Rolling Stone’s founder is out from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
The Q: "There are seven subjects in the new book; seven white guys. In the introduction, you acknowledge that performers of color and women performers are just not in your zeitgeist. Which to my mind is not plausible for Jann Wenner. Janis Joplin,
Janis Joplin was literally the exact counterexample that first jumped into my mind when I read the headline.
Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, the list keeps going … What do you think is the deeper explanation for why you interviewed the subjects you interviewed and not other subjects?
Wenner’s answer is telling. He says, “When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK? Just to get that accurate.”
Oh wow. Did he get screwed through no fault of his own? That’s a very straight answer, and I’m not at all a fan of this new thing where you can get your career fucked if you say “black” in any sentence and don’t immediately follow it with “empowerment” or “voices.”
The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them."
Yeah, that seems 100% reasonable to me.
“Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”
…
Jann you fucked yourself.
I take it all back. You’re a creep for thinking this and a moron for saying it out loud to a reporter.
The reporter pushes back, incredulously asking if he really doesn’t think Joni Mitchell was articulate enough to talk music on an intellectual level.
Wenner responded, "It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest.
STOP IT, STOP IT, THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT CARE ABOUT YOU, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS
Relatable lol. I have been working on giving people the benefit of the doubt. Then I read his words. He really told on himself.
How do you not prepare an answer for that question?
I think he genuinely just doesn’t see anything odd with any of his answers. Think about how different a world he comes from. I have a vaguely positive impression of Jann Wenner because of his association with the golden age Hunter-Thompson era of Rolling Stone and the genuinely good journalism that it still does today. But at the same time, the landscape of what’s permissible behavior from a big white guy in charge has changed so much that we can lose track of how much of an asshole it used to be okay to be.
My sister’s worked in a male-dominated industry for basically her whole life, and now that I’m thinking about it the stories she tells have gradually been transitioning from stuff that’s genuinely horrifying to now being simply upsetting and wrong. I think people who lived during that era are just starting to sound like everyone’s segregation-era grandparents did back in the 90s. I mean, for a lot of his adult life, women basically did live under a segregation system. In one way it’s a good sign for how much progress has been made. Not to excuse him for being an asshole - I’m just saying that it kind of makes sense that the system didn’t filter him out back then, in the way that it would today if he didn’t learn to keep quiet about what he thought about these things.
I think he genuinely just doesn’t see anything odd with any of his answers.
He wrote a book about seven white men. He had to have known that someone was going ask, “Why are they all white?” and “Why are they all men?” It’s hard to believe that an editor or agent or publicist didn’t tell him that he needed to prepare a response for that inquiry.
But that’s what I’m saying: Back in his day, it was all white men. He was a little outside the mold that he even would put a black person on the cover or work with women as human beings with abilities (Annie Leibovitz) instead of as machines for coffee/filing/sex. In his mind I think that’s still super progressive. But, all the people who really run shit are white men; it’s not at all weird that all the “masters” in his book are white men, any more than it’s weird that all his employees are humans. What sense would it make if they weren’t? That would be just putting someone who isn’t a master into the list for some weird other reason, not because they had important things to say.
I really have no idea about the guy, I’m just sort of guessing here. But it seems pretty plausible just based on that interview.
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Jann Wenner has ALWAYS been a gargantuan prick. This was pretty well known all along, but people kept it shushed up because from its inception through at least the early 90s, getting a nod from the Rolling Stone was a career maker (or breaker). Hell there’s even a cheesy old Dr. Hook song about it.
That’s sad to me. Oh well, these things happen. If people are finding it out and publicizing it and punishing him for it (now that he’s no longer in a position to damage their careers 😐), then better late than never, I guess.
Eric Clapton, Ted Nugent, and Roger Waters
Fuck me, what did Roger Waters do? I know he supports Russia in Ukraine for some godawful reason but I thought that was some recent early-onset dementia or something. I like Roger Waters, does he have some kind of awfulness I wasn’t aware of?
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Janis Joplin was literally the exact counterexample that first jumped into my mind when I read the headline.
Mine was Aretha Franklin. Black, a woman, and a better singer than almost anyone who ever sang rock music.
When did ppl start forgetting that saying nothing is always an option?
When I’m doubt, shut the fuck up. This applies to just about everything.
Sorry, Jann, you aren’t orange enough to get away with being that terrible.
For anyone who for obvious reasons doesn’t want a TMZ article (it was all I saw at the time), here’s an AP article on it.
I thought it was already widely known that he’s a piece of shit.
It was. Rich people just don’t hold other rich people to account until their association brings them negative publicity and potentially reduces their incomes. It’s all good times and easily dismissed when you’re partying with the rockstars though.
I wish a lot more of the people who are employed by pieces of shit like this would leak information to the tabloid media. Maybe the demographics of those at the top of the social hierarchy might start reflecting the demographics of the rest of us if they get enough public shaming.
Well, it is now.
