Wenner The Weenie

You knew I wasn't finished roasting Jann Wenner, didn't you?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on whose board Wenner served before he was unceremoniously ousted from his seat following his racist and sexist comments to the New York Times, has been roundly criticized for inducting performers who aren't really rock and roll but are more pop and MOR - and of course, rappers have also been inducted.  Perversely, people who grouse about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's inductions of such performers have been dismissed as racist and sexist because women and people of color make up the majority of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions the Hall's detractors grouse about.  Many pop critics have openly advocated for the inductions of rappers, arguing that rock and roll, which started as black music, and hip-hop, a modern expression of black identity, are part of the "rock and rap" (as Dave Marsh now calls rock and roll) continuum.  These same critics push for the induction of pop divas in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by arguing that the definition of rock and roll as electric-guitar-based music that is mostly performed by white males is too narrow and too exclusionary toward women.  Also, ironically, many of them agree with Jann Wenner on who should not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - namely, white male rock bands and solo performers that the critics have detested for years for being too pretentious or too commercial.

In other words, Wenner is just as much to blame for why Madonna got inducted the second she was eligible and why Jethro Tull and Foreigner are still waiting for their turn long after they became eligible as the critics who vote on inductions.  But while the critics have been greatly responsible for keeping various artists out, Wenner is still the top Katzenjammer Kid here.  It is true, for example, that the critics universally detest Grand Funk Railroad, but that's not the only reason they're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Wenner apparently had an argument with Grand Funk manager Terry Knight, and he's held a grudge against the band ever since.  Wenner is also believed to dislike progressive, or "art," rock, putting him in solidarity with the critics, who despise art rock for being too far removed from rhythm and blues, the main root of rock and roll, so that means no induction for Emerson, Lake and Palmer.   

As someone who agrees that Grand Funk Railroad and Emerson, Lake and Palmer were two of the most boring rock and roll trios of all time and only put out a good song or two once in a blue moon, I don't think they belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  But there are a lot of artists who have been shut out that do belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Not just the aforementioned Jethro Tull but Bad Company, the Guess Who, and Supertramp, among others, and also Joe Cocker.  Imagine - Joe Cocker, who released one of the most essential debut albums and one of the most essential second albums of all time, and both in the same year (1969), hasn't been inducted yet.  (Why?  Seeing as Joe Cocker was a critic's favorite as well as part of the canon of classic rock, the reason his non-induction remains a mystery, unless he's been dismissed for culturally appropriating Ray Charles' style.)  And yes, Foreigner should be inducted too, because Lou Gramm's voice alone should qualify them.

Wenner influenced induction nominations based on his own personal prejudices and grudges.  The female pop singers and black rappers who got in were not just nods to political correctness but were inducted based on their drawing power to the induction ceremony.  Joe Cocker can't draw as many people to buy induction ceremony tickets as Madonna did, mainly because he's dead.  And the reason bands such as Family or Lindisfarne, as well as other British bands with mere cult followings in America, will never get in is not because Wenner hates them; he's never even heard of them.  Not even a black American funk-rock band like Bloodstone - one of critic Dave Marsh's favorite acts of the seventies - can get in, and for the same reason.  

Wenner's dubious understanding of rock and roll extends to how he ran Rolling Stone.  When the magazine marked its twentieth anniversary in 1987 by taking a poll of its critics to determine the one hundred best albums of the previous two decades (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band came out on top), the second best album was the Sex Pistols' only LP, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, a choice Wenner did not  agree with.  He couldn't fathom a punk album making number two on the poll because he thought punk smelled like number two.  Whom did Wenner think got snubbed?  

Loggins and Messina.

Loggins . . . and Messina.  

He also wanted to know why Hotel California, the 1976 album from the Eagles - a band Rolling Stone's critics had long despised with a cold passion - wasn't on the list.  Look, I like the Eagles, and even I wouldn't consider Hotel California to be one of the best albums of the twenty-year period beginning in 1967.  I wouldn't even consider it to be the best album of 1976 - a year that also saw the release of Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees and Bob Seger's Night Moves.  As for Loggins and Messina, Wenner was angry about their shutout mainly because Jim Messina was one of his buddies.   

Yes, some female readers wrote letters to the editor to complain about the dearth of women on the list, but at least the poll was honest.  Not so much the 1988 Rolling Stone poll of the one hundred best singles of the previous twenty-five years.  I have noted Wenner's friendship with Billy Joel and Foreigner's Mick Jones; it was because of those associations that Wenner deliberately interfered with the poll to ensure that Foreigner's 1984 single "I Want To Know What Love Is" and Billy Joel's 1983 single "Uptown Girl" were included on the list (at number 54 and number 99, respectively), which meant pushing Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" from the top ten down to number 73.

I like Foreigner's record, but it's not one of the best singles of the 1963-1988 time frame.  And "Uptown Girl"?  I know Frankie Valli praised Joel's Four Seasons pastiche, but I can think of a bunch of better singles from 1983 than that - no mean feat, considering the lameness of eighties pop.

In a further exposure of Wenner's duplicity and lack of integrity, the New York Daily News rated "Uptown Girl" at number 99 in a readers' poll of the one hundred worst songs of the previous quarter century that was run in 1988 as a response to Rolling Stone's list.  This poll has more validity than the best-singles list Rolling Stone put out, because it was voted on by common folk and not manipulated by Jann Wenner.   

There are some people who suspect that classic rock acts long snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will get in now that Wenner is out. Don't bet on it.  If that were true, Rolling Stone would have bounced back after Wenner left, not deteriorated even further into irrelevance.  (His son Gus runs it.)  Wenner himself selected several board members of the Rock Hall, including current board chairman  and media mogul John Sykes, and the critics who vote on inductions and who hated prog and arena rock when Wenner was around still hate prog and arena rock today.  And they can be counted on to continue to induct pop divas and rappers to push their politically correct definition of rock and roll and also to "own the rockists" - rockists being people who think that pop divas and rappers don't qualify as rockers because pop divas are too lightweight and rappers don't play instruments or sing.  When her time comes, Taylor Swift will be inducted.  When his time comes, Kanye West will be inducted.  And, because she's a female Puerto Rican and therefore not to induct her would be an act of bigotry, Cardi B, when her time comes, will also be inducted.  Joe Cocker won't be.  Dead men sell no induction ceremony tickets.    

If you want to honor rockers snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall Fame, play their records.  Me listening to Family's 1969 album Family Entertainment - and owning the poster that came with the original vinyl record - is as good as any Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.