A Bad Reputation... or Something

Tim Blair brings us news that Joan Jett, rock goddess in good standing, is pissed. Rolling Stone magazine's latest Women In Rock feature has lots of women, but little rock. As Jett puts it in an open letter to RS on her website (scroll down to see it):

I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what i have to say is really quite simple: You guys are completely retarded.

By RS standards, Rock is no longer a style of music but a trendy costume to be whipped up by expensive stylists and slapped onto the latest pop tart barbie doll. Give a girl some tight pants and a spiky bracelet and POOF! She ROCKS!

A brief look at the RS.com feature she speaks of gives proof that the magazine's editors are indeed retarded. Britney Spears? Nelly Furtado? Mandy More? Sharon freaking Osbourne?!? What does the word "Rock" mean to these auto-fellating marketing poofs? Stevie Nicks, whose last meaningful contribution to music took place years before my birth, made the list, right alongside the Britney of pseudo punk, Avril Lavign.

What about the Donnas? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The Distillers? A mag like RS has the power to shine important light on groups like these--instead they are afterthoughts, and that valuable spotlight is wasted on the same overexposed pop princesses WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK.

My sentiments exactly. And what about Bikini Kill, or the Hissyfits, or a million other good female rock acts that no one ever hears about. Rolling Stone has always dealt in the pop world, which is fine and all, but calling these prefab performers rock is insanely off-base.

Jett is entirely justified in her rage over being passed over. She was not just an amazing female act, she was an amazing rock act period. Have these clowns even heard I Love Rock And Roll before Britney butchered it? Bad Reputation? Or how about the Blackheart version of Crimson And Clover? And her recent tour in Afghanistan to support our troops? Oh, I could write a list of Jett's mighty accomplishments, of how she's influenced and completely rocked-out two generations of musicians and fans, but these swine would be too busy reviewing Alanis Morissette's latest whining opus to notice any real rock.

But this complete lack of taste or knowledge should be no surprise to anyone who has watched RS collapse into irrelevance over the last decade. Who reads Rolling Stone any more? Not me. Face it editor-boys, you're printing the equivalent of Tiger Beat for emotionally retarded adults.

Oh, and, from the sounds of this letter, Ms. Jett needs to start up a blog...

Update: As Jessa points out in the Blogcritics comments, I suck. The letter was not written by Jett herself, but by a fan, and Jett just posted it to her site. I can't remember the attribution at the end being there yesterday, but hey. Regardless, it still speaks the brutal and honest truth about RS's asstastic march forward...

Also Posted to Blogcritics

 

Posted by Captain Mojo at November 24, 2002 09:44 PM | TrackBack