Who's Cooler ?

     I guess it probably started with Beatles vs. Stones (Mozart vs. Beethoven?). It was Beatles for a while when I was young (Greatest Hits '67-'70 was my second album) then pretty much Stones the rest of the way in (or is it out?). I grew tired of Beatles songs and I almost find them annoying today. But I think the real battle that has raged on since the eighties for many music fans has been Smiths vs. The Cure, or maybe more to the point, Morrisey vs. Robert Smith.

     I'm not going to go into any great detail here but I think as far as personalities go my vote would have to go to Morrisey. I've never been the kind of music fan that needs to know everything about a particular artist (I usually let their music speak for them) so my knowledge of Robert Smith (and Morrisey) is limited but Morrisey is the more interesting of the two and  has the better solo career. As far as the bands themselves go I was always a bigger Cure fan than a Smiths fan. I simply think that they have superior pop songs for my musical tastes. (I like Depeche Mode better than both of them anyway.)

      I've started to meander a bit because Cure vs. Smiths isn't really the point of this blog (I'll let you know what it is just as soon as I do). Oh yeah it was this, I guess it has something to do with how people defend their idols and the coolness factor of some of these now aging rock stars...

       

    

    Always great hair and makeup... 




      The reason I started to think about this was the impressive performance that George Michael gave on American Idol last night (see video below) and how in the last few years he's kind of gone under the wire. I've always been a fan of his music, even in the Wham! days although Wake Me Up wears a little thin now (Careless Whisper still a great song). He's a phenomenal artist/talent that writes, arranges, produces and even plays instruments on his albums but never gets factored into any of these "who's better" or "who's cooler" or "what would George Michael do?" debates (which is probably good). He's refreshing because any time he's screwed up in the media he's taken credit for what he has done (even wrote the song Outside) rather than try to put some spin on it. I have no idea what Robert Smith is doing now (and don't really care but I  wish him well) and as much as I like a lot of Smiths and Morrisey's music I find that he has become (from what I've seen, sorry Hun I know it's his birthday) a preening, pretentious British gasbag. I don't want to come across as sounding like I have a man crush here but right now Mr. Michael could be the reigning king of British cool. Just don't tell Dave Gahan I said so... too bad the King suit in this video never caught on...