Any rock star worth the name is a rock star as much in tweet as in a glossy video, tour-bus boudoir or fatal strangle-wank accident. True, had Twitter existed in the 70s several major stars might well have been ruined by the exposure – Clapton would have seemed less God-like if he'd been squeezing his "rivers of blood" rant into 140 characters, while authorities might have been alerted to Gary Glitter much earlier. However, today's rock-star bloggers are more interested in breaking down the barriers between them and their fans. The real rock icons maintain their mystery simply by not blogging.
No, the reason the internet may kill off rock-star mystique is that the blogosphere, by its own limitation and design, is not in thrall to image. Traditional music media requires cover stars to be the complete package, looking as good as they sound and producing snappy, controversial pull-quotes at the drop of a Dictaphone. To earn the status of rock legend, the old-school star needs to lure in the browsing commuter with the secret Strokes shirt on under his office clobber.
Music websites, however, have no news-stand to leap out from; their "covers" consist of pictures little bigger than postage stamps, so they rely on Google to draw in traffic. The click-to-hear-it nature of the web goes against the alluring band-as-gang image readers buy into, copy and adore long before they hear a note. It doesn't matter if a singer has anything important, funny or interesting to say, or if they say it dressed as Caligula with a chicken on their head; the music is all that matters online.
The blogosphere's appeal is momentary so attention-seeking bands are turning to shock tactics to create a controversy buzz while the printed press is now forced to chase internet hype for their next cover stars.
词句笔记：
stranglehold：压制，抑制
self-pitying：自怨自艾的
headline-grabbing：吸引眼球的
thrall：奴役
be held in thrall to：被……深深迷住
