2023 Rock & Roll HOF screechfest

[MisterCreosote]

I remember thinking Living Colour would be WAY better at covering Hendrix than they were. Their version of Crosstown Traffic on the Stone Free tribute album was pretty bad, but it was nothing compared to this abomination:

 

[Huggy]

I remember thinking Living Colour would be WAY better at covering Hendrix than they were. Their version of Crosstown Traffic on the Stone Free tribute album was pretty bad, but it was nothing compared to this abomination:

God, yes. I remember reading a story on Living Colour in Rolling Stone and it mentioned their "fiery" version of Burning of the Midnight Lamp, one of my top five Hendrix songs. I bought this EP and shook my head at how bad this was. Vernon Reid should have shredded on this one, instead it was just garbage.

 

[Huggy]

You listen to the Sex Pistols' album today and read the lyrics and it seems so ... prescient. I will just leave it at that.

God Save the Queen (King)....those tourists are money and our figurehead is not what she (he) seems

 

[Kato]

When I was in high school in the late 80s and out late, the local, mid-sized, Upper-Midwest city radio station often played the syndicated Jeff Craig's "60-Second LP" at midnight. For some reason, very clearly remember hearing review for Living Colour's Vivid and was intrigued by this all-Black, heavy metal/hard rock band that had a freewheeling guitarist, a wide-ranged vocalist, some social consciousness in their lyrics and even played damn good Talking Heads cover. Of course, "Cult of Personality" blew me away, as it did many, and it got a lot of MTV play. R&B and early rap were where this 16-year-old white Wisconsinite saw most Black musicians in pop (other than on a Sting or Paul Simon album), so to see Black rock-n-rollers was kind of a shock to the system. At the time, you saw more white rappers than Black rockers. Anyway, that Vivid cassette got a lot of play in my '81 Malibu. Time's Up had some good songs but didn't move me quite the same, and I think things went down from there for the band. I saw them at First Avenue in Minneapolis on their Stain tour in 1993 and recall it as an OK show, but I think by that point, grunge and hip-hop probably squeezed them out more than they deserved.

 

[X-Hack]

I would say RATM would be a fair comparison for the Brains.

I think he brought up the Bad Brains in the context of identifying actual rockers that could diversify the RRHOF. Though re: RATM, I believe Tom Morello's father was black and Zach De La Rocha is Mexican-American (with some African and Sephardi Jewish roots per wikipedia).

 

[MisterCreosote]

Hell, I’d put Fishbone in, too.

 

[X-Hack]

I saw Living Colour open for the Rolling Stones on Steel Wheels in '89 at the Pontiac Silverdome. They gave them like half the stage to work with and the sound quality was a ****ing abomination (part of that was the **** venue and part of that was that the Stones probably didn't let them use the full sound system). Still, they were great. I always liked Glamour Boys and Open Letter to a Landlord better than Cult of Personality. Better melodies.

As someone else mentioned, Corey Glover was Francis in Platoon (as in "It ain't D-E-R-E, it's D-E-A-R. And 'Sarah' ain't got no two R's, King. Damn, you dumb!") several years before Vivid came out. I saw Platoon in the theater at least 6 times as a HS sophomore and knew every line and every cast member and I remember doing a double take when I saw Living Colour on MTV for the first time.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Hell, I’d put Fishbone in, too.

At their peak around '85, they were absolutely the greatest live act I've ever seen.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Apparently you won’t be reading about this in Rolling Stone.

Jann Wenner Removed from Rock & Roll HOF Board After Remarks on Black, Female Artists

 

[CD Boogie]

Nothing like undoing your legacy in one fell swoop. Jesus, he really stepped in it. The idea that no woman or black artist could articulate what Wenner likes about rock and roll only shows his malignant navel-gazing. He’s a gay white man, so he only likes white, male rockers. Is that being too reductive? I don’t think so. He proved it with this book and its all white-male subjects.

The original star****er just ****ed himself.

I read his memoir and it devolved into shameless namedropping. He lost the thread a long time ago and it’s now crystal clear.

