Are the Better Rock and Roll Musicians All Insane?

The subject of Gary Glitter's plans for a new world tour after legal troubles over child molestation charges in Vietnam raises, to me at least, the interesting question- are ll the best rock and roll musicians insane, and in particular criminally insane? I wouldn't argue that being insane makes you a good rock and roll musician- I've met a number of mentally ill musicians over the years whose work didn't strike me as genius. Ariel Pink is said to be fairly psychologically off, I don't care for his work. As states in the previous post, I review a band and then a week later I don't even like the band I reviewed. As I'm thinking of it now it occurs to me that part of that is that with a lot of these metal bands and goth bands, people throw around this word "dark" but in the end it's all make believe. I've discussed Joy Division and Christian Death on here quite a bit, both Ian Curtis and Rozz Williams committed suicide, so their "dark" music and lyrical themes clearly went much deeper than being a mere gimmick. When asked my favorite band I generally say Joy Division, Christian Death is fairly rocking. Those Norwegian black metal bands like Burzum and Mayhem that were involved in the church arsons of 92-94', there intensity was clearly more than just some gimmick as well. Mayhem is seriously rocking. There are a few case where an individual becomes famous for committing a crime and their music surfaces because of that and turns out to be high quality.When the demo of Phillip Garrido's music surfaced I was hoping that more of that would surface because it was also very, very good musically. Apparently Phillip Garrido is on the same cell block with Charles Manson, another failed musician to become famous through his crimes rather than his music but whose music surfaced in the ensuing media frenzy, who I would say is also very good. I like Michael Jackson quite a bit. Early Phil Spector was quite good. Gary Glitter I like a lot. There are a few borderline cases. In interviews Voivod come off as very odd in terms of the intensity with which they take their science fiction lyrical themes, and the singer had some very serious drug problems. However, I would say it's a stretch to describe them as insane. I'm a big admirer of Lou Reed's album The Blue Mask, he obviously had his problems with hard drugs in the distant past. I don't think that would quite qualify him as insane, in interviews he seems pretty coherent to me, a little pompous maybe. I don't really think you'll find a much better list of rock and roll musicians than that anywhere, so the answer is likely "yes". Rock and roll musicians have been obviously strongly tied to drug use and with fringe leftist politics that are sort of on the ridiculous side. My taste is likely strongly swayed by the twisted and sadistic sense of humor that I tend to have. There's also that people in bands and people that are really into what they do take the whole thing way too seriously. I'd much rather people read my fiction than any music review. Gary Glitter jokes are funny, that's more entertainment than indie rock provides. I think there's something there though. Gary Glitter is pretty rocking.