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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 5:04:16 GMT
Jann Wenner has been the owner of Rolling Stone magazine between 1967 and 2017. I have always felt there was a racist undertone to how RS treated MJ and other black artists, now it looks like that feeling wasn't wrong. Wenner just gave an interview, promoting a book he's just written. When he was asked why none of the artists he interviewed for his book are people of color or women, he basically outed himself as a racist and mysoginist, saying black artists and women were simply not on the intellectual level to be included in his book. Besides his racism and misogyny, when you read the interview it reeks of that white male rockist elitism that IMO always saturated these magazines. That only a certain, very narrow definition of an artist should be considered a "real artist": the white male with a guitar and lyrics centric songs. And the lyrics of course always have to convey the white male perspective and the music has to appeal to the white male demographic. Nothing else qualifies as real art.
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 5:15:16 GMT
I also find it ironic how this dude is a major Democratic party donator and he likes the type of white male rock star who he can interview about politics, with a Democrat leaning, of course, as RS always had that. But what is this "deep", leftist political discourse good for when you are as racist and as misogynistic as the KKK?
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 5:20:51 GMT
Exactly.
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 6:02:28 GMT
This.
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 6:15:59 GMT
Also Jann Wenner: it doesn't matter if a rape story isn't true as long as it serves a cause.
Reminds me of the media's attitude to LN as well.
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Post by Snow White on Sept 16, 2023 6:25:25 GMT
So we weren't overreacting when we called out Rolling Stone as a bunch of racist cunts. Their racism has been blatantly obvious but now it makes absolute sense why they always wetted themselves over the likes of white rock bands or white male rock stars while black artists, performers have been degraded, put down over white musicians and female artists not discussed that deeply and not being taken into account at all.
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 9:35:14 GMT
MJ talked about people like Wenner when he wrote that note to himself about black artists being constantly told that they can't be on covers of magazines because they don't sell...
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Post by aazzaabb on Sept 16, 2023 10:51:43 GMT
Can you imagine what Off The Wall could have sold? 20 million is nothing to be sniffed at of course but between Rolling Stone and the Disco Sucks movement -which was another white institutional rejection of black music- we could be talking in the millions.
Saturday Night Fever was the biggest selling album of all time in 1977. Surely a few more million of the people who bought that album would have bought Off The Wall? If you’re a fan of Saturday Night Fever surely you’re going to love Off The Wall?! But the door was already being closed on “Disco” literally a month before Off The Wall’s release.
The Disco Sucks movement in itself has to be one of the most shameful acts of racism in modern music history? In retrospect you have these white over the hill DJ’s and VJ’s saying things like “It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously” and “It was a joke, an off the cuff remark that people misunderstood” etc.
Its damn right shameful and this piece of shit Jann Wenner would have been rubbing his hands with glee all wrapped up in his self imposed importance and glory.
I bought a few copies of Rolling Stone over the years if there was a feature article in it I wanted to read but it always reeked of white upper class snotty nosed snobbery and I always felt like a tosser anytime I bought it. It’s the type of institutionalised white “rock journalist” elitist snobbery that has bled down into “journalism” over the decades and filtered into the attitudes and words of the press that helped destroy Michael Jackson's image and attempt to be treated fairly and taken seriously as an artist.
Recently I’ve been reading articles about MJ from the 90’s and the way he’s spoken about and referred to in comparison to anyone else is quite sickening and disgusting. And I blame assholes like this guy Jann Wenner for deliberately holding artists like MJ back and throwing a spanner in the works, and setting a tone in attitudes towards certain artists that has influenced a generation(s).
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Post by SoCav on Sept 16, 2023 11:38:39 GMT
I bought a few copies of Rolling Stone over the years if there was a feature article in it I wanted to read but it always reeked of white upper class snotty nosed snobbery and I always felt like a tosser anytime I bought it. It’s the type of institutionalised white “rock journalist” elitist snobbery that has bled down into “journalism” over the decades Yes, the interviews are sometimes interesting because they (to this day) have a lot of access, but the snobbery often even ruins those. The funny thing is that (most of) the artists they idolize do not even take their own work nearly as seriously. I've read so many cringey passages where the interviewer explains this elaborate vision of a song's supposed deeper meaning, only for the artist to go "yeah, I don't know about that.." or "it's not that serious really". Similarly, the reviews of albums made by artists in their pantheon are painful to read. Even records which the artists themselves admit were weak in hindsight, would generally get glowing reviews. My main problem with the magazine has always been that they present themselves as the arbiters of music in general. If they want to focus on classic rock, singer/songwriter stuff rooted in the 60s/70s, then fair enough. But then just cover that and present yourself as such. It's their pretense of being objective, high quality journalists/culture critics that's so incredibly annoying. Of course, you also have to wonder why people bought into that and gave them that status for such a long time.
