Rolling stone founder Jann Wenner removed from Rock Hall of Fame leadership

#2
Good. It wasn't after just making comments, though; it was for excluding Black and female musicians from his book about the geniuses of rock 'n roll. He judged them not intellectually capable of making great art. An all-white-man roster instead.

I canceled my online RS subscription, though I do feel a bit bad for his son, who's now the CEO. There will be a lot of fallout.
 
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#3
jellyv said:
Good. It wasn't after just making comments, though; it was for excluding Black and female musicians from his book about the geniuses of rock 'n roll. He judged them not intellectually capable of making great art. An all-white-man roster instead.

I canceled my online RS subscription, though I do feel a bit bad for his son, who's now the CEO. There will be a lot of fallout.
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yes, he came off as an AH
 
#11
If I’m brutally honest- people have not been cancelled for a lot worse. Cancelling is definitely not an equal opportunity affair but I guess if your son finally wants to get rid of your curmudgeon old arse you just handed him the tops to hang you with….

Also If we think he’s wrong about his criteria for genius as per his book, (which he is,) then don’t buy his book.

But my more nuanced tale is I mean his book sounds headthumpingly stupid anyway but it also sounds like it’s written to the kind of old farts who lecture you about the genius of Emerson lake and palmer and don’t know who Sonic Youth are - it’s all just biased music died out after the 70s stuff and yes that means disco sucks and therefore all black music (even if rock and roll is heavily influenced by blues music invented by Black southerners and literally everyone knows this) sucks. The only music is white guy rock written by guys like me.

We can’t deny that the old boys club has been a big part of music for a long time but this alone is not actually a fair reflection of the rolling stone - not that I want to be too complimentary as now they are more PC on a surface level in that they might recognise the talent of Aretha Franklin but they aren’t exactly really offering anything new or interesting either. In a sense it’s the same brand recognition conservatism just the slightly more inclusive form because a few (and onus on few) of the best known women and black performers are allowed in. Perhaps KPop if they really go nuts.

Tbh the underrepresentation of a diversity of people and MUSIC - the style - the genre - the time released! is still there in my opinion.

The organisation is probably just in plain identity crisis - do they try and keep up with the internet? Stay a trade rep for the big companies and try and push the ex Disney kids and industry plants on the core audience and hope they don’t smell a rat or do they make like his dad and go full boomer nostalgia core & just bang on about Clapton?

I wouldn’t want to be in music journalism or music award stuff tbh.
 
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#12
Bagatha Christie said:
If I’m brutally honest- people have not been cancelled for a lot worse. Cancelling is definitely not an equal opportunity affair but I guess if your son finally wants to get rid of your curmudgeon old arse you just handed him the tops to hang you with….

Also If we think he’s wrong about his criteria for genius as per his book, (which he is,) then don’t buy his book.

But my more nuanced tale is I mean his book sounds headthumpingly stupid anyway but it also sounds like it’s written to the kind of old farts who lecture you about the genius of Emerson lake and palmer and don’t know who Sonic Youth are - it’s all just biased music died out after the 70s stuff and yes that means disco sucks and therefore all black music (even if rock and roll is heavily influenced by blues music invented by Black southerners and literally everyone knows this) sucks. The only music is white guy rock written by guys like me.

We can’t deny that the old boys club has been a big part of music for a long time but this alone is not actually a fair reflection of the rolling stone - not that I want to be too complimentary as now they are more PC on a surface level in that they might recognise the talent of Aretha Franklin but they aren’t exactly really offering anything new or interesting either. In a sense it’s the same brand recognition conservatism just the slightly more inclusive form because a few (and onus on few) of the best known women and black performers are allowed in. Perhaps KPop if they really go nuts.

Tbh the underrepresentation of a diversity of people and MUSIC - the style - the genre - the time released! is still there in my opinion.

The organisation is probably just in plain identity crisis - do they try and keep up with the internet? Stay a trade rep for the big companies and try and push the ex Disney kids and industry plants on the core audience and hope they don’t smell a rat or do they make like his dad and go full boomer nostalgia core & just bang on about Clapton?

I wouldn’t want to be in music journalism or music award stuff tbh.
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because he may be an AH and excluded women and POC isn't a reason to disparage the musicians he did include IMO...most of them are icons. you can't minimize the influence of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen is one of the greatest live performers ever.
 
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#13
sdkitty said:
because he may be an AH and excluded women and POC isn't a reason to disparage the musicians he did include IMO...most of them are icons. you can't minimize the influence of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen is one of the greatest live performers ever.
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I don’t see how I’m disparaging them. I’m just saying that I think for the arsehole writer in question he recognises their genius because:
1. they are the from the time frame when he was interested in learning about new music (I’d be amazed to learn he goes to live gigs for new acts or even explores on Spotify now)
2. They play genres he respects
3. They look somewhat like him and like what he thinks a genius and iconic rock star looks like.

I think speaking more broadly it’s a fine line, as a publication you’ve got to have a house style so your readers know what they are getting and whether your reviewers have similar enough taste for their opinions to qualify but blanket dismissals of people or genres just sound stupid.

For what it’s worth pitchfork, for all its flaws, is a much more reliable indicator for me at least because I think they are fairer.
 
#15
sdkitty said:
because he may be an AH and excluded women and POC isn't a reason to disparage the musicians he did include IMO...most of them are icons. you can't minimize the influence of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen is one of the greatest live performers ever.
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But I wonder if they knew going in his reasoning for not including women or POC, and if they'd have agreed to be interviewed if they were aware of it. I haven't heard any public comment from any of the men included in the book thus far, but given how close Springsteen was to the brilliant Clarence Clemons I have a hard time believing he'd buy into Wenner's crap. As a commenter said on the Deadline article, hopefully the publisher will do a Fahrenheit 451 on the book.
 
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