The issue with Jann Wenner goes far deeper than a sexist, racist old fossil thinking women and black people aren't articulate enough to be considered masters of rock in his new book.
Long before this book, and this latest scandal, Wenner was a co-founder of both Rolling Stone magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
For the Boomer generation, Wenner and critics like him — straight, white men — set the criteria for what constitutes good music, and whose music was worthy of being celebrated as the greatest in Western music.
And, almost inevitably, they chose the artists they related to most closely — straight white men.
What were the criteria they set for what makes music great? The things that their favourite straight white male rock stars were particularly good at.
Such as playing drums, bass, and guitar in a rock style.
The greatest lyrics were those depicting the thoughts and feelings of straight white men.
Lyrics dealing with topics of interest to women or black people — including police brutality — were deemed shallow and vacuous.
Elements that were typically outside the realm of the music their favourite straight white men performed — funky bass lines, sampling, keyboards, soulful ballads, rapping, dance — were deemed frivolous and unimportant.
They created whole hierarchies of the greatest musicians of all time, consisting entirely of straight white men, based on their criteria.
The music made by queer, female, and non-white artists was deemed by them, through their arbitrary criteria, to be frivolous and unimportant.
The music enjoyed by queer, female, and non-white communities was deemed by them, through their arbitrary criteria, to be frivolous and unimportant
Oh, and they seemed to have a bad habit of "accidentally" leaving out the black artists that their favourite straight white men copied from — Chuck Berry and Big Mama Thornton didn't make the cut for greatest rock stars, but Elvis did.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/23/1201121174/jann-wenner-rock-hall-crumbling
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