From September 15 1990, Ian Gittins nimbly nails the case for Cockney Rebel.
"So awful it's awesome" is over-used but this is one instance where it really fits - the Harley Vision wobbles on a tightrope between genius and gauche - and a whole bunch of other G words including garish and grotesque
My take on Steve Harley is that he was a bohemian who hated bohemia, and so his songs are grotesque parodies of bohemian longings and their tragic results. So for example "Mirror Freak" is a sardonic exposition on narcissism and "Death Trip" is cautionary tale on the consequences of drugs (I think one of his friends died of an overdose).
ReplyDeleteSo I think the very point of his music was that it took all the bohemian cliches and extended them out to absurdity. It was also I suspect what drove his nascent Toryism.