Do We Need the Rock Hall ?

[rick]

www.npr.org/2023/09/23/1201121174/jann-wenner-rock-hall-crumbling

[erik]

Whether we "need" the Rock Hall is, in my opinion, a moot point. It is simply there. End of story.

What is needed, however, is an extreme overhaul of how the history of rock and roll is chronicled; and with Jan Wenner having basically made it an extension of his oversized ego from its inception until he was shown the door this past week, that just wasn't happening. Moreover, as was said in the NPR article, the general public, and probably most music fans in general, to this day, still don't know who sits on the nominating committee, and why they vote the way they do. Fans of specific artists, like us with respect to Linda, however, have had our ideas and theories, some of them admittedly conspiratorial in nature (but what do you expect?).

In the end, it is the artists that make the music, and the public that buys the albums/tapes/CD's/downloads and the concert tickets (even if now they have to mortgage their houses to do the latter). The Hall's "gatekeepers", as it were, have to chronicle that history fairly and accurately with either minimal or zero bias, which, let's be real, was never really the case while Wenner was running the place basically like a mob boss. Perhaps it's a tall order to expect these people to do this even now after Wenner was given his walking papers, but they either have to do this or else their hall, and even rock and roll music itself, will become irrelevant and obsolete (IMHO).

[Californian]

At one point Linda considered Jann Wenner to be a personal friend. But beiCalifng outspoken and speaking truth fractured the friendship. Jann Wenner can't handle the truth.

[sliderocker]

As I've always said about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it was never the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Jann Wenner's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No one got in if Jann Wenner didn't personally approve of the artist in question. Even if the artist or band met all of the hall's conditions for being nominated and voted on. It was well known Jann Wenner would pressure the nominating committee not to nominate certain artists and bands or that he would kill the nominations in question. Everybody had to adhere to the Wenner line on who could be nominated and voted on.

Given the recent revelation as to how he personally felt about black artists and female artists, one has to wonder how any of the numerous Motown and female artists ever got nominated and voted in, despite their accomplishments and qualifictions. It wouldn't be fair or right to dismiss the artists and bands who are in there now who didn't really meet all of the hall's criteria. The hall never provided documentation as to how the artists or bands met the hall's qualifications. Never the first mention of how they were an influence on other acts or made significant contributions to rock.

Perhaps, now with Wenner's departure for good, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can get around to nominating the artists and bands who truly deserve to be nominated. I've got a feeling however that may still be unlikely to happen as the record industry had already infiltrated much of the hall. And they had a tendency to push and promote for their own artists and bands to be nominated and voted on for induction. And unless the hall makes some rule changes limiting the input from the recor industry, artists and bands who truly deserve to be nominated, voted on and inducted , those artists and bands will still be on the outside looking in.

[erik]

Quote by sliderockee:

And unless the hall makes some rule changes limiting the input from the recor industry, artists and bands who truly deserve to be nominated, voted on and inducted , those artists and bands will still be on the outside looking in.

Well, for one thing, I don't think those who do the voting or deciding should even come from the corporate boardrooms of the record labels, because all they actually do is count money and, in my opinion, don't necessarily listen to the music at large. You can have a few knowledgeable music critics and perhaps label CEO's who have had practical experience and associations with artists, but otherwise they should not constitute the majority of the voters there. It should consist principally of artists, record producers, and musicians who have actually been in the trenches of making the music, and who know what they're doing. I don't know if that ever existed during Wenner's dictatorship (if it did, it was probably minimal at best[IMHO]); but from this point forward, if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is to regain any semblance of credibility, broadening the voting committee in the way I described, along with the usual things of racial and gender diversity, are the only two ways I can see to make that happen.

