I’m allowing myself, for a limited period of time, to feel good about this. | | | | Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Whitney Houston at Wembley Arena, London, May 5, 1988.
(David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I’m allowing myself, for a limited period of time, to feel good about this.”
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| | rantnrave:// Her voice is one of the greatest instruments of the past 30 or 35 years, a vocal equivalent of, say, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer NEIL PEART's drums or not-yet-eligible-for-the-Hall ST. VINCENT's guitar. Thrilling range. Superhuman control. Deep emotion. She learned her craft in church and she carried her gospel roots into everything she did for the rest of her life. Early on, she recorded with downtown New York jazz-funk-whatever group MATERIAL, and years later she would recharge herself with a DOLLY PARTON song and walk new roads with LAURYN HILL and MISSY ELLIOTT, in case anyone needs some Serious Artist bullet points for her. In between, there were scores of dazzling pop moments. She was a transformational pop star. What qualifies her for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? What qualifies anybody? What's the unifying musical thread that connects Rock Hall of Famers MILES DAVIS, KISS, LEONARD COHEN, ABBA, PUBLIC ENEMY and YES to each other? Guitars? Nope. Loudness? Nope. Record collections? Influence? Style? Nope, nope, nope. A shared love of ELVIS? LOL, talk to Public Enemy about that. There *is* something we might call rock and roll "attitude" and there are gatekeepers who tell us they belong, and we just kind of understand, and accept, that they do. We talk about this criteria or that criteria but we often end up running on instincts. And we exclude, say, DEAN MARTIN—a huge influence on Elvis Presley—and ANTHONY NEWLEY, whom DAVID BOWIE spent a good part of his life trying to emulate, because, why exactly? And who is this "we"? Because I will guarantee you, dear reader, there are way more people making rock and roll right now who grew with and were inspired and influenced by WHITNEY HOUSTON than by almost anybody I've put in bold letters above. Here's an argument for her influence on PARAMORE, the DIRTY PROJECTORS, the WEEKND, JANELLE MONÁE, BRUNO MARS and FRANK OCEAN. There are many, many others, famous and not famous, loud and soft, guitar-based and drum-machine-based. She's in the air we breathe. She bent notes and she bent the culture. She makes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a deeper, wider, better place... She's also, and this is the bad news, the only woman entering the Hall this year along with 22 men, if you count all the officially recognized members of the bands getting inducted and the two business legends also being recognized (shoutout to our friend IRVING AZOFF, who's being honored along with JON LANDAU, and who'll get to see his clients the DOOBIE BROTHERS enter the Hall at the same time). Here, dear gatekeepers, are 41 deserving women you've yet to get to. And here's some inspiration from the RECORDING ACADEMY's new president, DEBORAH DUGAN, who's stepping into a not-dissimilar mess. One key, Dugan says, will be "fast decision-making” and “less hierarchy"... In the good news department, let's give the Hall voters credit for adding some much-needed pop, hip-hop, synth-pop and industrial rock to the Hall, among other diversifying sounds. At least one of those categories had been completely vacant inside the museum. "One of the most forward-looking and least genre-stringent classes we've seen acknowledged," writes BILLBOARD's ANDREW UNTERBERGER, who also cheers for the lack of "any acts from the 1960s." The '90s loom large with Whitney, the NOTORIOUS B.I.G. (used to read WORD UP! magazine; look where he is now) and NINE INCH NAILS (repping three under-served contingencies in industrial rock, electronic and hard rock/metal, not to mention the Hall's hometown of Cleveland). DEPECHE MODE (overdue, and hopefully a harbinger of more synth-pop and alt-rock to come) bridges the '80s and '90s. And from the '70s, we get one glam-rock critics' darling (T.REX) and one classic-rock people's pick (the Doobies), both of whose fingerprints are all over decades of rock, not to mention decades of air guitar. They made undeniable, indelible rock and roll singles. What else are you supposed to ask for?... As PAUL GRIEN notes, an unusual amount of this year's inductions will be posthumous ones. Who'll stand in for Whitney and Biggie and T.Rex's MARC BOLAN when the induction ceremony airs live (for the first time) on HBO on May 2?... Does the Rock Hall hate Chicago?... How does it feel about the input of fans and stans?... WARNER MUSIC's KRIS AHREND named CEO of the MECHANICAL LICENSING COLLECTIVE... Just because he snuck onto a plane inside a road case doesn't mean you should, too... RIP STEVE MARTIN CARO, CHAMÍN CORREA, CARLOS "CUCO" ROJAS and BILL WISENER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | | | | | "I think that God's got a sick sense of humor..." |
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