Who is the coolest rock star in the world? Frank Carter, the ginger, baby-faced frontman from Watford punk outfit Gallows, according to the newly published NME cool list. The 23-year-old from Hemel Hempstead, who confessed to being a 'bully's wet dream' as a kid and, more recently, to missing 'bake beans and his mum' while touring in the States, has been given the number one spot for wiping mediocrity 'off this planet's smirking face, leaving it twitching and bruised'.
Alex Turner, Jaime Reynolds from the Klaxons, Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse all make the top ten in the annual list, which chalks up the 50 most happening rocks stars on the planet.
Carter is undeniably a fantastic rock star - when OMM interviewed him in March this year he immediately stood out as a fearless, intelligent and passionate individual - but the whole notion of a cool ranking reeks of naffness. For starters the NME editorial team decided who to include. It's a know fact to any sentient human being that rock hacks are some of biggest geeks in existence, which makes them ill-equipped to call the shots on who is hip. Worst still, they fall over themselves to subvert popular notions of what is cool. Hence why they made 15-stone, squirrel-eating lesbian Beth Ditto last year's winner but didn't have the balls to put her on the cover of the issue. Cool but not that cool then. This year they've got Prince in at number 14. The same man who is in today's papers for trying to sue his most ardent followers from promoting him on fan sites.
And suspiciously NME's definition of cool seems to eerily coincide with whoever seems to be the fittest member of the band. Which goes some way to explaining the inclusion, this year, of the very attractive New Young Pony Club keyboardist Lou Hayter. Admittedly, snake-hipped fitties who make big eyes under a ruffled fringe do tend to be most popular with fans but surely the list has pretensions to be more than a popularity content.
Coolness is an elusive concept, which is half its allure. It can't be manufactured or quantified. These days biggest corporations spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to forecast what the kids will be into so they can commodify it and wring loads of cash from their pockets. Which brings us to the most cringeworthy thing of all. The 12-page list is brought to us in association with Nokia and includes three pages of advertorial on the new 'Nseries' phone, which is apparently 'cooler than the rock star who has it all'.
