IN OUR OPINION
IN DEFENCE OF COOL
IN OUR OPINION
IN DEFENCE OF COOL
I was on a school trip to the Isle of Wight when The Fun Boy Three released The Lunatics, (have taken over the asylum – and how right they were.)
I was young enough to be completely unaware of what it was about but felt comfortably understood by its melancholy, and Terry Hall’s flawlessly aloof demeanor.
So, when it came to the forced fun school lip-syncing contest, I chose to be Terry Hall singing about the state of societal decline at the time.
Needless to say, I lost to someone making more of an effort than my intentionally rigid performance. Apparently not everyone else heard and saw what I did.
"The word cool, like curator, has become trite and meaningless. Used by those who are trying to be, or simply aren’t. Which is why I use it as freely as the other c-word."
Many ‘Special’ years later, I jumped until my feet bled to the euphoric and melancholic climbs of Insomnia by Faithless.
Insomnia, in my opinion, is the greatest dance track of all time. Unlike the Lunatics that validated the weird, Insomnia united people in a giant, yet still dark, group pogo.
I started writing this when Terry Hall and Maxi Jazz died. The loss was significant. We didn’t just lose people and their talent, a piece of culture and cool died too, along with a semblance of hope that not everything is turning to corporate shit.
The word cool, like curator, has become trite and meaningless. Used by those who are trying to be, or simply aren’t. Which is why I use it as freely as the other c-word.
Cool isn’t one thing. But is has to be effortless and honest.
How Mattel handled their production of Barbie was, so it’s not about being a dark and depressed misfit, although apparently Ken was, who knew?
And now we’ve lost Jamie Reid.
The magnitude of our heroes’ contribution to culture and creativity can never be replicated, but there are many fakes. We have a responsibility to attribute the title of cool carefully. Maybe then we can start to separate out the wheat from the chaff.
After all, it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
Gill Linton.