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Post by aazzaabb on Sept 16, 2023 12:34:50 GMT
I bought a few copies of Rolling Stone over the years if there was a feature article in it I wanted to read but it always reeked of white upper class snotty nosed snobbery and I always felt like a tosser anytime I bought it. It’s the type of institutionalised white “rock journalist” elitist snobbery that has bled down into “journalism” over the decades Yes, the interviews are sometimes interesting because they (to this day) have a lot of access, but the snobbery often even ruins those. The funny thing is that (most of) the artists they idolize do not even take their own work nearly as seriously. I've read so many cringey passages where the interviewer explains this elaborate vision of a song's supposed deeper meaning, only for the artist to go "yeah, I don't know about that.." or "it's not that serious really".Similarly, the reviews of albums made by artists in their pantheon are painful to read. Even records which the artists themselves admit were weak in hindsight, would generally get glowing reviews.My main problem with the magazine has always been that they present themselves as the arbiters of music in general. If they want to focus on classic rock, singer/songwriter stuff rooted in the 60s/70s, then fair enough. But then just cover that and present yourself as such. It's their pretense of being objective, high quality journalists/culture critics that's so incredibly annoying. Of course, you also have to wonder why people bought into that and gave them that status for such a long time. Yup! They’ve virtually done it to Dylan for his entire career to the point where people think Dylan views himself as an elite -which is frustrating- whereas in actuality he seems almost embarrassed by it. Rolling Stone has been the absolute worst for it; impressing their attitudes and opinions about certain artists onto them. You can read endless pages of why Dylan is this and that by Rolling Stone but if Dylan himself is asked, he doesn’t have any specific answers and has never really cared much about songs and albums he’s created. It’s the opposite of what they’ve done to Michael Jackson but it’s still extremely annoying in its pandering and sycophantic approach. From 5:04 in this video you see Dylan try to reject their impressions of him; Voice of A Generation and all that crap. People said that he was extremely rude and obnoxious to the guy from Time Magazine but he was clearly exasperated and fed up of it all.
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Post by pg13 on Sept 16, 2023 14:54:50 GMT
As I said in a previous post, Wenner is a wanker.
If you asked him, I'm sure he couldn't argue a case for John Lennon being more "intellectually articulate" than Michael Jackson. Both waffled an awful amount about world peace in a very idealistic way, but neither were what you'd call politically minded people, really. Lennon is more problematic too - if people would see more that MJ was falsely accused by clear gold diggers they'd see it even more.
Both great at what they did in their own way, but no way can it be argued Lennon was more intellectual than MJ.
In fact, I'm more impressed by Michael's social awareness given he didn't really have a conventional formal education. Lennon went to formal school education like everyone else and certainly wasn't famous during it, so had privacy and time MJ didn't have.
Michael's breadth in communicating his artistry is more impressive too, including through his body.
As I said, Wenner is a wanker.
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TonyR
The Legend Continues
Posts: 8,396
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Post by TonyR on Sept 16, 2023 15:31:31 GMT
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 16:05:31 GMT
The Disco Sucks movement in itself has to be one of the most shameful acts of racism in modern music history? In retrospect you have these white over the hill DJ’s and VJ’s saying things like “It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously” and “It was a joke, an off the cuff remark that people misunderstood” etc.
The "Disco Sucks" movement definitely had racist and homophobic undertones IMO. And they can miss me with the "it was a joke" excuse now that in the hindsight it doesn't look so cool any more. They had a full on riot and record burning event nazi style. Some "joke". Totally unhinged behavior and for what? Because other people liked a different type of music?
