“There are no good old days/The good old days are now”, sang the Libertines. Barely launched, Pete Doherty and Carl Barât, the leaders of the British rock group, put into verse the nostalgia of the passing of time. It was in 2002, more than twenty years ago. For some, the first decade of the century was that of tecktonik, gangsta rap, the rise of Jay-Z to the rap firmament or the French touch.
But, for many others, it was the time when rock, the “real” rock – nervous, dirty, free – caused a sensation. It emerged from the sticky basements of southern Manhattan and north London, not yet gentrified, recalling the fond memories of Generation X, rocked by disco and Eurodance, the raw rage of the legends of the 1970s: The Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Stooges, The Velvet Underground.
Post-adolescents in turn wanted to sing out of tune, to strum the guitar without having any notion of music theory and to elbow their way in concert halls that were far too small, sheltered by their leather Perfectos. Stories of drugs, love and friendship, CDs with scratched cases, albums sold hundreds of thousands of copies, images of beautiful young people with long hair and dark circles…
Slim jeans so tight
Twenty years later, this era seems to be coming back into fashion. Pete Doherty, who reverted to his baptismal name, Peter, himself resurfaces. Two years after the very beautiful album The Fantasy Life of Poetry & Crimecomposed with the help of French musician, arranger and producer Frédéric Lo, Canal+ has been broadcast since February 19 Stranger in my Own Skin, a documentary on the British rocker, now 44 years old and living in France. Directed by his partner Katia de Vidas, the film looks back on the saga of the Libertines, their life after their first separation, in 2005, and their fight against addiction. At the same time his autobiography appeared, A charming boy (Le Cherche Midi), and a new album from the group, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, is announced for March 8, nine years later Anthems for Doomed Youth.
He seemed forgotten, crushed by rap and electro, that time of slim jeans so tight that they were impossible to remove, pointy boots, distorted guitars, derailed vocals and three-minute anthems delivered at a rapid pace. So many pieces that were so incompatible with the TikTok algorithm, but glorified at the time by hordes of fans on Myspace.
Subsequently outdated, this sound is resisting, as amusingly illustrated by a series of videos posted in January on Instagram by the American duo The Black Keys, to announce the release of their new album, Ohio Players, on April 5. Titles Gen Z vs TBK (“Generation Z against the Black Keys”), these short films see the two rockstars, in their forties, graying and a little paunchy, facing the generational contempt of two young girls who wear t-shirts bearing the name of their group, revealing that they are old things belonging to their parents. A way of returning them to their status as rocker grandpas.
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