I have just remembered that when I read his biography by Sylvie Simmons, I learned that Dylan banged out his songs in minutes – Cohen often spent years crafting his songs.
I can believe that. My favourite Dylan effort of all time has to be the execrable Man Gave Names to All the Animals, which includes such gems of lyrical poetry as
Yes, but Beethoven wrote his music quite quickly and, I think, easily, whereas Schubert had to work hard. Most people would say Beethoven was the genius. Ease of composition doesn’t mean it’s of lesser value.
I might go with that, but the proof of the pudding is the quality of the lyrics. One is a master, the other hmmmm, just Ok. Musically they are both good, but I still think Cohen has the edge.
Dylan’s sleevenotes are more interesting than Cohen’s published poems.
Cohen didn’t write the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol ,or Chimes of Freedom
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
I agree with other commenters that Cohen stands head and shoulders above the others mentioned in the article.
For those of us not blessed with artistic talent, lives like his are endlessly fascinating. Not least because that milieu affords, it seems, many more possibilities for the pursuit of Eros’s charms. Grafting in the corporate salt mines isn’t without its possibilities but they seem to create more the tawdry and banal than poetry.
The article seems to centre him as a philanderer but “EverybodyKnows” would indicate he knew Eros’s arrow can skewer guts as effectively as hearts.
Cohen had a blessed life. He made a lot of poetry and music. He lived on a beautiful, unspoiled Greek island. He made love to a lot of beautiful women. He made money, had it stolen, then came back and made more. He lived to be old.
Truly a life to envy.
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
The man was a genius – a troubled one, but a genius nonetheless and in my opinion he was better than Dylan. He was at heart a loner. He battled to settle forever with one woman, but did have several long lasting relationships intermingled with unfaithfulness – this sounds like many of us, men and women. His creativity came from his inability to find happiness and conquer his dark thoughts on many issues and levels. This in turn resulted in him seeking loneliness and sadness. I certainly don’t believe though that he disliked women – he loved them in his way.
He was certainly a liberal – would he have been more astonished and alarmed by Trump or by the latest illiberal version of the Democrats? And what good would it have done to meet Mary Harrington? He met many influential and intelIigent women in his life. I found the introduction of these people quite jarring in this essay on Eros.
Due to the reaction against the left and cultural marxism, a concerted effort on behalf of individuals such as Mary Harrington or Julie Bindel to promote sacrifice, common decency, and strict monogamy is underway, and any and all examples of libidinousness are being pulled in to ram the message home. Expect to see alot more of this.
Whether you agree with that or not is up to you.
Jane Watson
2 years ago
Thanks for marking this anniversary. A wonderful, flawed, perceptive and honest writer and musician. Isn’t it more than likely that inner turmoil and the struggle against demons drives creativity? All truly great artists seem to be tormented. His later work is almost unbearably haunting. Must rank as one of the greatest Canadians.
There’s a thought. If not for Leonard Cohen, Canada’s greatest musical exports would have been Bryan Adams and Justin Bieber.
I mean really. Who that is called Bryan Adams decides to become famous while still being called Bryan Adams? What was wrong with Rat Scabies or something?
I do wish people would refrain from using the word genius about any musician they like. There is no longer any word to denote a real genius because the word has been degraded so much. Joni Mitchell is a really, really, good singer-songwriter, but she’s not a genius. (And for those of you who objected to my saying that Leonard Cohen was musically mediocre, Joni Mitchell is definitely not mediocre.
As a lyricist, she’s in the same league as Dylan and Cohen. She has a gift for melody. Perhaps because of the strange guitar tunings she uses, she finds novel and unique harmonies. She was a far better guitarist than BD or LC, and with a far better voice.
Yet she’s massively, massively outsold by, er, Bryan Adams. He’s reckoned to have sold 100 million singles and albums worldwide, God knows how. JM about 5% of that as best as I can tell.
And he’s massively, massively outsold by, er, Justin Bieber.
She may be a distant fourth, somewhere behind Bryan, Justin and Leonard.
I’ve read that ‘genius’ as a free standing phenomenon doesn’t really exist. Talent maybe. You start with talent – and crucially, motivation – then practice, practice, practice. Perhaps, in the arts, have some lucky breaks.
