It's all about the tunes, man: listen to the lyrics. Well, maybe - but haven't you also got an eye on their daring haircut, their soulful eyes, their highly directional shoes?
Such idle thoughts were prompted by hitherto unseen pictures of Bob Dylan disporting himself in a manner that could not easily be described as Dylanesque - hugging babies and bouncing gaily on a trampoline. It does make you wonder whether he could ever have achieved his countercultural hero status were the public accustomed to see him in such John Denverish mode
It's hard not to feel that the sense of Dylan's music as so very deep and meaningful would be so persuasive if it didn't issue from the pouting sloucher on the record sleeves - could we have taken him quite so seriously if he looked as John Denveresque as he does in these snaps?
Imagine if we only ever saw Cat Power in spangled jumpsuits, if Pete Doherty had acquired a few extra pounds and modelled his look on Hugo Boss ads; if Marilyn Mansun ditched the eyeliner in favour of panstick and dressed like Chris Martin - or indeed if S Club 7 took up his abandoned wardrobe. These things don't really seem to compute.
That the clothes for bands with teen appeal are part of the package is generally agreed: bands look a certain way to embody adolescent dreams of glamour and escape. Look at lovely Jon Bon Jovi - how his hair billows out from behind the motorbike with all the insouciant freedom I crave. Don't Black Rebel Motorcycle Club look as if they've performed all the interesting experiments with drugs I'm so looking forward to. Doesn't Chris Martin look so cool - and yet so like the caring and enlightened boyfriend I want to become vegetarian with. And whoever managed to give Keane their look which added just a slight hint of edge to their rampant harmlessness, achieved a very rare feat indeed.
But you do also begin to wonder whether the way a band looks doesn't actually start to construct the way we listen to their songs. The sense of rugged passion embodied in Bono's vests and hats (in pre-irony U2) surely informed the way a lot of people heard The Joshua Tree. One senses that Kylie's music (to much shallower men than me, of course) sounds a fair bit sexier after you've seen the hotpants of myth and legend. And so on.
Of course, it's not impossible to hear and like a song without having seen the individuals from whom it's issued. Then again, there have been one or two occasions in my life - younger, more impressionable days, you understand - when I saw the band behind the song I so dug on the radio, felt the bile rise, and delight start sliding into dislike. It's not that such bad faith hasn't left me feeling unforgiveably shallow. But I'm not convinced that sound and vision aren't always travelling, however subliminally, on the same track. Or am I just a superficial fop?
