Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner removed from Rock Hall leadership after controversial comments

Name me ONE Madonna song that was innovative in a way that influenced one other singer. Madonna’s whole “Pop Diva” is all fashion, zero music. Now, personally, I liked Ray of Light and La Isla Bonita, but La Isla Bonita was simply a fun pastiche of older music, and Ray of Light did nothing that Cher hadn’t done several years earlier. Both were fun dance music. Neither were rock, and neither were ground-breaking. At most, Madonna was to synth pop what Bon Jovi was to hair metal and Tom Petty was to Chicken-Fried Rock. So if the ever create the Synth Pop Hall of Fame, I’ll be the first to suggest Madonna.

It doesn’t matter if it’s innovative. The fact is her style, musically, videos, and stage show, has informed every single pop diva since. You mentioned Paula Abdul, when did she hit? AFTER Madonna. Janet Jackson didn’t start her solo career until AFTER Madonna.

The question was wake, not breaking ground. And the wake is still going on today. Period.

Rock is a big net. And includes synth pop.

Again, don’t be Wenner. He’s a dick. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong in the RNR HOF. Madonna should be there. And heck, she used her induction to campaign for Iggy and the Stooges. So I’ll give her points for having taste, even if she never uses it.

Innovative is a matter of whose wake. Here’s where I think we should be able to agree?

(1) Her cultural impact has been ENORMOUS.
(2) She does not perform rock’n’roll.
(3) MUSICALLY, neither Taylor Swift nor Janet Jackson owe any influence whatsoever to Madonna. And I’ll die on that Janet Jackson hill. Her influence was her brothers. If Madonna had never existed, Janet Jackson’s music would sound EXACTLY the same.
(4) You seem to concede that Madonna wasn’t innovative.
Inasmuch as Blondie, Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Olivia Newton John, the Go-Gos, Kool and the Gang, the Runaways, the Pointer Sisters, Sheena Easton, Irene Cara, Donna Summer, and Culture Club all pre-date Madonna, I propose that with or without Madonna, even Paula Abdul would still have produced similar music, even if the “Cold-Hearted” may not have looked so stupidly desperate.

I don’t think innovation is that important. At least not when it comes to who has the wake and the cultural impact to go in the hall. I’ll use the case of the Rolling Stones. The Stones have never really innovated anything. They started as a blues cover band, started writing their own songs, never really strayed far from the blues, and when they did stray it was following the whims of that moment’s popular taste. And yet they’re the Rolling freaking Stone. The basis of rock and roll, and very deservedly in the HOF.

While Madonna is a pop act I don’t think pop is not rock and roll. Rock is a HUGE tent that is always expanding. I think one of the things that makes rock great is that Simon and Garfunkel, Frank Zappa, and Metallica are all rock artists. Folk rock, experimental rock, and hard rock to be sure. But rock. Pop is rock. I won’t count Madonna as any less rock than the Beatles or Paul Anka.

You also have to keep in mind that Madonna was really one of the first people to understand MTV. That’s a big part of how she became the mold of the pop diva that still dominates today (the last vestige of rock that can actually sell platinum records).

Again to me it always boils down to the same thing, and I apply this to sports halls of fame too:
Can you tell the story without Madonna?
And you can’t. And therefore she is deserves to be in the Hall. She defined a subsection of rock that is still going on 40+ years later. Her wake is huge. And is continuing. While other subsections of rock have faded into niche markets pop divas still keep that basic look and feel of Madonna and still go platinum and fill stadiums.

OK, you keep bringing up “wake.”

>> I don’t think innovation is that important. <<

What do you interpret “wake” to mean? If Kate copies Janet, and Janet merely copies Wendy, how is Kate in Janet’s wake, and not Wendy’s?

>> I won’t count Madonna as any less rock than the Beatles or Paul Anka. <<

“Pop” is simply whatever is popular. If your definition of Rock includes all of Pop, you basically have no definition of Rock whatsoever. It’s not a genre of music at all. Which is pretty much what you’d have to assert to include both Paul Anka and Madonna.