How did the UK go from performing poorly in athletics to being about the best in the world per capita? OK, maybe not an exact analogue with music, but you see the point.
“No wonder the election of Donald Trump was the final nail in his coffin.”… Really ? Cohen loved Israel and fraternized with the soldiers. But he was naturally conflicted and confused. After all, he was a Jew. Trump was good for the ME and good for Israel. Trump pulled just a few Islamic nations out of the gutter of violence to be brothers in the Abraham Accords. I wish Cohen were here now to write one more song about the Abraham Accords.
Christopher Gelber
2 years ago
A nice piece, slightly discoloured by the dumb and irrelevant line about Trump. I get that it’s meant humorously (ironically), but gee, the Great Man seems almost ubiquitous!
Great fun reading all the comments too. I always found Dylan pretentious (sorry) and often liked his songs better when someone else sang them. But, with LC, it’s his voice that mesmerises. I agree that pop is not in the same category as classical music (apples and oranges) but song is as ancient as man and touches some of us more than symphonies.
Don Lightband
2 years ago
“He would have benefitted from a conversation with Mary Harrington”. YEAH RIGHT
Lloyd Byler
2 years ago
Proving once again, that a song, a piece of art, is NEVER just a song, or a piece of art!
I, for one, cannot imagine, a person listening to only Amy Winehouse songs, an artist who never sang about happiness.. with depressive betrayal, sadness and regret mixed throughout all her music.. her sad departure says it all… (rip)
what say is the life trajectory of a young single woman who only listens to Amy, with the favorite song being ‘Back to Black’ ?
Living among a community of men who’s majority only live for that moment of instant gratification with a damsel; what can be the expected and projected reality of a melancholic young girl who’s only ‘thought projected’ artful life, is:
• He left no time to regret•
•Kept his d**k wet•
•With his same old safe bet•
?
I, for one, simply cannot comprehend such, even after encountering such a reality!
Last edited 2 years ago by Lloyd Byler
Jerry Jay Carroll
2 years ago
To make great art you must be a great narcissist.
Gary Hennessey
2 years ago
I’ve posted a message before about this – why does Unherd publish articles about rock (actually, I should say popular) musicians? Rock/popular music is essentially ephemeral, part of popular culture, all of which is, frankly, not serious. Cohen may have been a good poet (I can’t judge), but he was a mediocre musician (definitely nowhere near being a genius). This article would be better placed in one of the more upmarket rock magazines, not in Unherd.
Can you expand a bit on that phrase ‘not serious’? I can’t quickly think of any particular way in which what I would define as popular culture isn’t serious. Financially? Politically? Culturally? And IIRC, the plays of serious old playwright W Shakespeare were definitely popular culture – at the time.
Yes, by ‘not serious’ I mean ‘not having anything really meaningful to say as regards the big existential questions’, such as death, old age, suffering, tragedy, beauty, betrayal, love (no not falling in or out of love, which is essentially selfish, but proper, going beyond oneself kind of love) etc. And yes, I take your point about the plays of Shakespeare being part of popular culture of the time. I can only remark that we have fallen a long way since then. And I don’t see anyone in today’s popular culture doing anything as profound as that. By continuing to talk about popular culture we’re confining ourselves to a small and, I argue, relatively trivial, world of experience. I think we can do better than that, and I’m complaining that Unherd doesn’t see that and raise its sights.
Obviously not germane to you, but Cohen to many was the voice of our consciousness and of our inner struggles. He pointed up our guilt but also made us feel that we were doing our best.
He was the symbol of an age, and if you want to understand the world as it is, listening to his songs and his humour would do you a lot more good than, for instance, reading the collected speeches of David Cameron.
Millions bought his music and went to his concerts and read his books, generations can sing his songs (poems) – the lyrics of which captured his market as much as the tunes. This is a man who in his old age found that his manager had swindled him out of all of his money, so he went on a world tour when most people would have been retired – yet you call him mediocre.