[sliderocker]

Sept 25, 2023 23:10:43 GMT -5 erik said:

Well, for one thing, I don't think those who do the voting or deciding should even come from the corporate boardrooms of the record labels, because all they actually do is count money and, in my opinion, don't necessarily listen to the music at large. You can have a few knowledgeable music critics and perhaps label CEO's who have had practical experience and associations with artists, but otherwise they should not constitute the majority of the voters there. It should consist principally of artists, record producers, and musicians who have actually been in the trenches of making the music, and who know what they're doing. I don't know if that ever existed during Wenner's dictatorship (if it did, it was probably minimal at best[IMHO]); but from this point forward, if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is to regain any semblance of credibility, broadening the voting committee in the way I described, along with the usual things of racial and gender diversity, are the only two ways I can see to make that happen.

Once an artist is in, if they are still living, they are eligible to vote on the other artists. Other voting members are music critics and music insiders (music producers, record industry executives - not necessarily money counters, et al). The hall, I believe, has something like over 3,000 members who vote on the nominees. It's getting the artists out of the nominating process, which is a smaller number of people.

During Jann Wenner's reign of terror with the hall, he pressured other members of the nominating committee not to nominate artists and bands he didn't like, such as the Monkees. He objected to the Monkees on the grounds they were not legit, that they came from television, yet how many who may have agreed with herr Wenner ever noticed or remembered that the late Rick Nelson also came from television, didn't write his early songs or play on them? Things Wenner and some of his Rolling Stone writers complained about the Monkees during their height of popularity. Every argument Wenner and his mob made about the Monkees also applied to many of the artists and bands from the L.A. area. They all shared having the Wrecking Crew work on their records.

The irony was Wenner and his mob knew the truth about the Monkees and had known it before it even became an issue. It shouldn't have been an issue, yet Wenner and his RS mob took it upon themselves to be the prosecutors and persecutors of the Monkees' attempt to play on their recordings and choose their musical material. They denigrated the Monkees at every turn all the while promoting every Motown act you could name whose music was made in a similar cookie cutter fashion. Music specifically written for the artists, played by studio musicians and never by musicians who played in bands for the artists. Some of the Motown artists wrote their own songs but didn't play.

Truth be known, it wasn't that Wenner hated the Monkees. He hated the fact they came from the L.A. area. Real rock and roll was made by artists and bands in Cleveland, New York, Boston, Detroit/Motown, Philadelphia, any place but L.A. He preferred the artists and bands from the northeast. And maybe they had more bands that played on their recordings and wrote their own songs, but they also had their own collection of studio session players who helped augment the playing of the bands of the northeast. Just like Nashville and Muscle Shoals had their own collective of studio session players. And Chcicago.

What the bands of the northeast didn't have was that the majority would have a few hit records, but their sound just didn't catch on with the rest of the nation. There were a lot of good bands that came out of the northeast but Los Angeles was the rock and roll melting pot you had to go to in order to make it. It was Los Angeles where all the musical styles blended and synergized into a new musical genre. And Wenner hated Los Angeles because the melting pot wasn't Cleveland or New York. If Bruce Springsteen had originated out of Los Angeles instead of New Jersey, Jann Wenner wouldn't have given him the time of day. Jon Landau would've passed him by.

When you think about it, how many artists and bands who were part of the British Invasion are in the hall? How many got in there without so much as one argument from Wenner and his crowd? Many are in, but it took years for some to get in. And in some cases, some of the members had long since passed away, never living to see their induction. In all honesty, I think Wenner and his crowd hated the British Invasion as well. And I have to wonder how much influence his ghost will still have on the hall?

[erik]

Quote by sliderocker:

He hated the fact they came from the L.A. area. Real rock and roll was made by artists and bands in Cleveland, New York, Boston, Detroit/Motown, Philadelphia, any place but L.A. He preferred the artists and bands from the northeast.

...which is rather rich, considering that rock and roll, when it originated in the 1950's, was largely a product of merging both Black and White musical forms. specifically C&W and R&B, in the South--which, last time I looked, is not where New York, Boston, Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, anyway). or Cleveland are. Wenner is either brain-dead or brain-damaged, or doesn't give a f**k, and he's been one of those three things for a very, very long time (IMHO).