I suppose it is, but I guess I don't get the fascination with watching people destroy themselves as part of that.

Yeah, 40, 50 years ago, you had all sorts people making great stuff while on disastrous downward spirals. I just don't buy the whole strung-out white rock star rebel thing in 2009.

I guess what I'm getting at is that times have changed, and that sort of thing seems disingenuous now.

It's been said before but authenticity is a red herring.

Is it that you don't think it's possible, in that a debauched 2009 musician will pale to the truly gifted junkies of the past, whose art was as much a product of cultural circumstance as it was dope, or just that it's too cliche? A self-aware attempt to emulate those past geniuses in hopes that the muse will visit?

Yeah.

I think the work of the past just looms over everyone too much now. Plus, those gifted junkies of the past were actually doing something new at the time. Today's gifted junkies wouldn't really be the same free, searching spirits if they're just operating within the well-establish junkie-rock template.

I mean, I guess there could always be more bands like The Royal Trux that try to push the limits of degenerate rock, but just like with them, the results will mixed, rarely if ever brilliant, and probably not overly macho.

I fundamentally disagree that past junkies were doing anything new. In fact, they were following the time tested strategy of idol emulation that ole pete has cruised down.

I don't know, I'm a bit naive regarding jazz but wasn't Miles quite the innovator, same with Bird? Obviously every artist has to hear someone and be inspired but I'm not sure if they were necessarily emulating another junkie.

They created iconic works that have been imitated ad nauseum. I really don't think The Libertines will be able to make the same claim. Rock'n Roll was a hell of a lot newer in '67-'77 than it is now.

why do your idols have to be rock'n'rollers. blues artist weren't using smack? charlie parker? The drug/art game is one of the oldest. Do you know how Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island? Cocaine fueled binge.

My whole thing here was addressing Mick's "macho junkie swagger" comment, which was referring to rock'n roll. I'm not arguing against drug-fueled art in general or it's continued validity. Just that particalur RnR rebel image.

And you know all those guys you just mentioned? They did something new. Charlie Parker changed the course of jazz pretty drastically.

They wore their influences pretty clearly but I don't think that reduces the greatness of The Libertines though.

Do you really think Mick was unaware of blues junkies? He didn't create it from air.

Of course, Parker changed jazz drastically, but that doesn't mean he was the first to be a junkie artist.

I don't even know what the argument is now.

Ha. ha. me either. I feel like I'm 10 beers into an argument at a bar.

I think the main thesis of discussion was:

Drug Use and it's Ability to Influence Creativity: Is it Possible in the 21st Century.

I want 10 pages by Monday people. No bullshit excuses.

That's what it turned into, but it wasn't what I was initially going for.

Mick asked where all the heroin-fueled macho swagger rock was, and I was saying that that's bullshit now. It's over. We're in a different place than we were when that kind of stuff was at it's peak.

That doesn't mean that drugs no longer influence art or that drug-influenced art is irrelevant or dishonest. It's just different drugs, different art, or it's a pale imitation of the past.

This probably deserved it's own thread. I was thinking of other examples too.

You're taking Mick's adjectival choices a tad literally, aren't you? There's a lot of "heroin-fueled macho swagger" in some music by relatively sober women, for instance.

Let's make it a little simpler: it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Maybe, and I can see how that's mainly just a derision of the current climate of relatively soft, polite indie music.

My point still sort of stands, though. What Mick's looking for is still out there, but it isn't up to the standards that it once was. That's because the conditions that originally produced that music no longer exist or have changed, and people who do make it are typically working well within the confines of the established template and are therefore not doing anything all that exiting or even necessary.

Baudelaire, fucking Rimbaud and early blues like Robert Johnson had more of an effect on Bob Dylan than Woodie Guthrie did....

THINK ABOUT THAT!

1. Shambolic Trumpets 'Doomed In Pantaloons'
2. The Luckless Pedestrians 'My Favourite Jacket'
3. Estonian Masseurs 'Fuck This Joint Up'
4. Tragic Bin Accident 'Call 911....There's Been A Tragic Bin Accident'
5. Skewed On A Pole 'Azzzzzzzzz'
6. The Strokes 'Room On Fire'
7. Bamber Hardon 'May I Ask You A Question?'
8. Have A Scone 'Boned China'
9. Drive By Truckers 'Dirty South'
10. Neko Case 'Black Listed'
11. Distinctly Minty 'Lost And Found'
12. Warm Garbage 'This Is The Smell Of Warm Garbage'
13. Radiohead 'Amnesiac'
14. Tossphate & Buggerite 'Kingston Bang Bang You Dead, Clat'
15. The Hopscotch Kids 'On The Street'
16. Ye Gods 'Just Say Maybe'
17. Scourge Of The Kalahari 'Jambo Ne Kulongo'
18. The Delgados 'Great Eastern'
19. By Jingo! 'Jurisprudence'
20. Fleet Foxes 'Fleet Foxed'
21. Gay Professor '12 Smooth Love Songs'
22. Steely Dan 'Everything Must Go'
23. Octavio K. Shook 'How To Kill Your Wife And Get Away With It'
24. Marty Masters 'Don't Go Down To The Cellar'
25. Madvillian 'Madvillany'
26. Sharon King & The Dap Kings '100 Days, 100 Nights'
27. The Jodphurs 'Big Licks'
28. The Raconteurs 'Consolers Of The Lonely'
29. Nina Nastasia 'On Leaving'
30. Lomax Handy 'O RLY?'