Ah Lesley, I didn’t call him mediocre as a person, but as a musician. And yes, of course, that was a massive betrayal he endured, and he had to go back on the road to claw some money back, which was impressive. Not quite as impressive as Franz Liszt, who organized a music tour of Europe just to raise money for the catastrophic floods that had devastated his home country. After which, he just kept on touring to give money away. (And music tours in those days were much more gruelling than they are now.) How many people know that about Liszt I wonder? I wouldn’t say he was a genius, but pretty close. The thing is, while we continue to go on about the contemporary popular music stars of recent years, we don’t know about the really excellent contemporary musicians and composers from the ‘classical’ tradition. Just to give one example – who amongst you has heard of, let alone heard the music of, Sofia Gubaidulina, who has been composing truly innovative music for 70 years? She who says that every piece of music must have a moment of transformation, in which the listener is taken into a spiritual world. Have a listen to this if you’re curious: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5W6kgjZkqmgRBM6plPRJ9Hs/sofia-gubaidulina-in-words-and-pictures You may not like her music because it will be different from what you’re used to, but stick with her until you get it. She’s worth it. Great music isn’t easy. As I say, this is just one example, and it’s why I get frustrated with Unherd’s fairly frequent articles on popular musicians, ignoring the relatively unherd music of the truly great. Some of them actual geniuses.
Which is why my comment opened with “Millions bought his music and went to his concerts and read his books, generations can sing his songs (poems) – the lyrics of which captured his market as much as the tunes.”
Yes, I’m unimpressed by the fact that millions of people listen to etc his songs. Millions of people listen to all sorts of pap, as I’m sure you know (I’m not saying Cohen’s music is pap, just making a point).
Your general point about the triviality of pop music is correct, I think, but within the tut, there are two types of pop act that qualify as exceptions deserving of more esteem.
These are the act where everybody likes at least one of their songs. Pretty well everybody likes one Queen song, or one Elton John song, for example. I don’t own any of their LPs and never would but I quite like the odd single.
The other exception from the general rule of forgettability is the act that is still acquiring new fans years after disbanding. The Beatles, the Doors and the Stones all meet that description I would think. Ultravox and Oasis do not.
Leonard Cohen may be another, although personally, I have never made it to the end of any of his songs. I am always seized by an irresistible urge to be doing something, indeed anything else.
You haven’t even got to the end of Hallelujah? That is one of the great pop songs surely, along with Strawberry Fields, God Only Knows, and Perfect Day (that catch of pain at end of each refrain). Although I prefer Rufus Wainwright’s version of Hallelujah – his voice carries such weight of emotion. But even the great pop/rock songs are trivial compared with great classical music.
There is no one Cohen version of Hallelujah. He wrote so many “alternative” verses that some people could write a thesis about them. But personally I lean towards his Do ya pronounciation rather than the grating “Do you” as in certain cover versions. He was an influence on many thinking souls.
Regarding Leonard Cohen songs – I know exactly what you mean. I had friends who would listen to an entire album, apparently riveted, but I’m with you – out the door.
A valid point of view, but I would counter that, to many, popular culture is ephemeral but very meaningful, though that meaning may well be mainly ‘in the eye of the beholder’. It speaks to many as a simultaneous group and individual experience of growing up, loving, learning and realising impermanence. (Although personally I never connected with Cohen but I know a lot of contemporaries who did).
Yes, nicely put Hilary. My point though, is that Unherd regularly publishes pieces on rock/folk musicians, which I think should be left to rock/folk magazines to publish. I could in fact play the diversity card, and say that as a classical music lover, Unherd ignores people like me. But I won’t.
He was a songwriter, not a virtuoso instrumentalist, or a classical composer, or a librettist. He is writing songs in a particular idiom.
If you don’t understand the basic art form you are referring to, the problem is probably with you.
Difficult to see how he’s not serious’, for the reasons described in the article. He’s deeply rooted in various religious traditions and his art has always been a great contemporary expression of that
Oh I do understand Cohen’s art form – I grew up listening to music of that era. Wonderful when you’re growing up, but, in my opinion, to be left behind when you do grow up.
Because 90-95% of humanity has no aesthetic sense so are under the delusion the simplistic dross of these vulgar, peripatetic music hall entertainers constitutes art. Thus people click the articles.
One has to ask, how on earth did Dylan get the Nobel when there was Cohen?
Always more popular with students, who aged and ended up on the Nobel decision committee, would be my guess.
I couldn’t agree more.
I have just remembered that when I read his biography by Sylvie Simmons, I learned that Dylan banged out his songs in minutes – Cohen often spent years crafting his songs.
