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New songs pay homage to old Stone Jagger



By Misty Harris, Postmedia News August 12, 2011 4:02 PM

Mick Jagger has been name-dropped in lyrics by the Black Eyed Peas, Ke$ha, Maroon 5, Kanye West and the Jonas Brothers.

Photograph by: SCANPIX NORWAY, REUTERS


In the unlikeliest music trend since the return of the saxophone solo — a topic for another day — a 68-year-old rocker is turning up in pop songs with all the frequency of Auto-Tune.


Mick Jagger has been name-dropped in lyrics by the Black Eyed Peas, Ke$ha, Maroon 5, Kanye West and the Jonas Brothers, to name a few, with all tunes aimed squarely at listeners who weren't even alive during the Rolling Stones' heyday.


Pop culture scholar John Alberti dubs it the Midnight in Paris effect, calling to mind the recent Woody Allen movie in which characters throughout time uniformly idealize life in previous eras.


"We turn the past not just into history but into mythology," says Alberti, a professor at Northern Kentucky University. "So people get this nostalgia for the revolution they feel they missed."


Adam Levine describes his Moves Like Jagger video, released this week, as a means of introducing the 60s-era singer to "a newer generation of people that don't know . . . how incredible he was." And the Maroon 5 frontman is hardly alone in his lyrical genuflecting.


Jagger has been the beneficiary of nods from the Black Eyed Peas (The Time), Ke$ha (Tik Tok), And She Whispered (Swagger Like Mick Jagger), Cher Lloyd (Swagger Jagger), the Jonas Brothers (Heart and Soul), and a combined effort of rappers Kanye West, T.I., Lil Wayne and Jay-Z (Swagga Like Us).


Lana Gay, who hosts an indie music show on CBC Radio 3, suggests a variety of explanations for artists' renewed interest in rock's senior statesman — a phenomenon that can only mean good things for Jagger's new pop "supergroup" SuperHeavy.


"I could say it's because he's a legend, or because rumour has it the next Rolling Stones world tour might be their last. It might have some connection to the popularity of Keith Richards' biography, or to lingering influence of boomers on contemporary pop culture," says Gay.


"But for the most part, I strongly believe (it's because) the word swagger has been so overused. . . . And who has a very memorable swagger and a name that rhymes with the word?"


According to lexicographer Ben Zimmer, former On Language columnist for the New York Times, musicians' sweetness for swagger took root fully a decade ago, when Jay-Z used it in the song All I Need ("I guess I got my swagger back.")


The term was abbreviated on the rapper's 2003 album ("check out my swag, yo"), with a major "swagger uptick" following in 2007 and 2008. Zimmer says the latter was largely thanks to songs by M.I.A., Kanye West and T.I., as well as the cultural traction of the expression "swagger-jacking" — stealing another artist's style.


In the years since, the word has become a fixture in pop parlance, showing up in everything from reality shows (So You Think You Can Dance's "swag camp") to viral videos (Aziz Ansari's "swagga coach" sketches).


"It feels like it's become something more entrenched, and not just a flash in the pan," says Zimmer, likening swagger's potential sturdiness to "cool," which has waxed and waned as a slang term — but never disappeared — since the 1940s.


Language expert Erin McKean, founder of Wordnik.com, says the term — which her site used to brand its new API framework — is sticking because it perfectly communicates boldness without aggression.


"You can't meekly swagger. But at the same time, it's not violent; it's showing off," says McKean. "And rhyming with Mick Jagger does not hurt."


Pop culture expert Alberti acknowledges that a robust part of Jaggermania is likely driven by "lyrical laziness." But he says the Rolling Stone's continued enshrinement in song can't be dismissed as entirely incidental, either.


"He's the avatar of being a badass. Mick Jagger very deliberately burnished the myths around him, emerging as the central idea of the rock star," says Alberti. "It's no accident that he remains an iconic figure."


mharris@postmedia.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-13 02:03 by treaclefingers.

I personally know of two children born in the last year called Jagger (as a first name!)

Wish I'd had a kid so I could have named him Jagger, cool sounding name! All of the kudos are deserved!!About time he gets his due. Oh, I know, he has NOT been exactly ignored for the last 49 years!

The only way I'd name my kid Jagger is if my last name was Richards.

