudice against artists without a carefully constructed image too.

As shallow as such an opinion might be on paper, I think it's not so crazy... I mean, would you ever want to see live a death metal band who looked exactly like the main characters of Superbad, no matter how good their music was?




Edited by Toaster Mantis - September 13 2008 at 14:37

Ian Anderson has it all: brains, poetry, business savvy and humour. His interviews are often full of cleverness. Plus his smoked salmon is the best in the  world!

Peter Gabriel always seemed to take himself & his music quiet seriously and with good reason and was more choreographed in his stage shows where Ian Anderson seemed more at ease with having fun entertaining with almost a Monty Python type humor knowing the music was killer anyway.
Both great entertainers in my book.

Anderson Ian

Syzygy wrote: To put it another way, I think that Anderson's private persona is probably the furthest removed from his public image compared with the others

Ain't nothing wrong with that in my book.  I've noticed that a lot of people seem to have a stigma against musicians who put a lot of effort into their image, but if you really think about how art works it becomes obvious that this is only a problem when the image doesn't suit the music. It's like there's some prejudice that a well-considered image necessarily is a sign that the music won't have any substance, which a listen to Jethro Tull exposes as quite the leap in logic!

Frank Zappa. He always seemed serious, but was always making a joke or being goofy. And at the same time always saying something meaningful and intelligent. And his music is good.

Syzygy wrote: The greatest public image of any artist on the site has to be The Residents, though, with Kraftwerk in second place.

Syzygy wrote: From that list, Ian Anderson - his image is probably the most contrived of any of those listed, but he's got his tongue planted firmly in his cheek most of the time and he's always entertaining.

I thought that an artist's public persona had to be somewhat deliberately cultivated/constructed to some extent to qualify as an "image" in the first place...