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.  

Wenner a Loser

Jann Wenner just put a whole shoe store in his mouth. 

The co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine had been promoting his latest book, "Masters," which is a compilation of Wenner's interviews with seven of the greatest rock and roll performers of all time, such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, and Bruce Springsteen.  And in case you haven't noticed, they're all white male artists.  Not one woman or person of color is included in this collection of  interviews.

Wenner might have gotten away with it if not, ironically, for an interview he gave to promote his book to David Marchese of the New York Times, who immediately brought up Wenner's disdain for diversity.  When Marchese suggested that he could have at least included an interview with Joni Mitchell, Wenner responded, "It’s not that [female and non-white artists are] not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock and roll. She didn't, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock."

Aside from the obvious obstacle to having a deep conversation with Janis Joplin - she's dead - Wenner came across as being like one of those pompous classical-studies professors who take a self-righteous tone to everything they say.  And just what is a "philosopher of rock," anyway? Someone who expresses the true essence of rock and roll in the music and the attitude.  All right, so maybe Joni Mitchell is too mellow to be a rock and roll philosopher, though no one would say the same about Paul Simon or Jackson Browne.  Certainly, that would mean that black musicians must be qualified to wax philosophical about rock and roll.  Am I right?  I said, am I right?

And when the subject turned to black artists, that's when Wenner really got offensive.  

"You know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right?" he said. "I suppose when you use a word as broad as 'masters,' the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level."

Well, excuse me, while I kiss the sky.

Wenner should have stopped there, but he went on to say that artists like Mick Jagger and  Pete Townshend represented "a particular spirit and a particular attitude about rock and roll. Not that the others [didn't], but these were the ones that could really articulate it."

So, it turns out, Wenner has never listened to Stevie Wonder's Innervisions, much less Bloodstone's debut album.

And for the icing on the cake, Wenner "conceded" that "just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one black and one woman artist to include here that didn't measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism."

Wenner has been paying for these comments big time since then.  The Montclair Literary Festival canceled his appearance there while the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board voted to expel him from the group with one vote in favor of keeping him - rock critic turned Springsteen manager Jon Landau. Wenner's new book should hit the bookstores with much less buzz than it had just a couple of weeks ago.

The big surprise about Wenner's attitude is why people are surprised.  Wenner has long been the typical white male Baby Boomer, taking great interest in the music made by those of his own race and gender and little interest in the music of everybody else.  If a female or non-white recording artist got on the cover of Rolling Stone at all when Wenner ran the magazine, it was usually for commercial, not musical, reasons.  (Madonna - no thinking person's idea of a real singing talent - appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone twice in 1989, and most if not all of the cover subjects that year were males.)  Not only is Wenner sexist, he's clearly racist; he once described critic Dave Marsh as having tastes "blacker and weirder" than his own, suggesting that all of those old bluesmen and funk-band leaders were just plain strange.  Please, the strangest thing Maurice White ever did was dress like an Egyptian pharaoh.  Also, George Clinton's blond dreadlocks make him silly.  But they do not make him weird.  (Marsh, for his part, said Wenner treated his own music critics "with contempt.")    

Wenner's only agenda is promoting whom he likes - and whom he's buddies with.  Not only did he try to prevent negative reviews of records of his favorite artists - Greil Marcus got fired for his negative review of Bob Dylan's universally panned Self Portrait album -  he shamelessly promoted artists who were savvy enough to make Wenner their best friend, such as Billy Joel and Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones.  So if you ever wondered why Rolling Stone gave Joel's Storm Front LP - produced by Jones, and including the incomprehensible "We Didn't Start the Fire" - four out of five stars in 1989, there's your answer. 

I don't deny that the artists Wenner cites in his book - especially John Lennon - have been among the most gifted artists who can articulate the true spirit of rock and roll, but white males hardly have had a monopoly on articulating what the music means.  However, white males do have a monopoly on the soft underbelly of rock.   When rock critics, most of whom are white males themselves, compile lists of the worst rock and roll artists of all time, most of those artists are white males - Dave Marsh calls the Grateful Dead "the worst band in all creation," and this is in spite of Kiss and Uriah Heep - with women and people of color getting short shrift. There's only one woman and one person of color on Dave Marsh's and James Bernard's 1994 list of the worst rockers ever, and it's the same person - Linda Ronstadt. Similarly, white men dominate lists of the worst rock and roll records of all time.  The reason for all this is because, since the record business catered to the lucrative market segment of white male record buyers in the 1960s and 1970s, there was more room for their junk than for anyone else's junk. There are spectacularly bad records made by women (Madonna) and people of color (rap), and I'm obviously not afraid to say so and never have been, but in terms of sheer quantity, most of the worst records have been made by us honkies. 

When you look at our track record (no pun intended), we white guys have a very sorry legacy.  Never mind the Grateful Dead - among the psychedelic bands we gave the world were total losers like the Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Electric Prunes.  We gave the world heavy metal (I mentioned Kiss and Uriah Heep, and I have to mention also Grand Funk Railroad), we gave the world yacht rock (solo Kenny Loggins), we gave the world soft-headed acoustic rock (America), and we may go to hell for inventing prog and being responsible for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who had the incredibly stupid idea of mixing Beethoven with Berry.   And that's not even accounting for mediocre corporate rock bands like Loverboy, Toto, Journey, and Kansas, among others.  And, we invented air guitar!  No wonder women and people of color hate us - look what we subjected them to! After "Ventura Highway," "(Welcome To) Heartlight," "Rock and Roll All Nite," and "Hot Girls In Love," we clearly deserve it! 😃 

And I pity any woman of color who's ever had to hear "Karn Evil 9, First Impression (Parts 1 and 2)." 😃 😃

*

As rock and roll entered its twilight years in the early nineties, we honkies felt pretty good about ourselves for all we accomplished musically, but at that same time, a new politically correct revisionist history of the music emerged - a history in which we were put to the rack for all our musical crimes, from Pat Boone's Little Richard and Fats Domino covers and Led Zeppelin stealing riffs from Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf to Peter Frampton's I'm In You album and Journey's Escape.  Only we didn't know that we were the bad guys until then.  We thought we were the ones with the taste, the style, the attitude.  It turns out we had more attitude than taste or style, and we made fools of ourselves by believing otherwise.  Remember how Beto O'Rourke, who fancied himself a cool hipster and an edgy but quirky family man, completely immolated himself at the women-of-color group She the People's convention when he couldn't connect with the sistas to justify his sorry excuse of a presidential campaign?  Same thing here.   As with every other act we ever perpetrated in human history, we thought everything we contributed to rock and roll was worthy of universal praise.  Only we found out that a good deal if not most of everything we did in the name of civilization, be it in rock and roll or anything else, was a crime against humanity that we now had to answer for.  And when we found out we were the bad guys, it was, like, the shock of our lives.

And that's how Jann Wenner must feel right now.