 

[garrow]

Robert Draper's RS book from the early
90s and portrays Wenner in a relentlessly negative light. Draper undoubtedly did not set out to write a book solely to savage him, it is just where all the evidence pointed.....

 

[Starman]

Nothing like undoing your legacy in one fell swoop. Jesus, he really stepped in it. The idea that no woman or black artist could articulate what Wenner likes about rock and roll only shows his malignant navel-gazing. He’s a gay white man, so he only likes white, male rockers. Is that being too reductive? I don’t think so. He proved it with this book and its all white-male subjects.

The original star****er just ****ed himself.

I read his memoir and it devolved into shameless namedropping. He lost the thread a long time ago and it’s now crystal clear.

Well, his legacy has been seriously dented for some time. The RNRHOF selections have been a joke even for the inductees for a couple decades now.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Just an observation from the past few days....

People are ripping Wenner apart for his comments and rightfully so. They were racist, misogynist, completely unsupportable by any legit argument. Just an utterly stupid viewpoint.

The people who are criticizing Wenner also love to add that stuff like this is why the rock hall has been a "joke" and an embarrassment for years.

And every year when the nominations come out, why do people complain and say the hall is a joke? 99 percent of the time, they are pissed off that the hall has once again nominated Black people and women.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Just an observation from the past few days....

People are ripping Wenner apart for his comments and rightfully so. They were racist, misogynist, completely unsupportable by any legit argument. Just an utterly stupid viewpoint.

The people who are criticizing Wenner also love to add that stuff like this is why the rock hall has been a "joke" and an embarrassment for years.

And every year when the nominations come out, why do people complain and say the hall is a joke? 99 percent of the time, they are pissed off that the hall has once again nominated Black people and women.

This is what surprised me about the comments. The R&RHOF has been very diverse and welcoming of non-rock (and mostly, as you noted, non-white and non-male) acts for decades now. Wenner has been haughty (stunning) about the older, less cool, mostly white acts, so it seemed that he was approving of the HOFs direction. Apparently he's just an equal opportunity asshole?

 

[PCLoadLetter]

This is what surprised me about the comments. The R&RHOF has been very diverse and welcoming of non-rock (and mostly, as you noted, non-white and non-male) acts for decades now. Wenner has been haughty (stunning) about the older, less cool, mostly white acts, so it seemed that he was approving of the HOFs direction. Apparently he's just an equal opportunity asshole?

I don't know. That could be. Or he could feel that they are worthy but not "masters" on the level of his (white male) favorites.

Or, he just may not have the pull over the hall that everyone assumes.

 

[Huggy]

Nothing like undoing your legacy in one fell swoop. Jesus, he really stepped in it. The idea that no woman or black artist could articulate what Wenner likes about rock and roll only shows his malignant navel-gazing. He’s a gay white man, so he only likes white, male rockers. Is that being too reductive? I don’t think so. He proved it with this book and its all white-male subjects.

The original star****er just ****ed himself.

I read his memoir and it devolved into shameless namedropping. He lost the thread a long time ago and it’s now crystal clear.

His memoir was nothing more than endless name dropping and star****ing once it got past the creation of RS. Joe Hagan's Wenner book, Sticky Fingers, is much better.

 

[CD Boogie]

His memoir was nothing more than endless name dropping and star****ing once it got past the creation of RS. Joe Hagan's Wenner book, Sticky Fingers, is much better.

Yup, I read that one, too. Very good.

 

[Huggy]

And other than Wenner being an unrepentant fanboi, what has ever made Dylan articulate talking about rock and roll? Same with Pete Townshend who just ******* endlessly that he is fed up with The Who.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Is there a journalism Hall of Fame for Wenner to get booted from as well?

The University of Virginia story was not a failure of intent, or an attempt to be loose with the facts. You get beyond the factual errors that sank that story, and it was really about the issue of rape and how it affects women on campus, their lack of rights. Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof. It wasn’t for recklessness. I mean, we made one of those errors — every publication in the country, including The Times, makes every 50 years at least. You get slammed for it. We took our beating. But it wasn’t indicative of how we operated. It wasn’t an error of being casual with the truth, or trying to stretch it, or mission creep, or anything like that.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

The R&RHOF has redeemed itself.