With all the cool lists and hype going around at the moment it’s difficult to know what to trust from those who don’t have an immediate agenda and well, a-hem, friends in high places.
If the NME is to be believed then any cunt from the Nathan Barely part of London with a mockney accent, complete with shit hairstyles and guitars, are obviously going to be cool as fuck. If we follow the example of the ‘liberal’ newspapers, such as The Guardian and The Indie, then anyone who has a hint of foreign blood in them, or anything in their past that can contribute to the charitable nature of these newspapers, then these by proxy are cool as fuck as well. (It also helps if you work for the newspaper if you wish your project to be actually taken seriously). As for the right wing rags, they’ll be happy with any pretty face, as long as its white, middle class and would be seen as cutting edge in the Radio 2 or Classic FM universe. Who else would pay real money for James Cunt records? Probably the same fuckers who buy Nigella Lawson and Oliver cook books, and get their cigs from abroad. You know, the type who moan about shity public services while scouting for private schools and ripping off the tax system. Jeremy Clarkson types in fact. Cool? Fuck that.
Not that being cool is actually a validation anyway in times when most things are shit. Each to his own. But if it’s cool you actually want, you could do a lot worse than my ‘Kool’ list.
Kraftwerk
Uber-cool. The mensch machine from Düsseldorf have been perennially cool for decades, not just because they don’t give a fuck for anything other than technology and its relationship to humanity, not because they call you, you don’t call them, not because on stage behind four laptops, side by side, as if they’ve flown in, taken to their cycles and look as if they have just arrived on stage direct from a business meeting in Berlin, not because their influence is second only to The Beatles for inspiring almost every modern movement of dance music. But because, when I saw them live, ever precise and in control, they came on stage at 8 P.M. sharp.
Patrick McGoohan
He is not only a free man but you wouldn’t want to fuck with a guy who not only dreamed up The Prisoner, not only took the piss out of contemporary culture and the ever increasing CCTV state, and made a truly iconic figure say no to mediocrity when everyone else was saying ‘Yes, please, ooh it’s the sixties, love, love..’ but also for taking a stand against authority and the powers that be, especially in the opening credits when he slams his fist down on the table. How many of us have dreamed of doing this to our boss?
McEwans Lager Advert
Sure there have been ‘cool’ campaigns like the Guinness past and present, the odd car ad, the pretty Bravia stuff, and the majority of adverts are so smug and pleased with themselves it's untrue, and 99% of them are just inconvenient pieces of crap, especially BBC adverts. (Just witness the shower of shit that is the Radio 1 adverts. For fuck’s sake they’re supposed to be getting you to switch on! You’d be forgiven for thinking that Radio 1 presenters are a set of cunts from the way they are portrayed. This advert from the 1980s is one of the few you wouldn't mind seeing again and again. It gives you shivers. It's not as smug, but almost a dark predication of what adverts will reduce the human race to one day. Along with the music, the sense of scale, based on the myth of Sisyphus, this renders it more exciting than the programmes it often came between. Oh yes, and it's Kool as fuck.
The Equaliser (Opening Credits)
Not only would you never want to venture down New York's subway at night but you wouldn't fuck with Woodward. Doesnt he cast a badass shadow?
