Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner, and remixing singing in the rain (still awesome) are one thing, but to take "Punk" figureheads, a movement based around eschewing commercialism and capitalist ideas of money over art (while still conforming to a rigid, almost fascist, sense of fashion and musical taste), and turning their unfortunate young demise into a billboard for the official shoe of the subculture is more or less a lesson in how to lose a demographic. I will say though that I have a feeling that the Hot Topic crowd who weren't old enough to pay attention and mourn for these people will probably be scouring stores for these posters to put on their dorm room wall in a year or two. This lack of respect for what made artists who they are is how you end up with Bob Marley's only fans being frat-boys and The Clash being covered on American Idol. Which brings me to what really pisses me off about this campaign.
JOE STRUMMER?!! The rest are good, classics, but way overrated icons who were in the right place at the right time, and lets face it, would probably have sold out like this had they lived.
Joey Ramone... I think Ramones shirts are 2nd only to CBGB shirts in the "Purchases that the Purchasee had no idea what was on their shirt".
Sid Vicious was a lucky hack druggie in a boy band that only gained street cred through his death and the fear of middle aged brits. Their music is so flimsy that while we can look back on the Clash and still see great albums we look back at their one album (yeah they only had one) and say... It's cool, they're like the Monkees of punk. They sure could curse on live TV well, but all their songs sound kind of similar.
Kurt Cobain was married to Courtney Love and wrote her only marginally good album. Hmmm guy gets rich and sucker marries the first dumb slutty blonde that comes along and then gives her his soul. That is so not a sellout move that hasn't been done by every rockstar/actor/director/sports figure in history who made a little money. Then he kills himself, biggest sellout move of all.
So all those guys clearly had a moment in the sun, Cobain probably being the most talented, but all of them wishy washy pop subculture figures. But Joe Strummer was a musical genius. This last albums were as good as his work with The Clash, and his death was truly a tragedy. He was a musician and a song writer, not a fashion accessory for disaffected youth. I don't know who sold out his estate like this but unless it was to pay off any outstanding debts he may have left behind you should be ashamed. And whoever the graphic designer was who did these posters... Fuck you Too, you could've at least not made them look like giant floating gays. Let's say Sid did make it to heaven (doubtful but for the sake of argument), wouldn't it be a better pic to have him bloody and punching Jesus?! Seems like a more appropriate image from the man in the band who's most famous lyric is "I am the anti-christ".
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