>> Can you tell the story without Madonna? <<

WHAT story? The story of Rock’n’Roll, the story of popular music in general, or the story of Celebrity Worship by perverts? I can perfectly well tell the story of Rock’n’Roll with no mention of Madonna.

Besides, your premise is invalid: If I want to tell the story of every rock singer, then I suppose I have to mention Madonna. (She certainly AFFECTED Pink.) But by that logic, I also have to enshrine Tipper Gore and Mark David Chapman.

Of course, I’m seeing that this REALLY comes down to the notion that “Take A Bow,” “Music,” “Vogue” and “Ray of Light” are rock music. If so, where IS Paul Anka, anyway? Barbara Streissand? Frank Sinatra? Celine Dion? If mere popularity on the Pop Charts is enough, where are the Monkees? (You wanna talk about a pop cultural wake??? How about pre-fab boy bands?) Where’s Garth Brooks? (There sure as HELL wouldn’t be Taylor Swift with Garth Brooks!) How about Patti Page? Leonard Bernstein? Rogers and Hamerstein?

You brought up wake. I’m acknowledging that it’s important.

One of the things we always have to keep in mind in music, because it is an additive art form, is there’s multiple steps to adding something to the form. Let’s look at tapping, that method of playing the guitar that swept the world when Eddie Van Halen started doing. But Eddie didn’t invent it. Tapping a stringed instrument goes back to Paganini. In a rock and roll context it goes back to Canned Heat. But nobody questions that it was Eddie that turned it into a big freaking deal.

Pop the word comes from popular. But pop the music genre is a subsection of rock and roll. Basically the modern concept of pop started when clean safe white guys started doing clean safe covers (usually uncredited and unpaid for) of “colored music”, aka rock and roll. Pop is what happens when you make rock safe for 14 year old girls. And therefore has to be a part of rock.

Rock and roll, popular music, and celebrity worship are basically all the same story.

Tipper Gore absolutely should be in the HOF. It really should have a subwing for “the enemy”, that would include various record burners and payola guys. But they all changed the face of rock and roll. I want Tipper right next to the Satanic Panic clowns that (accidentally) helped heavy metal get from the underground to dominance in the mid 80s.

Where is Paul Anka? Much as I hate him he had a massive string of hits. The Monkees should absolutely be in, heck they birthed MTV.

I don’t want to tell the story of every rock singer, I want to tell the story of rock and roll. And you cannot tell the story of 1980s rock and roll, how it got reinvented for the video age, the second wave of high production stage shows, and the rise of the pop diva without Madonna.

Oh, No. Doodlebob brought up wake. It just seemed like your assertion for Madonna’s inclusion was her enormous “wake.”

>> The question was wake, not breaking ground. And the wake is still going on today. Period. <<

>> Wake is wake. Good wake, bad wake, it’s still a wake. <<

>> Much as I dislike Madonna her wake is HUGE. She basically invented the pop diva, that most women in pop still follow today.... It’s part of why I don’t like her, she killed women in rock and roll. ... But that’s still a massive wake.<<

If neither of us are concerned about innovation or wake, why can’t we just agree that Madonna is wretched, horrible, and the preferable exhibit for her at the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame would be to have her impaled corpse at the entrance to serve as a warning for others? (Dear FBI: This is a metaphorical reference to Vladimir the Impaler’s methods of driving back the Muslim Horde, and not an actual appeal to violence.)

OK he brought it. But he’s right.

Doesn’t matter if I don’t like here. There’s lots of incredibly influential important people in rock history whose catalogs I find monotonous and influence I find toxic. Heck I can make the case The Beatles ruined everything by perfecting formula pop. But just because I hate them doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be in the Hall.

That’s why I said repeatedly don’t be Wenner. Wenner has a long standing hatred of progressive rock and heavy metal. And has used that hatred to block bands from those genres from the Hall. And it devalues the Hall. It’s not about taste, it’s about impact. I hate Madonna. And any fan of Urgh! or Decline of Western of Western Civilization know her impact has been largely negative. BUT, that’s still a major impact, and no less deserving of enshrinement than the Beatles.

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