[Updated December 5, below]
Reading Dave Thompson’s I Hate New Music: the Classic Rock Manifesto, listening to the new Lil Wayne mixtape Dedication 3 and discovering that Ashlee Simpson and Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz named their baby Bronx Mowgli Wentz got me thinking about rock stars. Thompson’s book expresses a confusing preference for days when rock stars were larger than life and almost everything they did was interesting, even when it was retarded.
That book next to the news about the baby Wentz made me realize that naming the kid after a borough and the manchild in The Jungle Book was the first interesting thing a Fall Out Boy has done other than run around with celebutantes, which really doesn’t count. There’s nothing exotic or dramatic about anyone who has starred in a reality TV show or led her life as if it is one. Dating, boinking or marrying one makes you part of the soap operas that they act out for the tabloids, MTV and E!
On the other hand, Lil Wayne is a rock star. He made Dedication 3 with Atlanta’s DJ Drama and it’s not great but it’s fascinating. He has discovered the joys of AutoTune on it – not to the extent of Kanye West, another rock star, on 808 and Heartbreak, but enough – and it gives him yet another voice to employ, even if it’s not clear why he’s using it. The set isn’t as ambitious as Tha Carter III, but it seems like he’s so compulsively creative that he can’t stop recording. Or, he’s in love with himself and can’t stop recording. Both are equally possible, and the two aren’t mutually exclusive. But that drama is interesting. Praying onstage during his Voodoo set is interesting. Getting enlightened and asking people if they believe in God and if they’re voting, then celebrating pimp life in the next breath by getting the crowd to chant “Fuck bitches, get money” is interesting. Consistent? No. The logical follow-up? Not obviously, but those seeming contradictions and the willingness to play them out in public is interesting.
After only three official releases, he talks about things he hasn’t done yet on Dedication 3‘s “What Else is There to Do” : “Grammys, Emmy, Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Mama Blanco, [snicker] Sarah Palin. I love a bitch who wears glasses. Bitch, you can keep those glasses straight on.” The casual slide from awards he hasn’t won or shows he hasn’t been on (again, one or the other or both), he slides to a more sexual meaning of “done” and shows pretty wide-ranging tastes, but as he cracks himself up riffing on Sarah Palin and her glasses, it’s not clear if he means anything he said, or if it was all just calculated outrageousness. Only he knows for sure – maybe – but few other artists are sufficiently compelling at their best and intriguing under any circumstances to make paying attention mandatory. And that’s the definition of a rock star for me.
Update: He can scratch “Grammy” off the list.
