Thursday, August 7, 2025

The Cheeky Monkeys of Pop (now with added Robbie)









The original cheeky monkey, or Monkee - rather amazingly Mickey Dolenz was closely associated with some actual monkeys, early in his career, as a character in Circus Boy




A hint of simian is definitely a bonus with this archetype but not essential. 



Ian Brown playing up to it, having fun with it with the Unfinished Monkey Business album

Although as covers go it's oddly sinister 


 













And then the original spur for this meditation, Lily Allen 




At a low televisual ebb recently so found ourselves watching From Riches to Rags on YouTube -  an ancient docu-reality thing on Lily and her sister's attempt to start a vintage clothing rental boutique - the concept: haute couture too expensive to buy, but you could grub up enough cash to wear it for one night of feeling like a star. 

Diverting enough stuff, mainly for the cheeky-monkey charm of Lily who really doesn't seem cut out for business. (Spoiler: neither of them were).







Most of the time on camera, Lily's unmade-up and casually dressed - what I find disconcerting are the intermittent glimpses of her onstage or doing some kind of celeb-oriented event, paparazzi clustered around her as she totters on high heels, clad in a couture gown and caked in cosmetics.  

Disconcerting because her true essence seems much more like the Artful Dodger reincarnated. 







































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So who else is there? 

Steve Marriott


Well, he in fact played the Artful Dodger in Oliver! on the West End stage long before he was a Small Face









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William in comments point out a glaring and obvious omission







This Stones pastiche reminded me of the existence of Mick Jagger - who has a simian quality but I don't know if he's exactly a "cheeky monkey"



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Oooh - thought of another. 

Well, I don't know if "cheeky monkey" is the word exactly but Saffron in Republica has a sort of bouncy bratty energy - like an 8 year old in a romper room. 



You could probably point to punky precursors  - The Slits - but I like to think of "Ready To Go"  as the inauguration of a likeable lineage of unladylike pop - I'd almost say "ladette" -  like which would include Icona Pop's "I Love It" and Pink's "Coming Up" ("get this party started") and early Ke$ha .  Charlie xcx... 

Now I think of it, are The Spice Girls a whole pack of cheeky monkeys?  




Talking of unladylike pop / ladette-pop, clean forget about Lady Sovereign



Who in many ways is the template that Lily Allen was basing her thing, albeit not rapping but singing 

"Cheeky monkey" is very much something to do with a return to childhood.

Pre-sexual - in the case of the female artists, there's a bratty 9-year-old tomboy quality that cuts against or is at odds with whatever glamour they are otherwise attempting to put across

The girl-gang comes first, coupling is a distant second


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Update August 9

Genuinely abashed to have missed one of those "standing in plain view" examples. 

It took Andrew Parker to point out the bleedin' obvious: 

Robbie Williams




He only made an autobiopic earlier this year in which he appears in the form of a chimpanzee 










More than a faint resemblance to Norman Wisdom, who had a simian aspect, as well as seeming like a perpetual 10 year old with a catapult pulled from the pages of the Beano or Just William




Norman Wisdom also had a pop career, singing glutinous chart-topping ballads that generally played on his image as the Fool, but extended that into amorous metaphors (fool for your love, you made me your fool, that kind of thing).



I have not seen the Better Man movie - well, I tried to watch it but had to stop after 10 minutes -  but did sit through a whole long (two-part I think) doc on Robbie. 

The gist of was that he achieved fame and public affection as someone for whom it was all just a lark, someone essentially paid to enjoy himself in public....  

But then he decided he wanted to be taken seriously -  he craved artistic credibility, wanted to say profound things and push the pop envelope, desperately desired to be "cool"... and this misguided ambition and consequent inevitable shortfall with attendant lashings of critical derision, tabloid mockery etc - this had him spiraling into mental fragility and addictive behaviours (I remember reading at the time that he was addicted to espressos and cigarettes, he would drink several espressos an hour while chain smoking - I expect this was just the lighter end of his issues).... 

And then at his lowest ebb, there was some kind of eureka moment. Robbie realised that some people just aren't cut out for depth.  They skate along the surface of life and there's nothing wrong with that. He realised that there wasn't anything more to him than being a born entertainer - a singing and smiling showman. So he went back to his true calling, effectively cabaret at arena scale - singing his most fondly remembered songs, giving it 110 percent onstage, putting on a grand show and taking people's minds off their own problems. 

Strangely during his dark, off-course days, his great aspirational idea of "deep" and cool was Oasis.



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Some cheeky monkeys of my own




















33 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Can't believe I forgot them - totally on the simian tip.

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  2. Liam Gallagher shurely.

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    Replies
    1. He's quite a grim, dour sort of fellow, though. I'm casting my mind mentally back through TV clips. He's very serious, in his own way. Totally committed to his thing. Not much sense of it being a giant lark.

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    2. He's more cheerful than Ian Brown!

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    3. Yes! Maybe not exactly “cheeky”, but he is a deadpan comedian on a par with Jim Morrison. This may be the funniest clip I have ever seen:

      https://youtube.com/shorts/RzCBXaOpDpY?si=bf4DSRrrYlfj6vnS

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    4. Yeah it's true - Ian Brown has the monkey thing but not the cheeky thing. Although back in the day he was markedly less dour than John Squire.

