Another Demolition Night

As I wrote before on this blog, the 1979 Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago was one of the most ill-advised publicity stuns of all time and a moment that signified the decline of rock and roll, demonstrating that it had gone from being a rebellious, egalitarian musical form to a bastion of white suburban elitism.  Steve Dahl, the disc jockey who engineered the stunt, had no plans to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of Disco Demolition Night this year, but Mike Veeck, the promotional executive for the Chicago White Sox, did.  Veeck is now president of the Charleston RiverDogs minor league baseball team in Charleston, South Carolina, and this past Saturday he held another record demolition event at the RiverDogs' stadium, Riley Park.  Veeck had lost his job with the White Sox after the field at Comiskey Park was rendered unusable by the explosion caused by the blowing up of all those Saturday Night Fever soundtrack albums and Rick Dees singles, which caused the cancellation and forfeit of a second game with the Detroit Tigers in a double-header - the last forfeit in American League history - but this time, Veeck got it right.  He selected specific targets for this demolition night - only two recording artists - and the explosion neither ruined the field nor preceded a second double-header game.

The "artists" were Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber.

Baseball fans who brought recordings, posters, and other paraphernalia to the RiverDogs' ballpark were only charge a dollar a head for admission.  At the end of the game, the records and memorabilia were placed in a box and blown up with much less firepower than what was used at Comiskey Park in 1979.  There were no rude rock fans screaming out allegiance to Ted Nugent (as there must have been in 1979), no pot smoking, no whiff of Altamont in the air . . . none of that stuff.  Just some wholesome, family-oriented wanton destruction of product from two of the most obnoxious entertainers in recent history. It happened after the game, in which RiverDogs beat the Augusta (Ga.) GreenJackets, 9-7.  RiverDogs general manager Dave Echols, who said that Bieber was singled out for his run-ins with the law and Cyrus for her sexually explicit performances, added that the stunt was "dedicated to the eradication of the musical disease they are trying to spread."

I approved.  The original 1979 Disco Demolition Night was criticized by politically liberal rock critics for being blatantly racist (against blacks and Latinos) and classist (against working-class whites), despite the fact that many people hated disco strictly on musical grounds, but this case was clearly different.  Because both Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus make undeniably bad music and they act like they're special people who can get away with anything they want to.  They're both white, and even though Cyrus works with black hip-hop producers, not too many people who hate her know or care about that.  Okay, it may be anti-immigrant - Bieber is from Canada - but his race and his ethnicity clearly have nothing to do with it.  And a lot of people hate them simply for being Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. Well, who could have objections to a promotional stunt like this?   

The liberal press, that's who.  I read one editorial about this event in which the author condemned it as an illiberal, intolerant, hate-filled stunt that simply brought out the worst in people and was unfair to Bieber's and Cyrus's fans - because the fact that a lot of people hate these two entertainers doesn't excuse picking on the people who buy their records.  And this columnist added one other point.  Bieber and Cyrus may be hated by a lot of people, but they've made their point - they sell lots of records.  In other words, the fact that millions of people hate them is the sign of how healthy their careers are.

Well, to be fair and honest, I can't argue about that.  Bieber and Cyrus may be annoying popsters, but one reason rock and roll is in trouble these days, seeing how it's lost its audience and relevance to people like Bieber and Cyrus, is that rock and roll bands don't get people up in arms the way rock and rollers used to or they way Bieber and Cyrus do today.  No one is having a "Mumford & Sons Demolition Night."  You don't see conservative politicians wearing "Stamp Out the Black Keys" buttons on their lapels.  And no one is using Franz Ferdinand records for shooting practice (sick joke, I know, but then, comedy is tragedy plus time).  Bieber and Cyrus can laugh at what happened in Charleston, a city known for demonstrating intolerance with acts of violence (Fort Sumter, anyone?)  In fact, they can laugh all the way to the bank.  After all, Nazi leader Hermann Göring, who was ridiculed and made fun of by the German people, offered this for a response:

"Fools! If people make jokes about me, it only proves how popular I am."