Wednesday, September 28, 2011

SO PUT ANOTHER DIME IN THE JUKEBOX, BABY: Frequent commenter Chuck writes, “So a case settled, leaving me time to ponder Donna Summer’s inability to garner much Hall of Fame traction and whether it was largely due to genre, which led me to ponder the spectrum of women in rock, from Very Much Rock to Don’t Rock. Very hard to distinguish between rock SOUND and rock ATTITUDE.

"Here’s an attempt to rank 31 data points (this is not a list of ALL women who rock or don’t rock -- the attempt was to fill out the spectrum), from rocking-est to mocking-est. It is imperfect but worthy of discussion. Personally, I found it most hard to figure out where the Lilith crowd fits in. One way to think of this is, “If I’m an annoyingly macho guy, whose concert would I be least embarrassed to be seen at?” Note that where an artist who had a significant solo career and career in a band is listed, her entire career is considered (eg. Natalie Merchant). Here’s the list:"


Very Much Rock

1 Joan Jett
2 Patti Smith
3 Courtney Love
4 The Pretenders/Chrissie Hynde
5 Pat Benatar
6 Heart /Wilson sisters

Kind of Rock
7 Tina Turner
8 Steve Nicks
9 The Go Gos
10 Blondie/Deborah Harry

Rocking Less and Less
11 Avril Lavigne
12 Gwen Stefani
13 Aimee Mann
14 Tracy Chapman
15 Natalie Merchant
16 Sarah McLachlan
17 Tori Amos
18 Annie Lennox
19 The Bangles

Have Aspects Of Rock Attitude But Don’t Really Rock Often Or At All
20 Cher
21 Janet Jackson
22 Lady Gaga
23 Madonna

Don’t Rock Much At All And Don’t Really Have Decreasing Aspects Of Rock Attitude
24 Beyonce
25 Britney Spears
26 Donna Summer
27 Whitney Houston
28 Mariah Carey

Don’t Be Silly, They Simply Don’t Rock
29 Wilson Phillips
30 Celine Dion
31 Barbra Streisand 

36 comments:

  1. So I have no problem with the Hall eligibility of anyone from 1-23.  Beyonce too, for that matter. It's the rest of that group that I can't figure out in terms of "rock."  (And no one from 11-19 is ever getting in.)

    I also would move Gwen Stefani up a group.

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  2. The person with the strongest case in 11-19 is probably McLachlan, with her founding/organization of Lillith getting her "influencer" points, 5 Platinum Albums (Fumbling Toward Ecstacy, Wintersong, Surfacing, Afterglow, Mirrorball), but a weak singles record (only "Adia" and 'Angel" went top 10).  She'd be a lock in Canada, though.

    Madonna's already in, so does anyone worthy above that line get in?  And there's an argument for moving her up a group as well, since she's played with rock/folk stuff ("Don't Tell Me") and done girl group tributes ("Cherish").

    The real test is Mariah Carey in a couple of years, who has an incredible statistical record in terms of record and singles sales/airplay, longevity, and substantial critical acclaim (at least in the early years), despite a lack of "rock."

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  3. Plus there's the Sasha Frere-Jones argument on Carey:

    "<span>Her big ballads—“Vision of Love,” along with No. 1 bromides like “Thank God I Found You” and “My All”—appeal to people who otherwise don’t listen to pop. These are people who probably also like Andrea Bocelli and Céline Dion, singers who avoid the sexual tug of the blues and the glorious noises of rock and hip-hop in favor of tremulous expressions of chaste emotion. Yet Carey, more than any other musician, established R. & B. and hip-hop as the sound of pop. One of her frothiest and most delightful No. 1 hits was “Dreamlover” (1993), which features a loop of The Emotions’ 1971 soul tune “Blind Alley,” a song made famous by the rapper Big Daddy Kane, who sampled it in his 1988 track “Ain’t No Half-Steppin’. ” Beginning in 1995, rappers started performing guest verses on Carey’s songs. Suddenly, people who would cross the street to avoid listening to hip-hop were bringing rappers into their house, under the cover of Carey. It became standard for R. & B. stars, like Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses. And young white pop stars—including Britney Spears, ’N Sync, and Christina Aguilera—have spent much of the past ten years making pop music that is unmistakably R. & B."</span>

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  4. Chuck9:17 AM

    The 11-19 group (regardless of whether it is perfectly composed, I'm talking about the concept, really) is weak in terms of Hall potential.  Maybe I should have stuck Carole King (who is in the Hall, I believe on the basis of her writing) into that group. 

