I’m upset that Patti Smith got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Let me make this perfectly clear, the only people who care are those who lived in Manhattan in the seventies, or maybe commuted from one of the other four boroughs to see a show on the rock hard island, the rest of the world DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT!<\/p>\n
Oh, I’ve got nothing against Ms. Smith, I own five of her albums.\u00c2\u00a0 Do I play them? NEVER!\u00c2\u00a0 I downloaded "Kimberly", having fond memories of the track when it was featured on one of the very first Arista albums ever.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to tell you it’s got a high count in my iTunes library, but once was enough, it was a period curio.\u00c2\u00a0 And "Because The Night"?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a Bruce Springsteen song, Patti never wrote or performed anything remotely like it again.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, if Patti gets in for a Bruce cover, shouldn’t ROBERT GORDON?<\/p>\n
Only in New York does myopia still exist.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, in the last century, those on the coast felt superior, that those out in the flatlands were idiots, out of the loop, not realizing that cable TV was the same in Dubuque as it was in New York City.\u00c2\u00a0 But then came the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Anybody who doesn’t know the Net goes everywhere is not connected.<\/p>\n
But we live in a culture where you’ve got to feel superior.\u00c2\u00a0 And New Yorkers specialize in this.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re just that much BETTER than everybody else, they’ve got their finger on the pulse, they’re the arbiters of taste.<\/p>\n
New York just might be the greatest city in the world.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not the ONLY city in the world!\u00c2\u00a0 Why is it that the Eagles have to take shit for their Southern California perspective, but Patti Smith gets a pass?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t she just another suburbanite playacting in the city?<\/p>\n
Alice Cooper can’t even get nominated.\u00c2\u00a0 His\/their crime?\u00c2\u00a0 Being from ARIZONA!\u00c2\u00a0 Then living in Detroit and L.A. (you know Detroit gets no love from New York, hell, the Stooges didn’t get in.)\u00c2\u00a0 Alice Cooper INVENTED glam-rock.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only that, he had hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Which embodied the teenage ethos\/struggle\/anxiety\/anger better than ANY material Patti Smith EVER did.\u00c2\u00a0 "I’m EIGHTEEN"!\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, New Yorkers love teenage angst when it’s performed badly by punks who can barely sing or play, but put Bob Ezrin behind the board and create a seamless machine and suddenly the music is WORTHLESS?<\/p>\n
And, have you forgotten Alice Cooper’s "School’s Out" package, with the desk opening up to reveal the record in panties?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s performance art worthy of Warhol.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if it had all been created in New York City, Alice Cooper would be a darling.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that nobody in New York liked Alice Cooper, hell, I went to see him beheaded at a sold-out Madison Square Garden.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, he invented theatrical rock too.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not what you invent, it’s not about trailblazing, but how cool you are.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll grant you that Patti Smith is cool.\u00c2\u00a0 A great musician?\u00c2\u00a0 A great artist?<\/p>\n
How about another of Ezrin’s productions, Peter Gabriel?\u00c2\u00a0 How come he can’t get nominated, never mind get in.\u00c2\u00a0 His third, eponymous album, is far superior than the GREATEST HITS of Ms. Smith.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, his Ezrin-produced debut is more challenging than "Horses".\u00c2\u00a0 But he gets no traction, no respect.<\/p>\n
Or what about Gabriel’s work with Genesis?\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got to be in the Hall, right?<\/p>\n
Of course not.\u00c2\u00a0 Prog rock doesn’t exist in the minds of the Hall.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes isn’t in either.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t you know chops are anathema?\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s better to NOT KNOW how to play?<\/p>\n
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used to be cool.\u00c2\u00a0 One used to want to go to its induction ceremonies.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they were insider events.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody wants to be an insider at someplace cool.\u00c2\u00a0 But now they’re on TV, they’re just as phony and evanescent as the usual network fare.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’ve got to follow the buck, right?<\/p>\n
How could things get so screwed up, how could reality get so warped, how could respect be eliminated from the equation.\u00c2\u00a0 You let in second-rate people like Patti Smith, and you taint the rest of the inductees.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean who next, TELEVISION??<\/p>\n
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I’m upset that Patti Smith got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let me make this perfectly clear, the only people who care are those who lived in Manhattan in the seventies, or maybe commuted from one of the other four boroughs to see a show on the rock hard island, the rest […]<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-az","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","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=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}