Why is this even a question? Mick Jagger, in his peak form (64-81) defined Rock Star. Not Hendrix, not even Dylan. There were alot of rock stars from that period and through the 70s....even the folkier guys like the Byrds, Crosby, Still, Nash etc wore their feather boas..... but Jagger, like no one else, personified that cool, insolent, sexually-driven, cocky and slightly myterious image hasn't been duplicated since without even trying. There was a casualness about Jagger back then, like he didn't give a @#$%&.
In some ways, Jagger invented what a ROck Star is, and its about damn time younger generations realize or are educated on that fact. ALso, this is a younger generation far removed from the 80s Mick, or even 90s Mick, and they're seeing the vintage Mick thanks to various things: fashion designers and other people who cite Jagger as a cool as well as people like Snoop Dog talking about what a badass Jagger was etc....
It's almost like the Let's Work-era 80s and 90s have been wiped clean from the inconography. DUring that time, Jagger was painfully trying to be hip and had been eclipsed by the trends of that era and it was like watching a legend get left behind. But in the last several years, Jagger has regained some of that swagger by not trying so hard and acting his age and he just seems cooler, not desparate. And these kids are being reintroduced via stuff like "Stones in Exile", "Ladies and Gentlemen", "Rock and ROll Circus", not to mention the internet and all these great pics of Jagger at his best.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-15 21:42 by stupidguy2.

Quote
stupidguy2
Why is this even a question? Mick Jagger, in his peak form (64-81) defined Rock Star. Not Hendrix, not even Dylan. There were alot of rock stars from that period and through the 70s....even the folkier guys like the Byrds, Crosby, Still, Nash etc wore their feather boas..... but Jagger, like no one else, personified that cool, insolent, sexually-driven, cocky and slightly myterious image hasn't been duplicated since without even trying. There was a casualness about Jagger back then, like he didn't give a @#$%&.
In some ways, Jagger invented what a ROck Star is, and its about damn time younger generations realize or are educated on that fact. ALso, this is a younger generation far removed from the 80s Mick, or even 90s Mick, and they're seeing the vintage Mick thanks to various things: fashion designers and other people who cite Jagger as a cool as well as people like Snoop Dog talking about what a badass Jagger was etc....
It's almost like the Let's Work-era 80s and 90s have been wiped clean from the inconography. DUring that time, Jagger was painfully trying to be hip and had been eclipsed by the trends of that era and it was like watching a legend get left behind. But in the last several years, Jagger has regained some of that swagger by not trying so hard and acting his age and he just seems cooler, not desparate. And these kids are being reintroduced via stuff like "Stones in Exile", "Ladies and Gentlemen", "Rock and ROll Circus", not to mention the internet and all these great pics of Jagger at his best.

Yes, Mick enters the new phase of his career - that of an old man and he does it with a little edge. I think(hope) he'll be great in his 70s.

I still don't think of Mick Jagger as " an old man", not by a long shot! And the new song by Maroon 5 is the cherry on top of his career in a sense....Move Like Jagger, EXACTLY RIGHT! Who doesn't want to move like Mick? Still the epitome of cool, which some folks just can't stand...I guess the truth hurts, no matter how hard they try to tarnish his reputation, it is just not going to happen. He will always have IT!

It's kind of like the Stones in the 60's, bringing the bluesman of the past to the fore, and shining a light on how great they were.

Lot's of mick/stones worshippers in the industry doing the same, highlighting to kids why they were the greatest rock band in the world.

I really think much of its has to do with a rediscovery of vintage Stones, as opposed to "geezers on tour", which, lets face it, was the prevailing image throughout most of the 80s and 90s...
There has been a real resurgence in the idea of the Stones as the original bad boys of rock and roll.

Quote
stupidguy2
I really think much of its has to do with a rediscovery of vintage Stones, as opposed to "geezers on tour", which, lets face it, was the prevailing image throughout most of the 80s and 90s...
There has been a real resurgence in the idea of the Stones as the original bad boys of rock and roll.

Agree with you, it is the golden period that is being re-idolized.

Quote
stupidguy2
I really think much of its has to do with a rediscovery of vintage Stones, as opposed to "geezers on tour", which, lets face it, was the prevailing image throughout most of the 80s and 90s...
There has been a real resurgence in the idea of the Stones as the original bad boys of rock and roll.

May be that they would no longer tour only will benefit them? Let each do his thing and let the Stones live their lives and do not get older