Uncut's Best of 2009

Mojo's Best of 2009

Freddie Freeloader

Miles Davis

For decades, trumpet player Miles Davis was the living definition of cool. “Miles was regal,” says legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins. “The music, the clothes, the hair, the physique. He was the complete package.” Davis’s music and sartorial choices were outward expressions of the inner man. He believed that the notes you don’t play are as important as the ones you do. It was an ethos that carried over to the clothes he wore. Up until the late 1960s, when he started merging jazz with rock ’n’ roll, Miles favored three-piece suits by Brooks Brothers and worked with a New York City tailor to create a style all his own: jackets that were cut in one piece, with only two seams—under the sleeves and down the jacket sides—no chest pocket or padding in the shoulders, and notch lapels that rolled down to a single button. Davis best described his style in his autobiography, Miles, when he said, “I was clean as a motherfucker.”

• Every man should own at least one pair of great khakis. And by “great,” we mean slim-cut and flat-front

Gabba Gabba Hey

The Ramones

It’s not just that the Ramones made their awkward geekiness look cool; it’s when they did it. In April 1976—as the Bee Gees climbed the Billboard charts—Sire Records released Ramones, fourteen fast tracks of three-chord noise carried by the incomparable voice of Joey Ramone. He stood on the cover in what would become punk’s immortal uniform: filthy Keds, torn jeans, and a black leather biker jacket. Fifty-two blocks down from Studio 54, a tiny club called CBGB was giving the unknown band gigs. The block has been renamed Joey Ramone Place. The Bee Gees have been given no such honor.

• A Leather biker jacket should be snug and trim. Buy one a size smaller than you normally would and you’ll look like a rock star. Trust us.

Like a Rolling Stone

Bob Dylan

Remember young Guthrie-ite Dylan, the one with the beatnik blue jeans, denim shirt, and corduroy driving hat? Or how about the powder-faced imp headlining The Last Waltz under a floppy pimp lid? Through the decades, Bob Dylan has always tapped into the fashions of the times. “He’s a rotating type,” says documentarian D. A. Pennebaker, who made 1967’s Don’t Look Back. “It never works to try to pin him down.” There was also Biker Bob (see Highway 61 Revisited), who said, “I’ve had black leather jackets since I was 5 years old.” And then there was his other favorite accoutrement—those jet-black shades: “You buy them off the rack, if they fit, and you put them on.” The point is, Dylan’s ever changing style was one of discovery. “There was an air of expectancy. He was there to find out what was going on. And his choice of clothes relates to that,” says Pennebaker. “He was trying to figure out who he was.” He was all those things, and none of them.

• Ray-Ban Wayfarers will always be in style. The look worked for Dylan and Ali, it worked for Cruise, and it’s working now for every band on the planet and every fashion-minded guy in town.

I Hate Myself And Want to Die

Kurt Cobain

A man of chronic contradictions, Kurt Cobain exuded an energy that was both savage and artistic. When Nirvana readied to play Saturday Night Live on January 11, 1992, Nevermind had reached Billboard’s number one spot, and the music world waited to meet its new 24-year-old star. He wore a Flipper T-shirt under a mold-colored cardigan and hair he’d dyed the night before with strawberry Kool-Aid. He also blew the shit out of the room with a 1965 Fender Jaguar the color of a Doberman and introduced us to a new status quo for cultural icons. Glamorous, dirty, quiet, and loud—Cobain would be dead in two years. And we’re still trying to figure him out.

• Beat-up jeans are America’s gift to the world of style. Not that we’re saying wear torn-and-frayed denim to the office, but it’s hard to go wrong wearing it when you’re off the clock.

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do.

Johnny Depp

After almost a quarter century in front of the camera, Johnny Depp has shown us everything but himself. Not an easy task when you’ve got those cheekbones, that tousled hair, and an unmitigated youthfulness, which Depp has worked hard to cloak by playing reclusive savants and rock ’n’ roll pirates. But we keep searching, trying to nail down his hobo chic—a style that derives from a life spent kicking around the dusty South and the French countryside. “I don’t think he’s remotely interested in fashion. He’s a complete instigator of fashion,” says Penny Rose, the costume designer who collaborated with the actor to create Pirates of the Caribbean’s randy Jack Sparrow. “His look is always eye-stopping, clever, and completely individual.” Or, like the last two drags on one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, raw and unapologetically gratifying.

• A tweak here and there can elevate even the simplest outfits. Notice the rolled-up sleeves, the neckpiece, the beat-up boots instead of sneakers. Small moves like these separate you from the pack.

The Man Who Sold the World

David Bowie

From the Kabuki-inspired androgyny of Ziggy Stardust to the crisply tailored modern rock star as one-man corporation, David Bowie’s ever shifting personae influenced entire musical genres, not to mention wildly successful reinvention experts like Madonna. And even when his performance-art motifs have threatened to overshadow his talents as a musician, Bowie has always rebounded in song, never succumbing to style over substance. Perhaps Moby said it best in 2005: “I can’t think of any other musician in the twentieth century who has impacted popular culture and music more than David Bowie.” And did we mention he’s been married to a supermodel for fifteen years? Just wanted to throw that in.

• The skinnier the tie, the louder the (style) performance. And isn’t it funny how what looked sharp forty years ago still looks sharp today?

Shoot Speed/Kill Light

NME's THE TOP 10 GREATEST ALBUMS OF THE DECADE![January 2000 and December 2009]

1. The Strokes - Is This It
2. The Libertines - Up The Bracket
3. Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
4. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
6. PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
7. Arcade Fire - Funeral
8. Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
9. The Streets - Original Pirate Material
10. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Gotham City

ps: Pic taken from Times & Aiee's FB :)

food for thought...

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home"
— Mahatma Gandhi

Out of my last fifty-three cases, my name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the credit in forty-nine...

奉大仁大慈真主的尊名