Carrie Brownstein’s recent NPR post on The Death of the Rock Star made me wonder if we really need Rock Stars, or indeed if being a Rock Star is a facade deployed to obscure a general lack of talent. Just when I was pondering on this, Seth Godin wrote about the same subject, quoting a recent post by music analyst Bob Lefsetz which describes a Rock Star as “someone who incites controversy just by existing.” Then, “That’s what we lost in the dash for cash.” A point that Carrie mirrors as “the conflation of art and commerce” with musicians being the preachers for brands. I guess you can thank Moby for that progression.

In my naive teens and early twenties the view I got of my favourite musicians was that they were inextricably bonded to their music. Nothing else mattered. Interviews with them tended to be oriented around their music and their lives of endless touring, inexplicable and often hilarious mishaps, and the trauma of studio recordings. Back then, in the late 80s and early 90s, it was often the music magazines and their staff who were the true Rock Stars. We all had personal favourites – I adored almost everything that Chris Roberts wrote, because like me, he loved everything Blonde – and those who we abhorred. The Review was everything and you had to become familiar with various writing styles in order to gather the real opinion. The Truth.

This all led to the myth of the Rock Star and the sheer awe one felt when bumping into one at a club bar. (Lush members didn’t count.) Or in my case standing six feet away from Danielle Dax when she toured Inky Bloaters at ULU in 1987, thinking incorrectly that her earlier gig at the Manchester Boardwalk would have acclimatised me. But the reality was that many artists were scrabbling around to make a living either solely as a musician or trying to find time to fit music into their life. Read Dean Wareham’s Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance if you don’t believe me.

It is however the music Industry that is responsible for turning musicians into heroes and as their influence erodes so the height of these pedestals diminishes. Through direct contact with fans (thanks to the internet) we now know more about our favourite musicians than we used to. Connections between musicians and fans are becoming closer, and also between fans, as Kristin Hersh acknowledges in The Guitar that Love Built, returning music to its original purpose – a mechanism for communicating, bonding and learning. The only difference between the musicians who have true longevity and talent and their fans is that they make music. And to me that makes them even more remarkable.