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ROLLING STONE IMAGES OF ROCK & ROLL |
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THE HIP TRAPPINGS of success -- a fancy car, a limousine, a private jet -- are all accessories of the rock & roll image. Lusting after the stuff has never been cool -- rappers excepted, of course -- but enjoying the stuff has always been. Rockers must never appear to be aspiring to success as artificially defined by the society at large; the symbols of their success must suit them exactly, must seem to be quintessential expressions of their personalities. They must also seem to have been gained on the artists' own terms and no one else's. For one artist it could be the perfect sports car of teenage dreams. For another it could be a lucrative record contract or an elegant home, proof that rock & roll can be the means of secular salvation, can raise a person from the streets to the heavens of personal indulgence. Fans, meanwhile, regard the material success of their favorite artists as confirmations of their faith. The only unforgivable sins in their eyes are pretension and bad taste.
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