I touched on this briefly here.
Now the always interesting Tim Sommer:
John Lydon is 61. Again, here I note that I once knew him, just a little. I believe that his agenda, first and foremost, is to support his family, support his step-grandchildren, and see that they are fed and clothed and educated and made to feel safe, emotionally and fiscally. He takes responsibility for this challenge, and he does what he needs to do in order to gets his name in the news and sell his book.
John Lydon’s agenda is not to make great art (though he is most certainly capable of this). His agenda is not to stand in the shadow of his past ideologies, though he understands that these are useful, since he can capitalize on the fact that his face alone can be used as a shorthand for a generation’s rebellion; he is one of the rarest of stars, a pictogram.
Except for two things:
Had Lydon’s sole motivation been to promote his book, he could have just as easily concocted a particularly pithy anti-Trump slogan that would have generated almost as many headlines, although not as many, of course.
And the fact that many potential buyers might be — in fact, we know were — turned off by Lydon’s comments doesn’t seem to have occurred to Sommer.
Good effort, though.
