Okay, close the doors, nobody else can get in.<\/p>\n
Don’t argue with Miles Davis.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve ever heard "In A Silent Way" you know that he deserves to be inducted way before Santana.\u00c2\u00a0 And, "Bitches Brew" is way more adventurous than the work of at least half of those ALREADY IN the Hall.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you just want to go by who he had in his band, who he introduced to the scene, you can start with John McLaughlin and go all the way through Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, never mind Herbie Hancock.\u00c2\u00a0 And Miles PLAYED the Fillmore East.\u00c2\u00a0 Opening for Laura Nyro.\u00c2\u00a0 Hey, where’s SHE?\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t include Laura Nyro before Blondie, then you don’t know shit about music.\u00c2\u00a0 Chris Stein and Debbie Harry could try FOREVER and not come up with a record half as good as "New York Tendaberry" or "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession".\u00c2\u00a0 And, she wrote more hits than they HAD!\u00c2\u00a0 But Laura Nyro’s dead and forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 And seeing that David Geffen made his first million on her back, screwing her in the process, I don’t expect HE’LL be lobbying for her induction.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, at least Laura’s from New York.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame epicenter\/power center seems to be located.\u00c2\u00a0 And the myopia of those in charge is evidenced by the induction of Blondie.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean who’s next, TELEVISION?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, "Marquee Moon" is a further adventure than anything Blondie did, but I don’t think Tom Verlaine’s bunch should be in the Hall Of Fame.<\/p>\n
I happen to be a Blondie fan.<\/p>\n
You can forget their Private Stock work.\u00c2\u00a0 But, "Parallel Lines" was a great album.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a MASTERPIECE, but a very good record.\u00c2\u00a0 I LOVE the attitude in "Hanging On The Telephone".\u00c2\u00a0 But the only element of pure genius on the damn platter is Robert Fripp’s ethereal solo in "Fade Away and Radiate".<\/p>\n
"Heart Of Glass" was a melding of rock and disco.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, it was originally entitled THAT DISCO SONG!\u00c2\u00a0 For this, Blondie needs to be canonized?\u00c2\u00a0 For making the world safe for Rod Stewart’s "Da Ya Think I’m Sexy"?\u00c2\u00a0 God, induct Steve Dahl before you let in Blondie.\u00c2\u00a0 Or how about some deejays, like the dearly-departed Scott Muni, or John Peel even?\u00c2\u00a0 Or B. Mitchell Reed.\u00c2\u00a0 Or even Cousin Brucie!\u00c2\u00a0 They truly impacted the landscape, not BLONDIE!<\/p>\n
I liked "The Hardest Part", but "Eat To The Beat" was a disappointing follow-up.\u00c2\u00a0 And the fact that a video was made for every track means that maybe futurist\/seer Shep Gordon should be inducted, but not the band that executed HIS idea!<\/p>\n
And then there’s the not much better "Autoamerican"…\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t there SOMEBODY who needs to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame before Blondie for popularizing reggae?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, Bob Marley had been doing it for YEARS before "The Tide Is High" caught on.\u00c2\u00a0 Honoring Blondie is like honoring Pat Boone for doing cover versions of black tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 Ditto, "Rapture".\u00c2\u00a0 I can think of a whole HOST of rap artists who should be in the Hall before Blondie.\u00c2\u00a0 So, they ripped off the man and made rap safe for the suburbs.\u00c2\u00a0 Write ’em a check, don’t induct them into the Hall Of Fame.<\/p>\n
The Pistols are rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 One album and out.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a band that revolutionized rock, that couldn’t stay together, profits be damned.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas Blondie froze out Frank Infante, so they could have more money for themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Scummy, don’t you think?<\/p>\n
I just don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, everybody rails about the Oscars.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Grammys are a complete joke.\u00c2\u00a0 But the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was supposed to be above this, it was supposed to mean something.<\/p>\n
I mean who’s gonna induct Blondie?\u00c2\u00a0 Martha Quinn, or one of the other original veejays who spun their videos?\u00c2\u00a0 And what are they going to say?\u00c2\u00a0 Debbie Harry was cute.\u00c2\u00a0 Chris Stein had a knack for a hook.\u00c2\u00a0 This gets you a table at a restaurant, not immortality.<\/p>\n
Everybody knows that rock peaked twenty odd years ago, if that late.\u00c2\u00a0 If we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel like this, I say call it a day.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean let Ronnie Van Zant and his buds in.\u00c2\u00a0 THREE lead guitarists?\u00c2\u00a0 Boozing it up and wreaking havoc across the land all the time writing music to drink and screw to.\u00c2\u00a0 But, just because they started downtown, and were there when a bunch of old fart New York music executives were coming up that DOES NOT mean Blondie deserves to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, induct the REAL genius behind Blondie’s success, producer Mike Chapman.\u00c2\u00a0 But no, since he’s seen as an arrogant prick, this wunderkind gets no recognition yet his proteges do.\u00c2\u00a0 RIDICULOUS!<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, close the doors, nobody else can get in. Don’t argue with Miles Davis.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’ve ever heard "In A Silent Way" you know that he deserves to be inducted way before Santana.\u00c2\u00a0 And, "Bitches Brew" is way more adventurous than the work of at least half of those ALREADY IN the Hall.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-rrhof","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}