Posted on 02/15/2019 5:35:38 PM PST by Drew68
(CNN) In indie music circles, there had long been whispers about Ryan Adams being a jerk. Living in Chicago's rock hotbed neighborhood of Wicker Park in the 1990s, I certainly heard them. Still, how tragic to see the rumors confirmed and amplified in the New York Times story Wednesday about the "Heartbreaker" musician, who has denied them but also apologized.
The part about his allegedly sexting a 14-year-old girl particularly gave me the shivers.
From rock's early days, when Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year old cousin, to John Lennon crooning about wife-beating on the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," right up to the Adams story, there is a certain nauseating through-line in many of the bands and singers generally considered the best in the business. It makes me wonder how there has not, yet, been a more widespread #MeToo reckoning in the wider world of rock 'n' roll, which, since its inception, has been glaringly open about its disdain for, and love of abusing, women.
I say this with a heavy heart and no small amount of confusion, having been a fan of both the genre and its groupie culture since my own teen years. As a film critic, I've made my peace with the once-beloved films I need to leave behind (John Hughes' date-rapey and racist "Sixteen Candles" being a prime example), but as a music fan I have yet to weed through my old favorite albums and decide who's too creepy to listen to anymore.
The first to go should probably be Guns N' Roses, one of the primo hard-rock bands of the late 1980s and 1990s. Their first album, "Appetite for Destruction," was in heavy rotation on my playlist in high school and long after, despite its appalling original cover art (which depicts a female rape victim and a demonic robot perpetrator standing over her) and horrendously misogynist lyrics.
How to explain the disconnect of having been, generally, a self-aware young woman and also rocking out to "It's So Easy," which features lyrics like "Turn around, bitch, I got a use for you/Besides, you ain't got nothing better to do/And I'm bored"?
I am hardly alone in this; it's the top-selling US debut album of all time. (In what is perhaps not such a coincidence, in March of 1994, singer Axl Rose's then-wife filed charges against him, alleging physical and emotional abuse.) At the time, Rose did not respond to requests for comment; she later sued Rose for mental and physical abuse and the suit was reportedly settled out of court.
Aerosmith was another favorite; I'm from Massachusetts, so this was sort of a requirement (one of the band's nicknames is "the Bad Boys from Boston"). One of their biggest hits? "Walk This Way," whose lyrics include: "Schoolgirl sweetie with a classy kinda sexy/little skirt's climbin' way up her knee." As a schoolgirl myself, I managed to wrangle my way backstage at one of their concerts, wearing my own sexy little skirt. Upon actually meeting the band members, I remember feeling oh-so-clearly that I wanted nothing more than to go home, which, thankfully, I could and did (and, to be clear, nothing untoward was ever suggested by any of them).
But this was still the message you heard from your favorite rockers, over and over, as a girl: That girls and women were supposed to be candy for the dudes, who were the ones who made the music.
Let's take a quick look at some other telling songs, from cheese-metal to classics, that so many of us heard and blindly accepted:
Motley Crue, "Saints of Los Angeles:" "Red line tripping on a land mine, sipping at the Troubadour/Girls passed out naked in the back lounge, everybody's gonna score/She's all jacked up, she's down on her luck/You want it, you need it, the devils gonna feed it."
The Beatles, "Run for Your Life:" "I'd rather see you dead, little girl/Than to be with another man ... Catch you with another man/That's the end little girl."
Winger, "Seventeen:" "She's only seventeen/Daddy says she's too young, but she's old enough for me."
The Beastie Boys, "Girls:" "Girls, to do the dishes/Girls, to clean up my room/Girls, to do the laundry/Girls, and in the bathroom/Girls, that's all I really want is girls."
Ray Charles, "I've Got a Woman:" "She's there to love me/Both day and night/Never grumbles or fusses/Always treats me right/Never runnin' in the streets/Leavin' me alone/She knows a woman's place/Is right there, now, in her home."
Over the decades I soaked up these lyrics while also devouring countless "c--k-rock" music bios, feasting on the hedonistic anecdotes of The Doors ("No One Here Gets Out Alive") and Led Zeppelin ("Hammer of the Gods"), Tyler, Slash from Guns N' Roses, Tommy Lee from Motley Crue. I own a copy of "I'm With the Band," Pamela Des Barres' starry-eyed memoir of being rock's most celebrated groupie.
There's an undeniably vicarious fun in hearing about what it's like to sleep with the most celebrated men in rock. But there was also a scary, predatory undertone even in Des Barres' generally cheery tales. One of her peers, Lori Mattix/Maddox, was 15 (possibly younger) when she says she lost her virginity to David Bowie and as a teenager dated Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, among others. In a recent interview with the Guardian, she looked back on those days with a different take: "I don't think underage girls should sleep with guys. I wouldn't want this for anybody's daughter. My perspective is changing as I get older and more cynical."
