The trend toward narcissistic flair has been responsible in large part for smiting rock with the superstar virus, which revolves around the substituting of attitudes and flamboyant trappings, into which the audience can project their fantasies, for the simple desire to make music, get loose, knock the folks out or get 'em up dancin.' It's not enough just to do those things anymore; what you must do instead if you want success on any large scale is figure a way of getting yourself associated in the audience's mind with their pieties and their sense of community, i.e., ram it home that you're one of THEM; or, alternately, deck and bake yourself into an image configuration so blatant or outrageous that you become a culture myth.
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About Lester Bangs
Lester Bangs was a 20th-century American music critic. Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist and critic. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines and was also a performing musician. Read more on Wikipedia →