Shania Twain's Ramones T-shirt: C/D?

Shania wearing a Ramones T-Shirt
or
Billy Idol wearing a Billy Ray Cyrus T-shirt?

C'mon, Tom, you prefer this?

Rod Stewart singing "Do You Think I'm Sexy?"
or
Iggy Pop singing "Do You Think I'm Sexy?"

I stand in the Shania's Ramones Shirt is Horseshit camp simply because I suspect that Shania doesn't care a whit about the Ramones either way, and something about that rubs me the wrong way. This doesn't make Tom's (or Mark S's) position -- that nobody gets hurt, and in fact the Ramones stand only to benefit, so why get all lathered up about it -- hath to it some pith, though it does seem a point that gets overstated quite a lot, presumably for rhetorical purposes. Tom's right to say that of course Shania might actually dig the Ramones, but doens't it seem more likely that her handlers chose the shirt in question? Or that the photographer did? Naturally Shania might like the ramones, but given what we know about the workings of high celebrity, do we honestly suspect that she does -- or does the question only get raised to score points? What I feel, and I'm guessing Alex feels as well, is that the whole enterprise of having a photographer pick out one's clothing is kinda icky, & that said enterprise is somehow symptomatic of a greater social ill...

...which would be some alleged crisis of authenticity or something, and since my longstanding position has been that there was no "turning point" at which the world abandoned authenticity and began pursuing its recent course but rather that things have always been more or less as they are now & only the tools have changed, this leaves me with few legs left to stand on. I just don't think that it's constructive to caricature the other side of the debate, and think it'd be useful if we began by conceding that there's something to each side. And if we then all agreed to just agree with whatever unstable position I happen to have randomly landed on, since I am so wise ;)

Rod Stewart surely defines tiresome cock rock but I love him too.

(The 'conversion fallacy' deserves its own thread which I will start when I work out how to phrase it)

This doesn't make Tom's (or Mark S's) position -- that nobody gets hurt, and in fact the Ramones stand only to benefit, so why get all lathered up about it -- hath to it some pith,

to this:

This doesn't make Tom's (or Mark S's) position -- that nobody gets hurt, and in fact the Ramones stand only to benefit, so why get all lathered up about it -- any less valid, and I think said position hath to it some pitch etc.

"Based on her press, she's has nothing but contempt for her audience and positively LOATHES being a "public person.""

Cf. "Based on Kurt Cobain's press he has nothing but contempt for his audience and positively LOATHES being a "public person""

-thetics? -thenics? I haff never known for sure

I think we can assume he thought it was the brand name.

Hey, I'm still your hero too, right Dan? *tear in eye, lip quivering*

(see, I'm agreeing with Alex in NYC pretty much! Except he dislikes this and I don't.)

(Alex there is a 'bollywood' version - the International version - judging by the first single it is ace and the others are rotten.)

This is a beautiful explanation of what you mean & bodes much further thought by me: offhand I'd say that the tension here is between an essentially rational impulse (yours) and an essentially religious impulse (mine, Alex's though I'm guessing he would/will resent that)

v. v. interesting indeed

You are the wind beneath my wings.

Is Tom's position rational (in the sense you describe it?)? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say iconoclastic vs. iconophilic?

The opposing position is certainly religious since it relies on gigantic Logos ideas of immutable Signifigance etc -- since I am religious & like religious thought (& think it's religious styles of thought that tend to produce singers of good songs & authors of good books) I tend to feel more sympathy with what I feel is essentially the less rational position

Surely the answer is yes. If you accept it's true that the Ramones will benefit from the exposure (by gaining Shania Twain fan's) then it's equally likely that their cultural stock amongst their diehard fans will be debased.

Since one of their main selling points is an anti-establishment, irresponsible, rebel pose, if it can be easily assimilated by a 'safe, corporate, family' act then what value does it have? Or does it mean that the features of that brand been assimilated into the mainstream and they've triumphed in the end?

In branding terms, like I said on the coke thread about the Clash and Crass, the universal solvent in branding is 'cool' (actualy 'classy' is another one, which is why politicians say they're reading Tolsoy on the beach - the high-cult equiv of this T-Shirt trick) - it's something every brand wants to be. So if you've built a big part of your branding on 'cool' like the Ramones (or the VU or Clash etc etc) have then you are very vulnerable to having your branding appropriated, and in the process all the other parts of your brand (rebellion, stoopidity, jokes) get ignored.

My point is that this process is always risky for the absorbing brand because the ignored components have still been borroed. But the basic message is that if you don't want your heroes to be sold out, don't pick cool heroes.

Last year, I was at a bar in Chicago that "Black" Jack McDowell's shitty band was playing. For those of you who don't know Jack, well he was once a great major league pitcher who, upon retiring, started a pretty crummy rock band. Anyway, I wasn't gonna watch his band, was out front in the "bar" portion of the club (as opposed to the "stage" portion), and McDowell walks by in a sequin-studded Ramones t-shirt. Y'know, like the kind they'd sell at Bloomingdale's if, indeed, they sold Ramones t-shirt. It looked ridiculous.

Okay, well, just never mind.

You'd be correct.

As for Shania Twain fan's being open to conversion. I suspect the numbers who will now investigate the Ramones will be miniscule, and they will be the diehard fans who would hang on her very word. Just have to get her in a Merzbow t-shirt next time.

Sums it up for me, Nabisco!

"This is a perfectly legitimate stance so far as I can tell,"

Glad we agree.

"...but it unfortunately requires such a paranoid vigilant monitoring of who might possibly actually enjoy what that I'm not sure it's worth it."

I wouldn't consider guessing that Shania's *NOT* a Ramones fan a "paranoid vigilant monitoring", but rather a logical assumption based on a wealth of evidence.

They've *BECOME* fashion items, you mean.

Well, yeah...true, but there's a difference between fashion and Fashion (notice the capital letter).

Meaning: there's a difference between things people happen to wear and things that you're likely to spot people like Naomi Campbell and, well, Shania Twain in.

It seems to me that the problem then isn't that Shania is wearing a Ramones shirt, it's that the "outsider" signifiers don't signify the outside anymore (which, if you'd looked at a television or magazine at any time during the 90s, shouldn't be that big a shock to you).

"This is classical music for future generations. People will be listening to [the Ramones] in 100 years time and talking about it in the same breath as Beethoven."

Ironically, I'm not fussed about Shania wearing the Ramones t-shirt, because, well, the Ramones were just as much a knowing confection of poses and assumed attitudes as any band there's ever been! You can't have your cake and eat it!

On the other hand, I DO get kind of annoyed at the kind of post-Harmony Korine fashonista appropriation of eg metal t-shirts, mullets, monsta truks etc as some emblem of how, like, suburban white trash culture is just, like, the most *authentic* and *persistent* and *kinda charming* voice in the whole sanitized and tastefully niche-marketed datasphere. And I guess the difference is that this attitude strikes me as condescending, whereas, if anything, Shania - or her stylist - is honoring and valorising the Ramones by trying to be associated with them.

As for that quote, conjecture is not proof. "Serious" musicians and "serious" music lovers know, appreciate and respect Beethoven, NOT The Ramones. In fact, to "serious" music lovers, The Ramones are no-talent hacks who played the same simple song over and over ad nauseum.