Oh MJ was absolutely on the receiving end of this type of "journalism". One of Wenner's pals (another RS writer), Dave Marsh wrote a full book in 1985 called "Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream". I haven't read the book itself, but it is one of three works analyzed in Susan Woodword's work "Otherness and Power: Michael Jackson and His Media Critics". The book is vicious and basically ranting about how sad it is that MJ has missed the opportunity to use his fame and popularity to be more political and more meaningful. Basically bemusing why he is not more like Springsteen, politically conscious. Also declaring he is on the decline (mind you, it was published in 1985, LOL). Maybe because he didn't fucking care to be like Springsteen? I will state this: no single artist has the power to change the world, but if there is one artist, whose art and music was capable of speaking to all nations and races and sexes and cultures and bring them together, it was MJ. So why the hell would he want to be like Springsteen whose main demographic and the people he reaches is a lot more narrow?
The problem with these type of critics is narrow-mindedness. They think there's only one purpose of art and that's the purpose they determined for it: that it should always be lyrics centric and "deep" and political and all that. And the music, of course always has to be the type that appeals to the white male audience (ie. rock). They never understood MJ as an artist. Never. That his goal was never to be Springsteen, his goal was to bring escapism and joy to people, and he did that very successfully and all races, nations, ages, sexes etc were highly receptive of the escapism he offered and that's not something to look down on. Music can be as much a spiritual experience as an intellectual one and the former is not inferior to the latter. In fact, I think the former is actually superior, because it is more universal while lyrics centric songs are usually very specific to a place, a time, a political situation/leaning etc. This is not to say, of course, that MJ didn't have meaningful and important lyrics. I think he is just often not given credit for them. Maybe, exactly because of the attitude we see in Wenner's interview: lyrics by a black artist simply can't be taken as seriously as lyrics by a white rock god. But why exactly is writing a song about humans polluting the Earth and climate change in 1995 less important than Springsteen writing about blue collar unemployment in the USA in the 80s? Why is Springsteen writing about AIDS in the 90s more important than MJ writing about police brutality and social injustice in TDCAU? (Actually MJ's topics seem more ahead of their time and definitely more universal to me than Springsteen's which were often very much of their time...)
And then Wenner's judment of good and intelligent lyrics also seem very arbitrary. I mean things like putting Mick Jagger up as an example of a great, intellectual lyricist, a "rock and roll philosopher", while scoffing at Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell...
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 16:16:11 GMT
I bought a few copies of Rolling Stone over the years if there was a feature article in it I wanted to read but it always reeked of white upper class snotty nosed snobbery and I always felt like a tosser anytime I bought it. It’s the type of institutionalised white “rock journalist” elitist snobbery that has bled down into “journalism” over the decades Yes, the interviews are sometimes interesting because they (to this day) have a lot of access, but the snobbery often even ruins those. The funny thing is that (most of) the artists they idolize do not even take their own work nearly as seriously. I've read so many cringey passages where the interviewer explains this elaborate vision of a song's supposed deeper meaning, only for the artist to go "yeah, I don't know about that.." or "it's not that serious really".
Reminds me of an urban legend about one of my country's greatest poets. According to it he once read an analysis of one of his works and it stated things like "and the poet thought this and thought that". To which the poet wrote to the margins: "the fuck thought that!"
You can tell in advance which type of artist and music will get their glowing reviews no matter what and which type would never get their praise no matter what. And when you are so biased that you are predictable like that that's not good music criticism, IMO. When Bob Dylan or John Lennon are put in the Top 10 on RS's "best vocalists ever" list, while MJ and Whitney(!) are down in the 40s and 50s, you just have to laugh at the predictability.
I read besides MJ they also hated Queen very much. (At least when Freddie was still alive, because later, of course, everyone became a fan.) Queen's and Freddie's flamboyant expression also seemed to somehow go against their aesthetic. I guess there might have been a little bit of homophobia there too. Which is a bit ironic considering that Wenner himself is gay.
Yes, I always felt that magazines and critics shouldn't critique music they obviously generally don't appreciate or even understand. Which is often what happened when these rock journalists critiqued pop/R&B or hip-hop artists.
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Post by respect77 on Sept 16, 2023 16:46:20 GMT
Re. their Queen hate. I just noticed that the same guy who wrote that vicious book about MJ, Dave Marsh wrote this also rather vicious critique about Queen's A Day at the Races' album:
Freddie Mercury as a "passable pop voice", my god! Not to mention the rest of the drivel, of course.
But this shows how it is actually a very small group of people with a very uniform and predictable taste given way too much power as cultural gatekeepers just because they had a magazine.
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