Musicians and Their Big Stupid Mouths

Derek Taylor represents a bygone era of public relations in the music industry. As one of several individuals to be associated with the ‘Fifth Beatle’ nickname, Taylor acquired this reputation through dint of being the Fab Four’s press officer. For the national press, Taylor managed to fill this role as he was usually the only mouthpiece of the band to speak to the papers. Through Taylor, The Beatles could retain a relative degree of privacy for the biggest band in the world at that time and maintain their aura. At a stretch, you could say, the relative unfettering of the band by press and civilian intrusion allowed them to quietly experiment in Abbey Road and unleash something like The White Album on the world.

Perhaps it is the instances when The Beatles bypassed Taylor that they spoke their minds at the price of exposing the band to greater scrutiny and cycles of controversy that contributed to their break-up. Famously, John Lennon was “misquoted’ on The Beatles being bigger than Jesus; however it was the ensuing shitstorm that entailed the Melody Maker interview which dogged Lennon for the rest of his career. It is an interesting paradigm to consider against the artists of today in a world of Instagram and Twitter. They are just as skilful in bypassing their brains and media teams when opening their mouths (virtually speaking) with more methods of communication.

Two cases in point: Riff Raff (who I’m still not entirely convinced is a real rapper and not just James Franco still pretending to be his Alien character from Spring Breakers) responded in a measured way to soul singer and prototype-David Cameron android, Sam Smith, after allegedly cropping Mr Raff out of an Instagram post from the MTV VMAs. Raff referred to  Smith on Twitter as a “chubby little f##k factory”. I didn’t actually know we could manufacture those.

Similarly, the sexbot Harry Styles got into hot water when he favourited a pornographic tweet from a fan and tried to diffuse a situation that had already created the hashtag #HarryDon’tLickAnything by posting pictures of puppies and kittens.

This isn’t to justify the behaviour of these d-bags by inferring that relentless social media scrutiny is preventing Riff Raff and Harry Styles from releasing their While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Nor should we dismiss the tenacity of musicians to milk controversies they’ve created through social media and publicity blunders to boost their careers. “Palining” as it shall now be known represents Miley Cyrus’ entire 2013.

In the era of social media, pop stars must learn to be their own Derek Taylors and take part-responsibility for the curation of their own public image if we, as audiences, are to laugh with them and not at them.