Bring on the fungus...

What's the deal with all these squeaky clean cuddle-puff pop stars? Waaaay back in my day we sorta useta like our pop stars to stand for the right balance of erotic evil and cosmic virtue. Pop meant popular, not processed. Authenticity meant something, if only as a topic of endless debate. These artists and musicians and actors stood for big ideas, bad ideas, exotic energies, and the fearless illumination of the murky and shameful corners of our workaday human psyches. They had teeth. You had the sense that they were actually doing the things you really wanted to do, or hadn't dreamt of yet. These were accelerated lives burning magnesium strips that could rarely last more than thirty years on the planet. They played a necessary role in society like sorcerers in India. Indelible reminders that it's not all professionalism and Pottery Barn, this life. Instead, a superficial scan of the last decade or so reveals an endless parade of vapid pop dinks straight off the lillywhite shelves of Pottery Barn, or perhaps something slightly more "daring" like an Abercrombie & Fitch. It's enough to make you want to cry.

Granted I'm so far out of the loop it's embarrassing, but one young pop performer who seems, at first glance, at least not to have cleared her repertoire with Mommy and Daddy and the ghost of Jack Valente is Amy Winehouse. She's dark and defiant and addicted and proudly retro (as if to say, get me out of this dumb-ass present!). Sure, it could be a ruse. Her schtick seems a little too ripe to last, but at least there's a whif of fungus amongus once again. If it can happen, really happen, for the kids, I'd welcome the return of some idols worth idolizing.

UPDATE: Well, just to prove how out of it I am, I had no idea that this Ms. Winehouse was "The Next Big Thing!" Now that this song plays non-stop on the radio and her face appears all over the internets, I'm losing interest fast. Funny how that works. I guess I like my pop-stars unpopular, like the rest of us.