What is Hip?
By ATWadmin On April 26th, 2009
Word on the street is that President Obama is hip. Of course, this brings up that age-old question. What is hip?
Also, and more to the point, hipness by it’s very definition, is fleeting. Hip today, passe tomorrow. Remember when spending all Sunday with The New York Times was hip? Seems like years ago, doesn’t it? Reading the Sunday New York Times hasn’t been hip for years (except perhaps in Cafe Med, in Berkeley.)
For the moment,then, for Obama’s sake, let us just ponder the question: what is hip?
ht: Jawa Report
Hi Patty, hope you’re doing well. I’ll try and take up your challenging question.
Firstly, as a Brit, it surprises me a little that you phrase the very question in those words, for over here in the UK, the very word "hip" (ie, fashionable, cool, right-on) is considered extremely dated and "70′s" and, well, un-hip. Presumably it is still "hip" to use the word "hip" in mainstream USA culture? But never mind that, it’s just a hair-splitting quibble.
I have no idea what is hip this year. It’s pointless trying to keep up, because, just as you say, what is hip this year will be ‘old-skool’ next year. And I’m way too old to bother keeping up with fashions.
However, I have often noticed that there are certain things/actions which are universally admired and looked up to. Acts of chivalry and bravery (amongst my sex) are almost always considered hip, even amongst groups of teens whose primary motivation is often to rebel against perceived norms of behaviour. For example, a man or youth who acts courteously towards a woman, whether it be just opening a door for her, or defending her against some form of attack or unwanted intrusion, that is always hip. The cool, collected actions of that airline pilot who took his plane down on the Hudson river in NY, and who then waded through the waterlogged aircraft to make sure everyone had disembarked safely, that was hip.
As for Santana, I remember when I was in my early teens, looking at their LP sleeves in record shops and thinking to myself "God, that looks so hippie and dated" (errr, apart from one sleeve, which if I recall correctly had some naked ladies on it, and I paid particular attention to that sleeve, just out of artistic interest of course) and so I’ve never been able to listen to that particular band, because it seemed to encapsulate something that the music I grew up with (ie, punk) was dead against. I confess that I still have this absolute antipathy towards, and inability to listen to, early 70′s stuff. For me, rock music started with "Never Mind The B******s" and anything before that was part of the problem to which that album was the dramatic response. I don’t think I’ll ever quite be able to completely grow out of that view.
*edit* No, that’s not entirely true. I love The Beatles, and 60′s Motown and Northern Soul. It’s just that in my mind, there’s this whole period between approx 1967 and 1977 when I regard rock/pop music as utterly awful. I think it started with either "Sgt Pepper" or "The White Album", ie the Beatles’ descent from their peak creative period, rock music just disintegrated from that point on, it just went too far up its own a**e so to speak, and it took the Pistols to bring the whole thing back to basics again. Or something like that.
*second edit* – I’m sorry to prattle on and on like this! It’s just, start me on music and I just have to write a whole essay and let the world know what I think. Just ignore me, I’m biased. I’m sure the Santana song is really good, it’s my fault that my prejudice won’t allow me to appreciate it.
Catherine Deneuve smoking a Gitane….
(La bouche? Pas necessaraiement.)
Tom: loved your analysis. sorry to be obtuse.
I was offering up comment (somewhat tongue in cheek) on the article I linked to from Politico. (see link above) Also, there is a meme floating around on the right, that Conservatives are not hip enough. Personally, I don’t care. But some do. In fact, a lot of people do.
Did you see the fist bump that Obama gave his wife? Or the DVD’s that Gordon Brown received? Or even the Chavez/Obama power shake? That’s hipness. Obama’s hipness.
In case you hadn’t noticed the MSM is eating this up. People – Conservatives excepted – seem to love it.
Tower of Power (and Santana) = unhip, imho…,,but they once WERE very hip.
Will Obama someday be unhip? Like Tower of Power? I dunno…but I do know that hipness is a shallow quality, and that it’s easy to be "out" if once you were in "in."
I don’t think bravery is "hip" – I think it is a classic value or quality. It will never go "out."
Tom: In case you missed it, see my link above in first sentence to article in Politico "For Obama – Hipness is What Is"
Why doesn’t O just start openly smoking weed and be done with it.
Charles,
Why not?
He’d only be the continuator of a long and proud tradition, going right back to George Washington’s fondness for the occasional churchwarden tamped full of Indian hemp….
>>For me, rock music started with "Never Mind The B******s" and anything before that was part of the problem to which that album was the dramatic response<<
That’s a strange position, Tom, as Punk was very little more than a regurgitation of some music from the early 70′s which you seem to deprecate so much, such as the Velvet Underground (Listen to "European Son" and tell me what the difference is to "Punk Rock"), with a bit of Rock ‘n Roll thrown in.
Punk just turned up the volume and gave young people at that time – and noone else – the feeling they were being new and fresh, oh and so shocking and revolting.
They weren’t, it had all been done many times before.
The music of the late 60′s, early 70′s on the other hand was truly something new, and creative and IMO more beautiful and exciting than any popular music before or since.
From a thousand examples, listen to this one by Bowie
or Gallow’s Pole by Led Zeppelin
or finally – for those like you of a religious bent – this one by Roxy Music
Listen to it to the end; religious emotion with tons of attitude and tongue in cheek.
Noel,
The favorite band of Cook and Jones (the members of the Pistols responsible for their ‘distinctive’ sound) was ‘The Who.’
Noel: Say Amen! That last one was great.
…you really should make yourself useful here at ATW and become ATW’s local DJ, complete with commentary.
Noel, you’re totally right. Actually, what I should have said was "I still have this absolute antipathy towards, and inability to listen to >>MOST<< early 70′s stuff." – with a handful of notable exceptions such as Bowie, Can, Kraftwerk, early Roxy Music and the first three Velvet Underground albums. ("VU and Nico", and "WL/WH" were, arguably, the very genesis of "punk" itself, and their third LP is just very strange and unsettling, but still "punk" in a weird sort of way). But no, in my "anti-70′s music" mode, I’m referring more to bands such as Mud, Rush, Yes, early Genesis, Rainbow, y’know, young men with long hair and beards who really ought to know better, making "very serious" music. Rat-at-at-at-at-at-at-at-at-at-at!!! (sound of machine-gun fire – they’re the enemy). Rock music should never delve too far up its own arse; it should be sheer teenage FUUUUUUN! In the words of The Hives, "See, I extend my middle right-hand digit and say -D’you want lemon and lime with that piece of advice, misteeeeerrr!!" Whoooo-hoooo! Rock Lobster! Motown junk….a-Junk-a junk-a junk-a! We live in urban hell! We destroy rock and roll!" …and all that.
Phew…now excuse me, I have to work out someone’s capital gains tax.
To be truely hip is to dress/act and choose your entertainment to suit you and to not at all care if you’re hip . Very few of us manage it.