I can believe that. My favourite Dylan effort of all time has to be the execrable Man Gave Names to All the Animals, which includes such gems of lyrical poetry as
The man is clearly a genius.
Comedy genius there I think. Dylan is quite funny. That song is obviously meant along the lines of a nursery rhyme
Yes, but Beethoven wrote his music quite quickly and, I think, easily, whereas Schubert had to work hard. Most people would say Beethoven was the genius. Ease of composition doesn’t mean it’s of lesser value.
I might go with that, but the proof of the pudding is the quality of the lyrics. One is a master, the other hmmmm, just Ok. Musically they are both good, but I still think Cohen has the edge.
Dylan’s sleevenotes are more interesting than Cohen’s published poems.
Cohen didn’t write the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol ,or Chimes of Freedom
I agree with other commenters that Cohen stands head and shoulders above the others mentioned in the article.
For those of us not blessed with artistic talent, lives like his are endlessly fascinating. Not least because that milieu affords, it seems, many more possibilities for the pursuit of Eros’s charms. Grafting in the corporate salt mines isn’t without its possibilities but they seem to create more the tawdry and banal than poetry.
The article seems to centre him as a philanderer but “EverybodyKnows” would indicate he knew Eros’s arrow can skewer guts as effectively as hearts.
A fascinating and extraordinarily talented man.
Not above Dylan
Cohen had a blessed life. He made a lot of poetry and music. He lived on a beautiful, unspoiled Greek island. He made love to a lot of beautiful women. He made money, had it stolen, then came back and made more. He lived to be old.
Truly a life to envy.
The man was a genius – a troubled one, but a genius nonetheless and in my opinion he was better than Dylan. He was at heart a loner. He battled to settle forever with one woman, but did have several long lasting relationships intermingled with unfaithfulness – this sounds like many of us, men and women. His creativity came from his inability to find happiness and conquer his dark thoughts on many issues and levels. This in turn resulted in him seeking loneliness and sadness. I certainly don’t believe though that he disliked women – he loved them in his way.
He was certainly a liberal – would he have been more astonished and alarmed by Trump or by the latest illiberal version of the Democrats? And what good would it have done to meet Mary Harrington? He met many influential and intelIigent women in his life. I found the introduction of these people quite jarring in this essay on Eros.
Due to the reaction against the left and cultural marxism, a concerted effort on behalf of individuals such as Mary Harrington or Julie Bindel to promote sacrifice, common decency, and strict monogamy is underway, and any and all examples of libidinousness are being pulled in to ram the message home. Expect to see alot more of this.
Whether you agree with that or not is up to you.
Thanks for marking this anniversary. A wonderful, flawed, perceptive and honest writer and musician. Isn’t it more than likely that inner turmoil and the struggle against demons drives creativity? All truly great artists seem to be tormented. His later work is almost unbearably haunting. Must rank as one of the greatest Canadians.
There’s a thought. If not for Leonard Cohen, Canada’s greatest musical exports would have been Bryan Adams and Justin Bieber.
I mean really. Who that is called Bryan Adams decides to become famous while still being called Bryan Adams? What was wrong with Rat Scabies or something?
Canada’s musical exports? Joni Mitchell in first place.
Truth! The woman’s a genius.
I do wish people would refrain from using the word genius about any musician they like. There is no longer any word to denote a real genius because the word has been degraded so much. Joni Mitchell is a really, really, good singer-songwriter, but she’s not a genius. (And for those of you who objected to my saying that Leonard Cohen was musically mediocre, Joni Mitchell is definitely not mediocre.
As a lyricist, she’s in the same league as Dylan and Cohen. She has a gift for melody. Perhaps because of the strange guitar tunings she uses, she finds novel and unique harmonies. She was a far better guitarist than BD or LC, and with a far better voice.
Yet she’s massively, massively outsold by, er, Bryan Adams. He’s reckoned to have sold 100 million singles and albums worldwide, God knows how. JM about 5% of that as best as I can tell.
And he’s massively, massively outsold by, er, Justin Bieber.
She may be a distant fourth, somewhere behind Bryan, Justin and Leonard.
I’ve read that ‘genius’ as a free standing phenomenon doesn’t really exist. Talent maybe. You start with talent – and crucially, motivation – then practice, practice, practice. Perhaps, in the arts, have some lucky breaks.