Good call on that Gay Professor album.

Here's my top-30 so far:

1. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
2. Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
3. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy (2005)
4. Slobberbone - Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today (2000)
5. The Weakerthans - Reconstruction Site (2003)
6. Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American (2001)
7. Lucero - That Much Further West (2003)
8. Spoon - Gimme Fiction (2005)
9. The Fomat - Dog Problems (2006)
10. Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me (2006)
11. Okkervil River - The Stage Names (2007)
12. The National - Alligator (2005)
13. Radiohead - Hail To The Theif (2003)
14. The Black Keys - Rubber Factory (2004)
15. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cold Roses (2005)
16. Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust (2008)
17. Blink-182 - S/T (2003)
18. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags & Codes (2002)
19. Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)
20. Dinosaur Jr - Beyond (2007)
21. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (2007)
22. Beulah - The Coast Is Never Clear (2001)
23. Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
24. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
25. Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary (2005)
26. Stars - Set Yourself On Fire (2005)
27. Brand New - Deja Entendu (2003)
28. Margot & The Nuclear So And So's - The Dust of Retreat (2006)
29. Why? - Alopecia (2008)
30. Elliott Smith - Figure 8 (2000)

Roughly something like:

1. Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004)
2. Basia Bulat – Oh, My Darling (2007)
3. Joel Plaskett Emergency – Ashtray Rock (2007)
4. Eels – Blinking Lights And Other Revelations (2005)
5. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People (2002)
6. The Organ – Grab That Gun (2004)
7. The Weakerthans – Left And Leaving (2000)
8. Eels – Shootenanny! (2003)
9. The Bicycles – The Good, The Bad, And The Cuddly (2006)
10. Tullycraft – Disenchanted Hearts Unite (2005)
11. Kathleen Edwards – Failer (2003)
12. Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous (2004)
13. Jason Collett – Motor Motel Love Songs (2003)
14. Lowest Of The Low – Sordid Fiction (2004)
15. Eels – Daisies of The Galaxy (2000)
16. The Bicycles – Oh No, It’s Love (2008)
17. Belle And Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
18. Joanna Newsom – Ys (2006)
19. Eels – Souljacker (2002)
20. The Weekend – Beatbox My Heartbeat (2005)
21. The Weakerthans – Reconstruction Site (2003)
22. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell (2003)
23. Kathleen Edwards – Back To Me (2005)
24. PJ Harvey – Uh Huh Her (2004)
25. Why? – Elephant Eyelash (2005)
26. Cat Power – You Are Free (2003)
27. Adam Green – Friends of Mine (2003)
28. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire (2004)
29. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (2009)
30. Guster – Keep It Together (2003)

1. Grant lee Phillips - Virginia Creeper
2. John Frusciante - Shadows collide with people
3. John Frusciante - Curtains
4. Bruce Cockburn - Life's short call now
5. Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows
6. Modest Mouse - Good news for people who like bad news
7. Modest Mouse - We were dead before the ship even sank
8. Hayden - In Field & town
9. Grant lee phillips - strangelet
10. Enigma - Voyageur
11. Enigma - Seven Lives many faces
12. Idlewild - warnings/promises
13. Broken Social Scene - Forgot it in people
14. The National - Alligator
15. KOS - Joyful Rebellion
16. Jigsaw Soul - Bound to collide
17. John Frusciante - Inside of emptiness
18. Brandi Carllile - The story
19. Daft Punk - Discovery
20. Disturbed - 10000 fists
21. Disturbed - the sickness
22. REM - reveal
23. Son Volt - the Search
24. Bon Iver - For emma, forever ago
25. Bran Van 3000 - Discosis
26. 54-40 - Northern Soul
27. Sufjan Stevens - Michigan
28. Mudcrutch - S/t
29. New Order - Waiting for the sirens call
30. New Pornographers - Twin Cinema