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  5. "<span>no one from 11-19 is ever getting in": you don't think Annie Lennox has a chance? I'm not saying that VH1 is an expert, but in their 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll in 1999, she placed #9, above Debbie Harry and Stevie Nicks. On voice alone, she should be considered, but her gender performance has always been as interesting (if not more challenging and intelligent) as Madonna's. In that same special, Marianne Faithfull says, "Annie gets a gold star, doesn't she?" Yes, she does.</span>

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  6. I love this list, and give full credit for the acknowledgment that the list was not intended to be exhaustive.  Yet, my favorite rockers are not on it:  Sleater Kinney.  This excuses providing a link to a Sleater Kinney video, as well as several viewings of said video.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYAitpi6Dhg

    Carrie Brownstein is my guitar hero.  Gawd...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtSxrViNKI&feature=related

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  7. I am an Annie Lennox fan. I think her voice is breathtaking, and her live performances are captivating. There's just not enough of it.

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  8. Andrew9:46 AM

    Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss's new band, WILD FLAG, with Mary Timony and Rebecca Cole is very excellent and rocking, too. 

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  9. Seriously, I'll stop, but Eurythmics + solo (14), she has more albums than Madonna (11) and as many as Debbie Harry + Blondie (14); we can argue over the quality of all of those albums, but there's plenty of material there.

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  10. That Madonna count is a little misleading, since in addition to the 11 studio albums, there's "I'm Breathless" and "Who's That Girl," which are Madonna albums that happen to be soundtrack albums, and the "Evita" film soundtrack, and six greatest hits collections, with Immaculate Collection being a Diamond Album.

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  11. Benner11:04 AM

    Tina Turner is at 1.

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  12. I would not argue against that.  Chuck and I were emailing about this, and I think you have to do era adjustments to a certain extent -- how much did [X] rock compared to others of her time and genre?  I think Cher gets a similar bump.

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  13. Benner11:51 AM

    She did marry Gregg Allman . . .

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  14. Devin McCullen11:51 AM

    I'm not saying this to argue for them as a HoF contender, but having The Bangles 10 spots below The Go-Gos is just ridiculous.  "Hazy Shade of Winter" and "In Your Room" rock more than any of the Go-Gos hits.  I know "Eternal Flame" was their biggest hit and doesn't rock at all, but that song sticks out from the rest of their work like a sore thumb.

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  15. FWIW, women in the Hall as performers?

    Supremes (Ross, Ballard, Wilson, Ross is not in as a solo artist)
    LaVern Baker
    Tina Turner (as part of Ike and Tina Turner, not a solo artist)
    Ruth Brown
    Etta James
    Cynthia Robinson and Rosie Stone (as part of Sly and the Family Stone)
    Martha and the Vandellas
    Gladys Knight & The Pips
    Grace Slick (as part of Jefferson Airplane)
    The Shirelles
    Maureen Tucker (as part of Velvet Underground)
    Joni Mitchell
    Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks (as part of Fleetwood Mac, not as solo artists)
    Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips (as part of Mamas and the Papas, not as solo artists)
    Mavis and Yvonne Staples (as part of Staples Singers)
    Dusty Springfield
    Bonnie Raitt
    Brenda Lee
    Tina Weymouth (as part of Talking Heads)
    Debbie Harry (as part of Blondie, not as a solo artist)
    The Ronettes
    Patti Smith
    Madonna
    Agnetha Faitsklog and Anni-Fried Lynstad (as part of ABBA)
    Darlene Love

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  16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvg2Dcr7AFk
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE68oNj2yPI&feature=related

    Watch those, then reconsider.  Further:

    "Hazy Shade" is a cover.  Manic Monday was written by some other guy, maybe Adam can remember.  The Go Gos could actually play their instruments well.  Eternal Flame and Walk Like an Egyptian are serious demerits.  I could go on. 

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  17. Sleater-Kinney is my favorite band as well.  I like Wild Flag (and can't wait to see them again in November) but I still miss S-K.

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  18. Phil took my point. Sleater-Kinney rocks harder than anyone on this list, and there's no shame for any male showing up to one of their concerts. Their penultimate concert before they broke up was in DC, and I was there, perhaps the best concert I ever attended. 

