As you are no doubt aware, Madonna has been voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Madonna - along with John “Cougar” Mellencamp, The Beastie Boys, The Ventures, and The Dave Clark Five - was selected by a panel of 600 music industry bigwigs (yes, it really takes that many people to sap all the value out of mainstream music) for this special honor. They will be inducted at a gala ceremony on March 10, 2008.
There’s been a lot of tut-tutting to the effect that Madonna really doesn’t belong in the Hall, since she’s not actually a rock musician by any reasonable definition. Some have even dared to predict that the Hall might lose its credibility.
Gasp! A group of music industry execs and smarmy insiders are going to lose their credibility? Perish the thought!
Seriously, I can’t give a flaming bag of shit what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or its voting committee (which is ruled with an iron fist by Hall founder and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner along with a few other VIP types) have to say. I only have so many bags to go around.
The Hall selects candidates based partially on the publicity and profit its ruling elite expects to derive from said selections, and partially on personal affiliations.
Credibility? Don’t talk to me about credibility, Jann. The Sex Pistols had it right.
Let me just get this out of the way: I think it’s great to recognize the contributions of pioneering musicians. I think the founders of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame actually set out with the intent to do something like this – in part, anyway. There are some very important, very influential musicians in there, after all, and some of them even played rock & roll music.
That said, is this really the kind of “pioneering” we want to recognize? Those things do point the way to somewhere, but I’m almost certain it’s nowhere I want to go.
For all I care, though, the Hall can go right ahead and induct Madonna. She may not be much of a musician, but she’s certainly lived the rock & roll lifestyle – the fabulous wealth, the ridiculous excess, the crass sex*, the publicity whoring, the hundreds of millions of records sold, the needlessly fluffed-up discography, the questionable fashion decisions, and the distasteful “religious” phase… it’s all there.
But really, who cares? The Hall’s induction ceremony is just an excuse to have a party on somebody else’s tab under the feel-good auspices of non-profiteering. Well, they can have their annual circle-jerk at the expense of the record industry. All those DRM-driven profits need to be spent somehow!
In the end, the real loser in all this is John Mellencamp, whose thunder was totally stolen by Madonna’s tempest in a teacup. Wait, what am I saying? I’m the real loser, because I have to listen to Mellencamp’s goddamn “This Is Our Country” song again. And again. And… shit, you know the rest.
Oh yeah - and what’s the big deal with that Hall of Fame again?
*Note: This author takes no specific issue with crass sex in itself.
Read more articles from the “What’s the Big Deal?” series.
Cross-posted from Newsvine.com.
© 2007 Evan Mix for Listen In. Some rights reserved.
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