How did the UK go from performing poorly in athletics to being about the best in the world per capita? OK, maybe not an exact analogue with music, but you see the point.
Neil Young.
“No wonder the election of Donald Trump was the final nail in his coffin.”… Really ? Cohen loved Israel and fraternized with the soldiers. But he was naturally conflicted and confused. After all, he was a Jew. Trump was good for the ME and good for Israel. Trump pulled just a few Islamic nations out of the gutter of violence to be brothers in the Abraham Accords. I wish Cohen were here now to write one more song about the Abraham Accords.
A nice piece, slightly discoloured by the dumb and irrelevant line about Trump. I get that it’s meant humorously (ironically), but gee, the Great Man seems almost ubiquitous!
Great fun reading all the comments too. I always found Dylan pretentious (sorry) and often liked his songs better when someone else sang them. But, with LC, it’s his voice that mesmerises. I agree that pop is not in the same category as classical music (apples and oranges) but song is as ancient as man and touches some of us more than symphonies.
“He would have benefitted from a conversation with Mary Harrington”. YEAH RIGHT
Proving once again, that a song, a piece of art, is NEVER just a song, or a piece of art!
I, for one, cannot imagine, a person listening to only Amy Winehouse songs, an artist who never sang about happiness.. with depressive betrayal, sadness and regret mixed throughout all her music.. her sad departure says it all… (rip)
what say is the life trajectory of a young single woman who only listens to Amy, with the favorite song being ‘Back to Black’ ?
Living among a community of men who’s majority only live for that moment of instant gratification with a damsel; what can be the expected and projected reality of a melancholic young girl who’s only ‘thought projected’ artful life, is:
• He left no time to regret•
•Kept his d**k wet•
•With his same old safe bet•
?
I, for one, simply cannot comprehend such, even after encountering such a reality!
To make great art you must be a great narcissist.
I’ve posted a message before about this – why does Unherd publish articles about rock (actually, I should say popular) musicians? Rock/popular music is essentially ephemeral, part of popular culture, all of which is, frankly, not serious. Cohen may have been a good poet (I can’t judge), but he was a mediocre musician (definitely nowhere near being a genius). This article would be better placed in one of the more upmarket rock magazines, not in Unherd.
Can you expand a bit on that phrase ‘not serious’? I can’t quickly think of any particular way in which what I would define as popular culture isn’t serious. Financially? Politically? Culturally? And IIRC, the plays of serious old playwright W Shakespeare were definitely popular culture – at the time.
Yes, by ‘not serious’ I mean ‘not having anything really meaningful to say as regards the big existential questions’, such as death, old age, suffering, tragedy, beauty, betrayal, love (no not falling in or out of love, which is essentially selfish, but proper, going beyond oneself kind of love) etc. And yes, I take your point about the plays of Shakespeare being part of popular culture of the time. I can only remark that we have fallen a long way since then. And I don’t see anyone in today’s popular culture doing anything as profound as that. By continuing to talk about popular culture we’re confining ourselves to a small and, I argue, relatively trivial, world of experience. I think we can do better than that, and I’m complaining that Unherd doesn’t see that and raise its sights.
Obviously not germane to you, but Cohen to many was the voice of our consciousness and of our inner struggles. He pointed up our guilt but also made us feel that we were doing our best.
He was the symbol of an age, and if you want to understand the world as it is, listening to his songs and his humour would do you a lot more good than, for instance, reading the collected speeches of David Cameron.
What ever made you think I would ever read the collected speeches of David Cameron? He whose favourite music is the Kaiser Chiefs is it not?
Collected speeches of David Cameron? Good grief!
Millions bought his music and went to his concerts and read his books, generations can sing his songs (poems) – the lyrics of which captured his market as much as the tunes. This is a man who in his old age found that his manager had swindled him out of all of his money, so he went on a world tour when most people would have been retired – yet you call him mediocre.
