{"id":6939,"date":"2011-04-29T11:38:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T15:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=6939"},"modified":"2011-04-29T11:43:18","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T15:43:18","slug":"new-wave-skinny-tie-poseurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/new-wave-skinny-tie-poseurs\/","title":{"rendered":"New Wave Skinny Tie Poseurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who among the following New Wave\u2013era\u00a0skinny tie wearers were Skinny Tie Poseurs<\/strong> and who\u00a0were the Real Deal, Stylish Hepcats<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

\"\"

Real Deal, Stylish Hepcat or Opportunist?<\/p><\/div>\n

If you don’t recall or are too young to have lived through it,\u00a0the New Wave era of the late-1970s was when skinny ties were first brought back into hipster vogue by a generation of forward-thinking, backward-dressing musicians who weren’t comfortable with the wide ties<\/strong> of the late-1960s through mid-1970s. While The Clash<\/strong> sang about phony Beatlemania having beaten the dust, a number of their music-scene peers<\/a> were embracing the skinny ties<\/a> and suits that Brian Epstein<\/strong> and his tailor pushed as de rigueur<\/em> among original British Invasion bands.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Goin' skinny!<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s funny, to me,\u00a0that The Beatles’ skinny tie beginnings carried so much stylistic clout because they were not skinny tie purists. Through the 1960s they would ride the vanguard of rock tie fashion: from skinny to bow to wide ties and eventually\u00a0the cravat. Not that it really matters to this discussion, but as a boy I modeled my fashion sense along with each new development in the Fab Four’s Look, which explains why I’ve never moved past a deep preference for wide ties let alone developed much of a Look beyond what the band left me following their breakup.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the mid-1970s, Noddy Holder<\/strong>, lead singer of Slade<\/strong>, exhausted the possibilities of the wide tie<\/a>, ensuring a backlash from New Wave rockers, including some\u00a0who probably cut their teeth on Slade’s bubblegum-rock rallying cries. David Bowie<\/a><\/strong>, contrary to what would be expected of a visionary, did not lead the skinny-tie revival. That distinction would probably go to eternally dapper Bryan Ferry<\/strong>, who kept it skinny even while going tartan<\/a>. However, kinder, gentler New Wave, neo-Mod,\u00a0and Power Pop bands of the late-’70s, like Blondie<\/a><\/strong> and The Knack<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0rode this style the hardest and opened the floodgates to a generation of Skinny Tie Poseurs, a group of aspiring Corporate Rockers who figured it was high time to jump on the latest stylistic craze. Most notably, already established superstar\u00a0Billy Joel<\/strong><\/a> used the skinny tie to reassert his Rock ‘n Roll Credibility. By the mid-1980s, faceless musicians in bands such as Pat Benetar<\/strong><\/a> and Quarterflash<\/strong><\/a> followed suit.<\/p>\n

For every credible skinny tie band, such as The Cars<\/a><\/strong>, there were suspect skinny tie wearers, who could cite\u00a0some sincere stylistic and musical identification with this trend in haberdashery.\u00a0For instance,\u00a0Robert Palmer<\/a><\/strong>, who turned off rock snobs with his massive mid-’80s success, had previously made a credible name for himself as\u00a0a stylish\u00a0R&B afficianado keeping pace a step or two behind the aforementioned Ferry<\/a>.\u00a0Or consider Huey Lewis<\/a><\/strong>, who quickly became an easy hipster joke as the News hit the top of the pops. Almost simultaneously, however,\u00a0those same hipsters would be confronted with research into his humble Pub Rock roots<\/a>, topped off by the future News’ My Aim\u00a0Is True<\/em> backing band credibility. Heavy stuff to work through in those formative rock-nerd years, but ultimately enriching.<\/p>\n

I’ll let Townspeople work through these issues and see if we can’t determine which borderline skinny tie wearers were\u00a0Real Deal, Stylish Hepcats or\u00a0Skinny Tie Poseurs, and we’ll see what other skinny tie advocates and bandwagon jumpers are brought to the table. I look forward to your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who among the following New Wave\u2013era\u00a0skinny tie wearers were Skinny Tie Poseurs and who\u00a0were the Real Deal, Stylish Hepcats? If you don’t recall or are too young to have lived through it,\u00a0the New Wave era of the late-1970s was when skinny ties were first brought back into hipster vogue by a generation of forward-thinking, backward-dressing […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,344],"tags":[264,77,22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}