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5583923

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  19. Marsha3:14 PM

    Yeah, I'm not a commenter on most music things, but the idea that Tina Turner is anywhere but at the top of a "women who rock" list is ridiculous.

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  20. Chuck4:33 PM

    I regret that Tina isn't in the top group, and the fact that she isn't higher may be a product of my age, as my first memories of Tina Turner are songs like "What's Love Got To Do With It" and "Private Dancer."  While intellectually I realize she has rocked much harder than that, particularly on an era-adjusted basis, first impressions are hard to overcome.

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  21. Adlai6:43 PM

    Wait, why are we identifying "women who rock" with "not embarrassing macho men"? Ugh.

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  22. J.OConnor6:58 PM

    I've been thinking about this post off and on since lunchtime.  I think the list does a great job of capturing one aspect of "rock and roll":  the part that classic rock radio stations refer to as "music that RAWKS!!!"   I also like Chuck's rubric defining it as music that macho guys aren't embarrased to like.  

    But the list raises a few issues.  First, as Chuck has already recognized by defining "music that rocks" as music for macho guys, this way of categorizing music privileges a masculine view of rock and roll.  I lack any background in feminist or gender theory, so I don't have the vocabulary to expand on this much.  I'll just point out that all six women in the Very Much Rock category (with the possible partial exception of Patti Smith) had careers in which their public persona was explicitly as women who rocked as hard as men, who were one of the boys.  Yet, when I think of women who belong in the RRHofF on the first ballot, the indisputable top two are Aretha Franklin and Joni Mitchell, neither of whom would score above a 13 in these rankings.  (Generously scored,  Aretha might be as high as 13 for Chain of Fools, but Mitchell rocks way less than Britney Spears).

    Second, I think the list evinces a strange prejudice against dance music.  I don't have an encyclopediac knowledge of the artists at issue, but I don't intuitively understand why Aimee Mann and Sarah McLaughlin rock several categories harder than Britney Spears, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, or Donna Summer.  The Mann/McLaughlin songs I know are all slow to mid-tempo balads: Voices Carry, Save Me, Angel, I Will Remember You.  To my ears, none of them "rock" anywhere near as hard as Oops I Did It Again, Single Ladies, Nasty Boys, or Bad Girls,  Is it that none of the latter artists play their own instruments?  I'm honestly curious.

    I think the broader problem is that the characteristic captured by the "who rocks" ranking seems to me to leave out a great deal of the essence of "rock and roll."  Can Bob Dylan, Fats Domino, or the Beach Boys really be said to RAWK?  And if they don't, then there must be core elements of "rock and roll" that aren't captured by the "who rocks" spectrum.

    Finally, going back to the original question that motivated this whole topic -- how can we articulate clear principles that will keep Whitney Houston out of the rock and roll hall of fame -- I was struck by one absence in the list of female RRHF inductees posted by Matt that may hold a key to discovering the needed Whitney principle.   Dionne Warwick is not in the RRHF (nor even on the list of those eligible but passed over), but Dusty Springfield is.  This, despite the fact, that the two covered many of the same songs and had pretty similar careers.  I submit that whatever the Whitney principle is, it can be found in the Warwick/Springfield dichotomy and has something to do with the album Dusty in Memphis.  Perhaps, it's the ellusive quality called "soul." 

    (Although reading this over, I'm uncomfortable with the suggestion that Dionne Warwick doesn't have soul and isn't worth of the RRHF, which I think might be wrong on both counts, however accurate as to Whitney Houston).

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  23. Chuck8:14 PM

    Well this is fascinating.  And working backwards, there is no doubt that what inspired this was not so much "what doesn't embarrass macho men"  but "who do I suspect the RRHOF would have the least problem admitting from a genre standpoint."  My point being that, to me, personally, Donna Summer is a first ballot RRHOF inductee -- if the Queen of Disco isn't in, then no dance/disco types should be in.  This isn't a ranking of "who should be in the RRHOF."  Perhaps it is a ranking of "who has the most to overcome in terms of genre/style prejudice" in order to get into the RRHOF.  It is a list of prejudices.  So of course it exhibits prejudice.

