Current music:

Graham Parker - "Soul Shoes"

RnR Hall of Shame
Note: If you're a fan of disco and don't want to be really offended, you're going to want to give this post a miss.
__________________________________
Normally I give the annual rite of ridiculosity known as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination/induction process all the attention it rightfully deserves. Which is to say, none at all. But this time around they've gotten the better of me. Dear gods - if it gets much worse maybe they'll put me in the Rock & Roll Hall of "Fame."

R.E.M., Van Halen, Stooges On Rock Hall Ballot
October 30, 2006, 10:30 AM ET
Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
R.E.M., Van Halen, the Stooges and Patti Smith are among the nine acts on the ballot for the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, to be held March 12 at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Also on the ballot are the Dave Clark Five, Chic, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Joe Tex and the Ronettes.

I'm not going to turn this into a thesis or anything, but let's do go line by line for a brief comment. And let's do it in alphabetical order.

Chic - Are you serious? I'm trying hard to avoid the gratuitous use of words like "stupid" and "moron" and "drooling halfwit" here, and if I'm offending you because you think Chic somehow belongs alongside the likes of the The Beatles and U2 and The Stones and Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, well, you're just going to have to find a way to live with my scorn. I'm normlly more diplomatic than this, but diplomacy is not always a virtue.

First off, Chic was about as rock & roll as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Second, they were disco. Disco was as anti-rock as you could be - it fucking annihilated a good five years worth of opportunity for real rock bands. The sold-out shitpimpers who thought this up need their nards stomped by Johnny Rotten. On the off chance that the nominators have nards (or any other form of recognizably human genitalia), that is. This one nomination, by itself, invalidates the very existence of the organization. No group that would entertain this foolishness for even a second should be taken seriously. Were I a RnRHoF inductee, I would immediately demand that all references to my career be stricken from the facility. And I would do so as loudly as possible.

I smell the hand of Jann Wenner. And there's not enough Lysol in the world to chase the stink out of the building.

The Dave Clark Five - Mmmmkay... Where are The Monkees? I mean, the DC5 is no more egregious a sin than a lot of other inductees, but it kinda points up the trivialization of the process, don't you think?

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - Deserves to be an absolute first-ballot inductee...into the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. For better or worse, rap isn't rock and roll. A lot of it has plenty of merit, and that should be recognized. But it's a decidedly independent genre, for the most part. Still, this one has a lot more merit than the two above.

REM - If the nominating committee had gakked this one I'd be calling for the HoF to be demolished. With the committee inside. (And for the record, I do not believe that them actually getting this one right means that the building shouldn't be demolished with them in it.)

The Ronettes - Okay. This is one that opens the door to an industry/political argument, because the merit here stems from Phil Spector as a producer. But as an entity, sure.

Patti Smith - Sure. I think her career is probably as overrated by critics as it was underappreciated by the mass audience, but she's certainly more worthy than many who are already in.

The Stooges - About. Fucking. Time. Should have been inducted a long time ago. Not only do they deserve to be in on the merits of their own music, but very few bands have exerted the sort of lasting influence that The Stooges did. The Beatles, Stones, Big Star, Pink Floyd, VU, Bowie - who else paved the way for more bands than Iggy and the Stooges?

Joe Tex - Ummm. Really? Well, I'm no expert on Joe Tex and am willing to hear from somebody who knows more than I do on the subject. But this one seems a little...light?

Van Halen - This is such a mixed bag. Sure, VH was great in many ways. Eddie can play about as well as any guitarist ever, and was certainly among the best of his generation. But the Van Hagar years were a blight. Sammy couldn't say hello to the crowd without me feeling my intelligence had just dropped a little. Then again, this is rock and roll. Where would we be if we started holding pomp, arrogance and self-absorption against lead singers?

Meanwhile, look at who's still not in:

• XTC
• Electric Light Orchestra
• The Zombies
• The Hollies
• Procol Harum
• Television
• Graham Parker
• Nick Lowe
• Tom Waits
• Squeeze
• The Specials
• Big Star
• Yes
• Genesis/Peter Gabriel
• Rush
• The Spinners
• Gram Parsons
• Alice Cooper
• Jethro Tull

I hope REM take this opportunity to do something significant, and not just because The Monkees aren't in yet. They need to do what the Sex Pistols did last year. Since everybody expects Johnny to act out, they all thought the Pistols' reaction was a pose. Stipe - well, he's not known for being much of a prankster.

Anyway, just had to vent a bit. I know, the HoF hasn't mattered for a very long time and it, like a poorly trained child pitching a tantrum at the dinner table, is best ignored. Unfortunately, the urge to swat its obnoxious little bottom can be overpowering at times.

By the way, if you want to hear what a complete fucking moron thinks about this batch of nominees, click here. If you have any intelligence at all you won't need to read past the first sentence of his Chic entry.



:xpost: