From Keith Richards to Motorhead’s Lemmy, with many more rock stars along the way, cigarette smoking has long been perceived as effortlessly cool. Movie stars and rock legends alike have been portrayed as lovable rogues and rebellious tearaways, as they pouted moodily at the camera, with a cigarette hanging loosely from their lips. The music scene has, of course, had an edgy image for decades, and smoking always fitted well with that image. Over the past few years, though, things have started to change, as artists and band members have gradually transitioned to vaping, leaving traditional cigarette smoking, quite literally, at the door. Whether it was the ban on smoking in public places, or the ever-growing weight of scientific evidence on the dangers of smoking that caused a shift in opinion, it’s fair to say that smoking has now lost its cool image, and vaping has become the new hip thing to do.
Is vaping in music changing popular culture?
Back in 2014, Lily Allen was widely criticised for featuring an e-cigarette in the video for her song ‘Hard Out There’. Despite this, the video has now had over 40 million views, suggesting that Allen’s audience was far from bothered by the artist’s decision to show herself vaping. Other musicians have also been vocal in their support for vaping, including Tom Petty and Dave Navarro. Both of these artists have switched from traditional cigarettes to e-cigarettes, and both have championed vaping as an effective tool in the battle to quit smoking, saying that they have seen real health benefits after making the switch to e-cigarettes.
Foo Fighters are the latest band to put vaping right into their music, with their latest release ‘Run’. Dave Grohl directs the video for the song, and in it, he plays an elderly resident of a nursing home, who starts a riot amongst the home’s residents, taking a car and enjoying a deep toke on a vape pen, before exhaling an enormous vape cloud.
It’s perhaps too early to say how vaping will influence music in the long term, but if this latest release from The Foo Fighters is anything to go by, it looks like it will inspire music that is loud, heavy and fiercely unapologetic, with a strong social commentary.
It’s now widely accepted that vaping has far fewer health implications than conventional smoking. The statistics on smoking-related illnesses and deaths are just too shocking to ignore, so an alternative that is up to 95% safer than regular cigarettes has to be a positive thing. Vaping offers the best of both worlds – its use of e-liquids instead of toxic chemicals makes it a safer alternative to smoking, but it retains that cachet of style and edginess, due to the aesthetic appeal of the vape clouds. Where celebrities were initially criticised for being keen to be spotted with a vape pen, such endorsements are now seen as helpful, as more and more people follow their lead and ditch regular smoking altogether, in favour of this hip, new alternative.
This post is sponsored by Vape Club.