Monday, 16 April 2007

Nazi chic.

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I feel that rock music should represent some kind of counter-culture. That's probably what keeps me loyal to much ridiculed trance-metal pyschic-guerillas Hawkwind.

By now I should have become used to rock musicians espousing the views of Middle England, moaning about high taxation, rising immigration, doing benefits for the Tories and accepting knighthoods. But I do draw the line when they start singing the praises of Nazi Germany: this from Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music:

"My god, the Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves. "Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful."

I know Roxy Music, the grandaddies of the New Romantics, were always about image as much as music, but for fuck's sake !

Ferry's agent had defended him saying some of his critics are unable to separate the aesthetic from the politics. So, what are we saying, the Holocaust was a bit out of order, but those Nazis did have some really fabulous uniforms ?

Ferry's son Ottis (?!?) also made a name for himself a few years ago when he stormed parliament to protest in defence of hunting. Maybe I'm missing some aesthetic nuance here, but I can't help feeling that the Ferry family are just a bunch of over-privileged arseholes.

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