     I disclosed up front that I had difficulty figuring out where the Lilith crowd fits in.  I considered ranking them below the dance crowd.   Perhaps this really only boils down to two hard questions:  Where does disco/dance music fit into the RRHOF, and do quiet/artsy/singer-songwriters belong in the Hall?

    As you observed, when constructing the list, I think i disclosed the idea of the gender bias and I was actually more concerned that there is also a racial bias.  Both of these things correlate closely in their impact on the list, I think, although from some sort of ultra feminist perspective, I am definitionally unable to analzye that.  Perhaps a racial bias motivates putting the Lilith types ahead of the dance music?  That is, perhaps both groups have equal difficulty in getting past a genre/style prejudice held at the RRHOF.

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  24. Chuck8:15 PM

    Ugh indeed.  See my comment below in response to the esteemed Mr. O'Connor. 

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  25. Eric J.8:38 PM

    I think the GoGos get bonus points for their infamous backstage video as well.

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  26. J.OConnor8:45 PM

    I just wanted to clarify that I didn't mean to suggest that you or the list were in anyway prejudiced or that it's prejudiced to rank artists (or female artists) on the spectrum of "who rocks."  That's definitely one of the axes (plural of axis?) that defines the space that is rock and roll.  And, as I said, I really like your "macho man" definition; it's concise, clever and accurate and I never understood you (or anyone else here) to be identifying with the macho men in question.  My personal (and far more sexist) method for determining women who RAWK is asking who looks better performing in leather pants (a method which ensures the #1 ranking for Tina Turner).

    I also share your appreciation for Donna Summer as a first ballot inductee and your questioning of how the rock and roll canon deals with genres outside of mainstream rock.  I agree that the canon creators seem more comfortable with the singer-songwriter strand of rock and roll (epitomized by RRHF inductee James Taylor) than with disco or dance music.  One possible explanation is that most of what one might think of as the "core" members of a rock and roll hall of fame -- Elvis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan -- are closer to singer-songwriter rock than they are to dance music.   That's not to say that this is correct or that I agree with it.  To me, James Brown belongs in any core group of hall of famers and from him springs all dance music.

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  27. isaac_spaceman8:21 AM

    I was also going to say Sleater-Kinney before Phil beat me to it, and I would add Neko Case .  But I also kind of take issue with the point of this list in the first place, because there is no shortage of women who rock.  Go listen to Ida Maria's "Bad Karma" and then tell me again about how penislessness promotes rockinglessness. 

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  28. isaac_spaceman8:24 AM

    So if your first impression of Metallica were "Nothing Else Matters," you would put them in the category of "mopey power-balladeers"? 

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  29. isaac_spaceman8:28 AM

    The Go-Gos were founded in the middle of the LA punk scene of the late 1970s.  They may have evolved to the point where their own members were medicating themselves out of self-loathing, but that has to count for something.  The Bangles were never anything other than polite forgettable pop.  When your rockingest song is a less-rocking -- that is, watered down -- version of a Simon and Garfunkel song, you have no cause to complain about your position on a rocking list. 

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  30. isaac_spaceman8:29 AM

    Etta James motherfucking rocks.  Forget about "At Last."  Listen to "In the Basement" or "I Prefer You." 

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  31. Charles Carmicheal9:34 AM

    Where is Yoko Ono?

    OK,  just kidding, well a little, she certainly gets a lot of critical play in addition to her role as Rock n Roll Widow Number One.

    Have to agree that Tina Turner should be in the Rocks group just for Proud Mary and how she makes a sequin dress shake regardless of her age......

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  32. Jim Bell12:17 PM

    So, I think there is an important person missing from Category 1, and I think she rocks really really hard, and her name be Melissa Etheridge.  Love her.  Her Live version of born to run at the Concert for New York is all the proof anyone should ever need.  Apologies to Adam C., if he isn't on board.  Also her cover of Cry Baby and Piece of My Heart with Joss Stone is wow wow wow.  Thank you, that is all.

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  33. Adam C.3:17 PM

    Jim, I am fully on board. Not only does she rawk hard, she also seems to have kicked cancer's ass. Plus, her MTV Unplugged duet with Bruce on Thunder Road is, as I have said before in these parts, divine.

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  34. Gleemonex3:45 PM

    Gotta put Kim Deal in the first category.

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  35. As well as the absolute best cover of "You Can Leave Your Hat On."

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  36. Yep, Melissa rocks in all spellings and pronounciations of the word.  Definite category 1.

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