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It ?made my mom very happy,? Geddy Lee said about Rush (who belongs) being named to the Hall of Fame.
Photograph by: Allen McInnis , Gazette file photo
Kid Rock for president!
Why not? The litany of Inexplicables in popular music is at least as long as the list of Brilliancies. How did Adam Ant get into the Motown 25 show? Did anyone in the Milli Vanilli clone factory truly believe they would get away with it? And what is a C.C. DeVille?
We might ask.
And the Kid Rock reference? Well, they?ll vote a lot of ersatz figures into office these days. Which brings us to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which holds its 28th annual induction ceremony in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 18. At the very least, the RnRHoF gave every rock critic born in a certain era a reason to work, to remain vigilant, to persist, to survive. And that was to ensure that Journey never got in.
This remains a great fear. Then again, the trend it would represent is already coming to pass. This year?s inductees are Albert King, Rush, Donna Summer, Public Enemy, Randy Newman and Heart. For one thing, that?s too many. For another, at the very least, there are bands that absolutely ought to have been inducted before a few of the aforementioned (see sidebar).
There will always be disgruntled parties when we draw up lists and codify greatness. Here, there are three sides to this ? three sides wrestling over the putative soul of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
On one side are the rock ayatollahs, flogging themselves with guitar strings that Donna Summer and anyone else who prayed to the Mirrorball of Evil would be admitted. Some go further in their guitars-only Republicanism, denouncing the inclusion of the likes of Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Etta James or Smokey Robinson, but championing ? among those unfairly excluded ? people like Journey, Bad Company, Styx, Bread and Yes.
Bread? OK. In a special shame-room for Worst Band Names.
The very notion of purism is antithetical to rock ?n? roll.
Only someone who thinks rock ?n? roll was invented by Ritche Blackmore could believe that nonsense. You want that? Kick out the Doors and their pseudo-Brechtian cabaret. Lose Talking Heads and their intello-art-funk polyrhythms. Boot out Bowie, for eight reasons. Man wore a dress, for heaven?s sake. And goodbye Jimi; he came from R&B and probably would have played some unimagined new hybrid of funk/jazz/psychedelia/X had he lived. It wasn?t all Purple Haze, Creationists.
On another side are the disco bunnies who would completely abandon the control tower to admit all manner of substandard acts who barely belong in a dance music Hall. At the very least, some of them understand the central notion that rock music is a fusion of many things ? at its core, yes, the hoary clich? of white man?s/black man?s blues, but always in a constant evolution of cultural and musical influences. But completely relaxing anything resembling a standard is at least as bad as having one so rigid that it smacks of the old man yelling about how Kids Today wouldn?t know real music if it bit them on the ear with a nine-minute laserbeam-cued drum solo.
Then there is a third opinion. Those who think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shouldn?t exist at all.
Some of them are ... bitter. Gene Simmons of Kiss doesn?t like it. Well, it doesn?t like Gene. But he?s not alone. Ozzy Osbourne and the Sex Pistols both denounced it. They had their reasons, most of which amounted to grenade-tossing ... not that there isn?t a seed of truth there, moot though it now be.
Incidentally, to his credit, 2013 inductee Geddy Lee of Rush (who belongs there) winningly said, when asked (by Rolling Stone) if the band might boycott, ?We?re nice Canadian boys. We wouldn?t do that. It also made my mom very happy, so that?s worth it.?
Let?s be happy for Geddy and mom. Let?s be sad for the Hall. While it does function as a Hall of Fame, with all that implies, it does not as a proper Hall of Greatness. Which entails a brief side trip into baseball, and the saga of Tim Raines.
Expos. 23 years, 2,605 hits, .294 career batting average with five .300+ seasons, 980 RBIs, won the 1986 NL batting title (. 334). Stole 70 bases every year from ?81-?86 and ended up 4th on the all-time list (808) behind Henderson, Brock and Cobb ? legends all ? and once held the highest career stolen base percentage (84.7 per cent) in baseball.
He?s not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He may get in next year, but he?s out. For all its criminal tendencies, Major League Baseball understands the central principle of enshrinement: that it?s as much about exclusion as inclusion, if not more. It?s about the people left nosing the window, whose snubbing only further enhances the profiles and confirms the exceptional work of those honoured inside. That it should be cruel, not sentimental. At least twice, the Baseball Writers? Association of America has inducted ... nobody. Meanwhile, the RnRHoF now seems ready to usher in every .260 infielder with a few timely hits and the right iPhone contacts list.
In sports, there are pioneers, then players whose skills and stats eventually surpass them, due to ... everything. Equipment. Techniques. Training. Legal medicine. Science. The very fact that men are now larger. Drugs. Nostalgists may argue for the supposed purity of ye olden tymes, but for the most part, the contemporary athlete is bigger, stronger, faster and, outside of intangibles, better in statistical terms. Baseball is stats.
Rock ?n? roll is not. In an art form, not every cycle or era brings improvement. There are peaks and valleys. The quality is in and out. The very rawness of the pioneers is elemental to the history and present of the music, a source to which even its most progressive proponents may return. And when you have influences, you have brilliant inheritors, and you have copies. Pallid copies. Some years, the draft is thin. And you?re going to start inducting them, simply because you need to slam someone in there for the big tuxedo party. Even though it took you the better part of a decade to get the Stooges in.
In some cases, you are inducting virtual cover bands who will share shelf space, costume racks and wax dummy exhibits or whatnot with their antecedents. I have no personal animus against Heart ? I like some Heart ? but Heart had some good if de rigueur rawk years, and some truly bad MOR corporate arena years. As good as their best material may be, this is knock-off Led Zep with girls. The implication being that all inductees not otherwise differentiated from the truly great have the same relative value and importance. At which point ... no. They certainly do not.
Diminishing returns ... even those invited to induct or perform this year indicate the gene pool is draining out. John Mayer ?honours? Albert King? How, by tuning his axe? Jennifer Hudson is there for Donna Summer? These are mall people, pallid copies. At least Dave Grohl will speak for Rush, as it should be.
But for clarity of speech, go to the man named Elvis. As in Costello.
In 2003 in the Rocky Mountain News (which folded four years ago), Costello said the Hall was ?really about the people who run it ... It isn?t about the people who are in it. That was obvious in the speeches they made. We were just the hired help. We were just the cabaret. It?s about getting people through the turnstiles in Cleveland. Any pretence that it?s anything noble is laughable.?
And he?s in the Hall. But he got it: not a meritocracy, but a gala-bureaucracy that seemingly functions as much for the egos of its founding and ruling junta as for its inductees. It?s really the Hall of Jann, as in Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, who has been accused of playing favourites over and over again, and even of vote-rigging. And so it functions like the Senate. Our Senate. You get in because you?re old, and have pals in the government. Or you get in because they need to fill a red velvet seat.
To clarify: Tim Raines, yes. Journey, never.
But the truly glaring insult here, as I?m sure you?re all aware, is the unspeakable omission of an entire category. Where are the writers? Where are the ink-stained wretches who sacrifice eardrums, sanity, girl/boyfriend nervous systems, regular meals, TV and reasonably profitable careers to pummel their thesauri for the next great pun on the name Whitesnake. Where are the rock critics?
A trifle self-serving, it?s true. Incidentally, Jann had himself inducted. Ah well, in rock ?n? roll, as in life, you lose a few and you Wenn a few.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction gala will be held Thursday, April 18, and will be broadcast May 18 on HBO.
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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