On the heels of my rambling post yesterday about the gatekeepers of "good art", I heard an interesting interview today about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The new inductees were just announced and evidently there is some debate as to the worthiness of those inductees. Patti Smith (punk rocker who never sold many albums), Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five(early hip hop) and Van Halen (cheesy 80's band that had ton's of popular success) are all being inducted. I don't have an opinion one way or the other about any of those artists (except maybe Van Halen - give me a break). But, it is interesting to listen to the debate about what is Hall of Fame worthy.
Is public success necessary? It is a popular art form. Does the artist need to be "popular"? What if the artist is popular but their music stinks? Is there a Rock and Roll standard - a definition of some sort of what "good" rock and roll is? Should rap be included? Sounds a lot like the questions I was grappling with yesterday.
Click here to listen to an interview with Patti Smith.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8933119
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3 comments:
Popular, but the music stinks, eh? So, basically you're describing probably over 75% of the music on the radio today, Greg :)! I can't believe you insulted Van Halen!!
Don't worry, I'm not offended. I don't really like them either :).
I've never even heard of those other three you mentioned...
And speaking of you. Disciple Now is this weekend! I'm pretty pumped!! Hope all is well where you're living.
The first picture Joey saw of himself with his new glasses on, he thought "Wow, I DO look like Greg Holmes with these glasses on."
Not only have you been instrumental in the move to Dallas, you've also created a glasses convert.
A youth pastor's work is never done.
I think it's a bit difficult to draw any sort of a "line" separating the "Hall worthy" and not worthy in this case. After all, this is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame we're talking about, not something with objective standards for greatness like baseball's 60 homers, etc. Moreover, since Rock and Roll is pretty much the music defined by achieving popular success while affronting public standards of morality, decency, artistic value, etc. there seems to be no reason why "any" popular rocker shouldn't eventually make it in.
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