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  3. The guy in Hammersmith Gorillas - geddit?

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    Replies
    1. Yeah and he's quite hairy with sideburns. But is he actually cheeky?

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  4. I can't believe you forgot Bez! (unless he's a technical exclusion on a account of not being a musician).

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    Replies
    1. Is he cheeky? He's off his gourd, and his whole career is an exercise in getting away with it, but mostly his facial expression is glazed. I'm really talking about a certain kind of irresistible impudence in the eyes.

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  5. Replies
    1. I think he's quite dignified.

      The other one in Madness, the professional loon - sort of their version of a hype man, "this is the nutty nutty sound" etc - is a bit closer to the archetype. Very music hall.

      Then again, not sure a clown is the same thing as what I'm grasping at with this "cheeky monkey" idea. It's more the idea that they are incapable of taking anything seriously - it's all a lark, a caper.

      Sort of relates to the idea of keeping in touch with the inner child. But in this case closer to the reality of childhood than some kind of Byrdsy-Barrett idyll. So bratty, being a nuisance, getting up to mischief.

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  6. Blur! Very specifically on Parklife.

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    Replies
    1. Yes specifically that album, he's very perky- annoyingly so

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  7. Seems to be a fair few candidates in 90's dance music - Keith Flint, Mr.C, the geezer from Stereo MC's.....

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    Replies
    1. That Stereo MC guy seems too gaunt and wasted-looking

      Keith Flint probably aims to be menacing

      Mr C definitively for the duration of "Ebeneezer Goode"

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  8. Lady Sovereign has a bit of that quality.

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  9. More than a smattering of monkey cheekiness in both Pete Doherty and Mike Skinner, back in the aughts at least, I would reckon.

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    Replies
    1. Yes Mike Skinner's a good one

      Pete Doherty had a whole dissolute, poet-ruffian, bohemian thing he was going for. Shades of I dunno Pete Perrett. A trail of havoc, yes, but not mischievous per se. Bit too alarming for that really. People falling mysteriously off balconies. Crack. Heroin.

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    2. Heroin aside, re: Pete Doherty I think I went for the hats. Can't think of another recent-ish rocker who has worn such a variety of Cheeky Monkey Hats. Any one of them would have been fashionable fare for Lancelot Link and his cohort.

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  10. Added to the post - Republica's Saffron, Spice Girls...

    And the Most Bleedin' Obvious Omission of All Time

    ROBBIE WILLIAMS

    as in "I've been a cheeky monkey all my life"

    as in made an autobiopic in which he is represented by a chimp

    as in countless photos where he looks like Norman Wisdom

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  11. I take your Robbie Williams, and I raise you:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjXZmtg7GwI

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    Replies
    1. I managed to miss their entire pop career, through moving to the States in the nick of time.

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  12. And then, of course, there’s this lot. The source of the Monkees’ cheekiness, as well as just about everything else about them.

    https://youtu.be/RuDdSxaISI8?si=Y5ZlIu65GRGxJmYF

    Cheeky even when they were at their most serious:

    https://youtu.be/4lGVGdhHSxc?si=2bcXny5AvHOzdyht

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    Replies
    1. The cheekiest Merseybeater was Freddie Garrity, I would humbly submit.

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  13. Forming the theory - based on the examples of Ian Brown, Noel Gallagher and Bez - that no-one from Manchester can ever be truly cheeky. It’s just not in their cultural inheritance.

    George Formby may be the Godfather of Cheek - an influence on both Norman Wisdom and the Beatles - and he was a Lancastrian, but from Wigan, not Manchester.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fergal Sharkey ca. My Perfect Cousin? Poly Styrene on occasion?

    The Bloodhound Gand dressed as monkeys for the video to The Bad Touch. But their stance seems less cheeky and more date-rapey. Likewise, I think Robin Thicke aimed to be cheeky, but could never escape the palpable vibe of just seeming to be a douchebag.

    The Kinks had their muffled expletive on Apeman. Surely that counts?

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  15. Not forgetting Lily Allen's father is Keith Allen - Keith has always been too abrasive a figure to be described as a cheeky monkey, but having been sort of well-known in the eighties as a member of The Comic Strip, and a surprisingly good straight actor, by the nineties he seemed to have become a kind of professional loose cannon/zeitgeist-chasing goblin of disruption.

    During this phase, Keith would make five minute cameos in every film made on the British mainland, showing up just to be Keith Allen-ish. His other forte was going on TV shows, getting riled about something or other and kicking off/storming out (I recall an appearance on Jo Wiley's Channel 4 show where Keith really went off on one to the slightly shaken bemusement of fellow guest Ronan Keating).

    He was also a proxy pop star, of course - partying with The Happy Mondays and Blur and contributing to two of the great football records - World In Motion and Vindaloo.

    In how she goes about fame, you can see certain traits that Lily has picked up from her father - un-filtered speech, a fierce sociability that always seems close to getting out of control and an overall ability to make her presence felt.

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  16. Lily Allen is currently in Hedda Gabler at London's Theatre Royal.

    ReplyDelete

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