Reunion City Blues

Not content with watching the desecration of the grave of seminal Manchester pop group The Stone Roses (more of which later, bet you’re loving that; clever use of a quote though, eh?), I watched another reunion this morning. American Reunion or American Pie: The Reunion or whatever it’s called. You won’t be surprised to know that it is not an amazing film. However, it is not a terrible film. It’s a solid 5/10. There were a couple of laughs – and isn’t this what we need in these dark, post 9/11 days?

Don’t Stop

For someone who doesn’t care about what people think I don’t half spend a lot of time reading what people think about stuff. Knowledge does not equal caring, people, remember that: JUST BECAUSE I KNOW DOESN’T MEAN I CARE. In fact, knowing about helps you not care about…and not finish off prepositional phrases.

So as part of not caring about what other people think of The Stone Roses reunion invovled reading the replies on this review on The Guardian website.

I’m not going to go into the minutiae of debating every comment. It’s each to their own – and other people’s own is not really my concern (did you believe me yet? If I say it enough it HAS to be true). But, the notion that they are overrated: what’s that all about? I get describing stuff as underrated and overrated – we’ve all done it. But, in reality, stuff is rated at its level of being rated*. If 225,000 people want to go and see The Stone Roses over three days then how do qualify that as them being overrated? The very fact that the people are going is surely the only issue in this ratingness and thus they are exactly rated.

The actor Simon Pegg said recently that Jennifer Aniston was an underrated comedy actress. Jenifer Aniston is one of the best paid actors in the world. She is in countless bad comedies for which she is paid handsomely. Who are these people underrating Aniston? The people going to see the 94 films, where she has paid an unlucky-in-love career girl who stumbles into a relationship with the wrong man – while the right man was under her nose all along , clearly rate her. As do the film makers paying her $20 million a film. There might be more of a case for saying she was overrated, in my honest opinion.

So, back to The Stone Roses: lots of people think they are their favourite band. Or at least that their first album is their favourite album. Obviously lots of people don’t – but does this make them overrated? Ratedness is relevant to the individual. Someone who DOESN’T like The Stone Roses saying that people who do like them are overrating them is as odd as me saying that people are wrong about fish being nice to eat.

And people are just fucking wrong who don’t like them: they are the greatest band of the last 30 years. In fact, I think they are underrated.

Also: the video in that article (this one). I’m not saying they are examples of the worst people who were at the gig but they are not good examples of human beings. They ARE good examples of pissed Scottish people. Or Scottish people. Haha. I like the woman who thinks she is saying something really intelligent but doesn’t really know what she is saying, or at least I think she thinks she knows what she is saying – but maybe she doesn’t know superficial means.

Really. WHAT IS THE GUARDIAN’S MOTIVATION FOR REPRESENTING THE CROWD AS PISSED UP SCOTTISH PEOPLE? Why are they giving some fat bastard saying, ” It sounded like a fat bird at Ayia Napa on an all inclusive”? What does that even mean? Why is it anyone’s fault that someone paid £500 to be there, other than the man himself?

In short: I don’t like people criticising people for going, I don’t like people who went and liked it and I don’t like people who went and were critical of it.

*I disagree with this to a degree; Stuff can be forced on people by marketing, exposure and, conversely, people can miss out on stuff because it get’s no marketing or exposure – or bad marketing.