It occurred to me the other day that there just aren’t that many bald rock stars. Sure, there are some but compared to the male population in general there are disproportionately few. Indeed, the surviving members of the 60s generation – Jagger, Richards, Clapton, Young, Daltrey, McCartney – have such a fine set of luxuriant barnets that I almost wonder if the famous ‘60s casualties of the ’27 Club’ (Hendrix, Jones, Morrison) were deliberately bumped off by their bandmates for showing signs of balding. I know Pete Townshend is bald, but he probably played his guitar so loud that it simply blew all his hair off.The alt-rock generation, it has to be said, hasn’t fared quite so well; Michael Stipe, the Pixies and Billy Corgan have all long since abandoned any pretence of hair and forged a new alt-rock baldy style whilst Bob Mould of Husker Du and Sugar fame has gone for the compensatory baldy-beardy look, which I’m not sure is always a good idea because growing hair on your chin to make up for not having it on your head does tend to make it look like you’ve put your head on upside down.
But one member of the ‘90s music crowd whose hair is still impressive as he enters middle age is Brett Anderson, once and future singer with Suede. I saw him once, in what was admittedly a pretty incongruous place to spot a formerly androgynous, drug addicted neo-glam rocker, as it was at Hampton Court Palace with his wife and kids. But despite the unusual location, he still managed to look stylish and he exuded an air of charisma that I picked up on before I realised who he was.
On one hand, you could argue that it wasn’t difficult to make a style statement in early ‘90s Britain as the music world was in thrall to Madchester, a uniquely style-free musical movement whose adherents laboured under the bizarre belief that sportswear is something that should ever be worn in a non-sporting setting (missing out on the subtle clue within the name that indicates when it should be worn: when you are playing SPORTS. You see how that works? The only other reason it should be worn is if you spend your entire life watching Jeremy Kyle and are trying to get Channel Five to make a documentary about you called Britain’s Fattest Bastard.)
So when Brett and his cohorts emerged from the Camden scene with their slightly gothic, nonchalantly decadent and elegantly wasted image, they were always going to stand out. Brett’s look may not have been particularly complex – basically an unbuttoned charity shop shirt tucked into skinny trousers and topped off with a fitted leather jacket and the ever-present cigarette – but he always made it look effortless. Even now, Brett is still whippet thin, in possession of a full and thick head of hair and, as the recent Suede reunion concerts showed, his basic look is one that grows old gracefully; he effortlessly pulled off the relatively simple look of a white shirt and tailored suit, showing that some people have a natural sense of style and charisma and you can still be stylish as you enter middle age. (If only all rock stars could master the art of growing old gracefully; I’m particularly looking forward to seeing if Placebo are still going in ten years’ time and, more importantly, whether anyone will take Brian Molko to one side and quietly explain that it’s not really a good idea to persevere with an androgynous sex pixie look when you’re almost fifty and the growth of your double chin is inversely proportionate to the decline in your hairline).
Although Suede’s moment in the sun was too brief, it was a vital kick up the backside for the staid styles of indie fashion; the next big thing for the music press was Oasis, who returned to the sportswear look and contributed to the steady decline in bands looking cool that would reach its nadir ten years later with the hugely over stylised skinny-trousered look of Razorlight and other terrible and contrived bands whose entire image was stage managed by an army of stylists to be as blandly inoffensive as possible. For we will always need bands to show us how to be stylish, and it’s a good warning sign that if a band look boring their music will be boring too, and their fans in turn. After all, would you rather be surrounded by the Beautiful Ones at a Suede gig or find yourself trapped in a sea of identikit, sportswear-clad chav-cattle Oasis fans who are likely to rob you at the end of the show?!
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