Ah Lesley, I didn’t call him mediocre as a person, but as a musician. And yes, of course, that was a massive betrayal he endured, and he had to go back on the road to claw some money back, which was impressive. Not quite as impressive as Franz Liszt, who organized a music tour of Europe just to raise money for the catastrophic floods that had devastated his home country. After which, he just kept on touring to give money away. (And music tours in those days were much more gruelling than they are now.) How many people know that about Liszt I wonder? I wouldn’t say he was a genius, but pretty close. The thing is, while we continue to go on about the contemporary popular music stars of recent years, we don’t know about the really excellent contemporary musicians and composers from the ‘classical’ tradition. Just to give one example – who amongst you has heard of, let alone heard the music of, Sofia Gubaidulina, who has been composing truly innovative music for 70 years? She who says that every piece of music must have a moment of transformation, in which the listener is taken into a spiritual world. Have a listen to this if you’re curious: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5W6kgjZkqmgRBM6plPRJ9Hs/sofia-gubaidulina-in-words-and-pictures You may not like her music because it will be different from what you’re used to, but stick with her until you get it. She’s worth it. Great music isn’t easy. As I say, this is just one example, and it’s why I get frustrated with Unherd’s fairly frequent articles on popular musicians, ignoring the relatively unherd music of the truly great. Some of them actual geniuses.
Which is why my comment opened with “Millions bought his music and went to his concerts and read his books, generations can sing his songs (poems) – the lyrics of which captured his market as much as the tunes.”
Yes, I’m unimpressed by the fact that millions of people listen to etc his songs. Millions of people listen to all sorts of pap, as I’m sure you know (I’m not saying Cohen’s music is pap, just making a point).
Cohen had a far more sophisticated audience.
Your general point about the triviality of pop music is correct, I think, but within the tut, there are two types of pop act that qualify as exceptions deserving of more esteem.
These are the act where everybody likes at least one of their songs. Pretty well everybody likes one Queen song, or one Elton John song, for example. I don’t own any of their LPs and never would but I quite like the odd single.
The other exception from the general rule of forgettability is the act that is still acquiring new fans years after disbanding. The Beatles, the Doors and the Stones all meet that description I would think. Ultravox and Oasis do not.
Leonard Cohen may be another, although personally, I have never made it to the end of any of his songs. I am always seized by an irresistible urge to be doing something, indeed anything else.
You haven’t even got to the end of Hallelujah? That is one of the great pop songs surely, along with Strawberry Fields, God Only Knows, and Perfect Day (that catch of pain at end of each refrain). Although I prefer Rufus Wainwright’s version of Hallelujah – his voice carries such weight of emotion. But even the great pop/rock songs are trivial compared with great classical music.
There is no one Cohen version of Hallelujah. He wrote so many “alternative” verses that some people could write a thesis about them. But personally I lean towards his Do ya pronounciation rather than the grating “Do you” as in certain cover versions. He was an influence on many thinking souls.
“Do you” to rhyme with “it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujooh”
Why does poetry have to rhyme?
Ah, that’s another reason I prefer Wainwright’s version – he sings “do you”, which I prefer to “do ya” just to get the rhyme.
To me it doesn’t sound forced. Cohen often pronounces ‘you’ as ‘yuh’ in his songs, I don’t know if that’s a Canadian thing or a Cohen thing.
Regarding Leonard Cohen songs – I know exactly what you mean. I had friends who would listen to an entire album, apparently riveted, but I’m with you – out the door.
A valid point of view, but I would counter that, to many, popular culture is ephemeral but very meaningful, though that meaning may well be mainly ‘in the eye of the beholder’. It speaks to many as a simultaneous group and individual experience of growing up, loving, learning and realising impermanence. (Although personally I never connected with Cohen but I know a lot of contemporaries who did).
Yes, nicely put Hilary. My point though, is that Unherd regularly publishes pieces on rock/folk musicians, which I think should be left to rock/folk magazines to publish. I could in fact play the diversity card, and say that as a classical music lover, Unherd ignores people like me. But I won’t.
He was a songwriter, not a virtuoso instrumentalist, or a classical composer, or a librettist. He is writing songs in a particular idiom.
If you don’t understand the basic art form you are referring to, the problem is probably with you.
Difficult to see how he’s not serious’, for the reasons described in the article. He’s deeply rooted in various religious traditions and his art has always been a great contemporary expression of that
Oh I do understand Cohen’s art form – I grew up listening to music of that era. Wonderful when you’re growing up, but, in my opinion, to be left behind when you do grow up.
Because 90-95% of humanity has no aesthetic sense so are under the delusion the simplistic dross of these vulgar, peripatetic music hall entertainers constitutes art. Thus people click the articles.