Image is everything

I wrote a bit about why I don't understand jazz and I'm going to post that later. But what came out of it was a tangent about romanticizing the image of musicians.

I like musicians who "look the part." This has a lot of implications in country/Americana music but for right now I'm going to limit it to areas outside those realms.

The bands I love seeing are those that epitomize some kind of romantic ideal of the music. Here are some cases in point:

Distraught tortured singer-songwriters who look to the bottle for comfort:

Ryan Adams

Conor Oberst


Ridiculous bands who let their sense of fun SHINE:

Flaming Lips

Sufjan Stevens



Of Montreal


(maybe there needs to be a subsection dedicated to guys who wear wings on stage)

Hipsters: Dean and Britta



And then there's Jack White, the king of image: