Ron Rosenbaum may be wrong, Billy Joel may be crazy
Last Friday, Slate ran an essay in which Ron Rosenbaum becomes the Zell Miller to Billy Joel’s John Kerry, a castigator so cartoonishly vehement, so intensely vengeful, that his attacks say more about the speaker than their target. In “The awfulness of Billy Joel, explained,” Rosenbaum launches an aimless and ineffective diatribe against the Piano Man, which as writing is sub-par (we expect better of Rosenbaum) and as intellectual argument is laughable.
Rock Hall to Gen Y: Your music doesn’t matter yet!
If there’s a mustier-than-usual odor emanating from Cleveland this April, it just might be the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. In keeping with recent patterns and eroding relevance, the 2009 class enshrines two freshly eligible no-brainers (Metallica and Run-DMC) alongside three great-but-not-groundbreaking oldies/classic rock acts (Jeff Beck, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Bobby Womack), acts whose talent is far less debatable than their influence. Despite exceeding three of the five inductees in most forms of measurable importance, The Stooges (passed over for the seventh time, worsening an already shitty New Year), Chic (rejected for the fifth go-round) and first-time nominees War were all snubbed. Furthermore, Wanda Jackson, though initially nominated as a Performer, was appropriately if suspiciously, inducted under the Early Influence banner. (She blazed more trails for women in rock than she did for rock itself.) Three seminal sidemen were also inducted: Spooner Oldham, and Elvis Presley’s Blue Moon Boys—bassist Bill Black and drummer D.J. Fontana.
Who’s next?
Four men and a newbie
The history-and-death-obsessed ten-year-old I never quite outgrew will never forget the Nixon’s 1994 funeral, specifically the shot of the five living presidents grouped together, chronologically, looking all somber and mournful towards the man who lowered the bar for them. It was a moving, powerful image, the cumulation of 21 years without a presidential death, the sobering comedown after a ten-year span (1963-1973) that wiped out five presidents. While the above pic occurs under slightly more celebratory circumstances, it nonetheless evokes nostalgia for that stunning shot.
A critical look at the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees
Conveniently coinciding with the end-of-year backtracking—best-of-2008 lists, award nominations and so on—is another annual tradition that looks back even further than last January. Twenty-five, 30, even 45 or 50 years further, to be exact. Every fall, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announces its nine nominees for induction, and every winter, five of those nine are enshrined in I.M. Pei’s triangular Cleveland edifice. The only solid criteria? Twenty-five years have passed since the artist’s first recording. Beyond that, the selection and voting processes are a highly political, infinitely controversial process. (Some might say clusterfuck.) There are those who insist that during the Reagan era, music became too fragmented and diversified for any wide consensus to be reached, thus rendering the endeavor futile, and others who plead that every corporate rock abomination (Boston, Styx, Journey) deserves induction before acknowledging the 80’s, when “real music” died, man.
With the announcement of the five official inductees set to arrive any day now, here’s a look at the nine nominees, originally announced this past September, and how likely or appropriate their prospective induction may be.