It is also key to note that this has always been a one-way street, gender-wise. Count, if you can, the number of crazy, debauched FEMALE rock stars out there. The brash Courtney Love is still sort of alone in that field, and she's been reviled nonstop (largely by male Nirvana fans) for 30-plus years for her efforts.
Imagine how many women, like Adams' alleged victims, wanted to get in the rock game and gave up because they were told they didn't belong there? Even Adams' former wife, Mandy Moore, who was already a hit singer when she met Adams, describes to the Times how being with him silenced her as a musician.
Could rock be, or have been, less sexist if there had been more women encouraged to take the stage instead of standing below it, waiting to be winked at? Maybe, if we're able to re-evaluate some of the "greats" with clearer eyes, we'll have more of a chance to find out.
I wonder if Stewart still performs one of his signature hits, "Every Picture Tells a Story" these days?
Can the Stones still sing "Brown Sugar"?
Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Me and the Devil, ooh
Was walking side-by-side
I’m going to beat my woman
Until I get satisfied
~Robert Johnson
It's a song. That album also has crooning about Henry the horse dancing a waltz and newspaper taxis appearing at the shore. I suppose she finds that problematic too.
John contributed the "It can't get no worse" answer to Paul's "A little better, all the time".
As usual, the two did better with each other even if it was only something short like that or simply smiling.
This lesbian needs a life. She gets so many things wrong. And, they are just songs idiot.
And he was shot dead not long after that volume came out.
No lie, I was reading it when I heard on Monday Night Football, by Howard Cosell, that he had been shot.
OTOH, I'd never heard of Ryan Adams before, so...
And yet all of those look tame compared to much of todays music. Where is the metoo movement on rap lyrics? Must be a cultural thing.
Or "Some Girls".....
Now, I’d like to speak about the subject of a certain Mick Jagger – of the Rolling Stones. … And I’m going to talk about the song he sang — a song in which he sings these very words: “Black girls – just want to have sex – all night long.” …
Now, Mr. Jagger, there is only one question I want to ask you — Jaggs. … And you better have the answer, man, you better have the answer, since you have besmirched the character of black women. Therefore, here is my question, Jaggs.
[pause, takes off eyeglasses, suddenly drops the pose, pleading]
Where are all of these black broads, man? …[huge cheers and applause] Hey, like, where ARE they,baby? You got any phone numbers for me, baby? …Please send ’em to me.
[puts glasses back on,dignified again] Thank you. … [enthusiastic applause]
#6. Gneiss rock collection. Sometimes we take rocks for Granite. Really! No Schist!
She can always take a walk “down by the river”, maybe say “Hey” to Joe.
That was my first thought as well. The mineral display is better organized
Later, it was John who was “whipped” by Yoko! (Not physically)
The problem with that is save for a few exceptions, most women rockers suck.
She loses the point she was trying to make when she veers off into discussing lyrics. That's not the issue. Nobody was ever offended by the songs that Adams wrote. It was his behavior towards women that drew the ire of the #MeToo movement. The argument should be made that if we are going to judge what Adams did, then why not the behavior of rock stars past who did the same things?
John Lennon beat his first wife. Jimmy Page had 14-year old girlfriends. Many of the hair metal acts of the 80s had post-concert orgies demeaning countless young women (many of whom were actually seriously underaged girls) who were then discarded when the party ended.
If the #MeToo movement is going to start with Ryan Adams, where should it stop?
The woman at a Motley Crue concert didn't want to jump on stage and sing Kumbaya with Vince Neil. They wanted to go back stage and f*** Tommy Lee.
The exact people trying to be cool, our weak liberals, whose desperation makes them such great chumps for the globalist fascists of the left, are the ones who will become hoisted on their own petard here.
It is a good thing to take a long hard look (no pun meant there) at men’s behavior with less civilization, and be honest about it. Heavy civilization, usually brought about by stricter moral and religious codes, keeps sexuality circumscribed.
The rock music world is just outside civilization enough to make it exciting. But when we take the closer look, we see the stars feasting on as many pretty young girls as possible, often for a decade or more. Within the few morals of that hedonism, this is normal to expected. Men, unchecked by a society, will rut unfettered with anyone and show no remorse or care for the multiple sex partners they enjoy. Gay men even moreso, sometimes preferring engaging bodyless through a glory hole.
More civilized men, often men like you sitting there having wives or girlfriends, safely ensconced deep within a moral framework, heap praise upon and feel envy toward the rock stars who can orgasm in any girl they want, multiple times a day.
What is good about this trend of now focusing on the natural behavior of men without reins is that the leftists have used our liberal ways to trick us into going down a path toward their control of us, strewing the path with delicious free sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The #metoo movement is now shining a light on what really happens to girls when mere men who can make music are given the royal pass out of civilization. If we now move to more respect and more care in sexual interactions, it really hurts those who wish us debauched and out of control.
And the lapdog media now looks like an escher infinity drawing. Impossible to revere these pop gods when it’s exposed how they rape little girls or boys. Good to see the left and their liberal sycophants tie themselves into impossible knots of hypocrisy.
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