Rock, Racism, and Jann Wenner
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Jann Wenner, the co-founder of Rolling Stone, recently opened his mouth and really stepped in it. During a New York Times interview about his new book, he absolutely denigrated the contributions of Black people and women to Rock and Roll.
That was horrible, but not surprising. The entire music industry is plagued by rampant racism and misogyny, with Rock and Roll being among the worst genres for these issues. And Rolling Stone under Jann Wenner played the part of gatekeeper for many years.
New Book, Old Attitudes
Wenner’s book is called The Masters: Conversations with Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen. It contains interviews between him and these seven white, male musicians about Rock and Roll, how it evolved, and its impact on society. The irony is that Wenner’s book is the least Rock and Roll thing possible.
As I’m sure you noticed, there are literally zero women or Black musicians in the book. Why? Well, Wenner was happy to explain. Basically, he said those kinds of artists aren’t his thing and weren’t articulate enough in their music to be included.
First and foremost, fuck you, Jann. That’s the most entitled, arrogant bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. You personally made millions of dollars by talking about these same musicians, but none of them are “articulate” enough to put in your self-aggrandizing book. Sounds about right.
Jann Wenner sees himself as a tent pole of culture, as someone who helped define a generation. He didn’t define it. He wrote about a generation while other people lived and defined it. At best, the man chronicled what other people did and got rich along the way. Musicians like Joni Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix did the real work alongside some of the people in Wenner’s book.
A Rich Tapestry of Racism and Misogyny
The reality of Wenner’s comments about music and culture is that they reflect the truth of Rock and Roll. It has long been an industry publically dominated by white men with people like Wenner acting as artistic gatekeepers. Even as the man descends into his 80s, he’s still trying to say what is and isn’t relevant from a cultural perspective.
Despite what Wenner seems to think, Rock and Roll didn’t change anything. Many of the same societal woes that existed when Rolling Stone magazine debuted in 1967 are still hanging around today. They’ve just morphed into new versions that are somehow both more insidious and more blatant. The fight continues, whether he’s paying attention or not.
There was a time when Rock and Roll might have actually been a movement. Pete Townshend of The Who would be the first to tell you that died out as soon as people realized there was money to be made. Wenner, of course, disputes that diagnosis though that’s likely because he’s one of the people who realized early on there was money to be made.
The comments Wenner made in the New York Times are nothing more than an extension of the racist and misogynistic gatekeeping that’s been going on in Rock and Roll for decades. Even today, someone like Wenner is still telling these musicians they don’t measure up to an imaginary benchmark he basically pulled out of his own ass.
The Hypocrisy of Rock and Roll
Despite the fact that Rock and Roll was built on the work of Black musicians in particular, their contributions have frequently been minimized if not outright ignored by publications like Rolling Stone. Other institutions such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have long been accused of whitewashing Rock music’s history.
That’s probably part of the reason why the board behind the Hall of Fame turfed Wenner within days of the interview hitting the world. It’s hard to keep people from noticing the pervasive racism and sexism in the foundations of everything you’ve built when one of the key players in that system won’t stop admitting to it openly.
Rock and Roll exists because of the contributions of a variety of people over the course of decades. That includes Black musicians, female musicians, and a lot more. But the story people like Wenner have been pushing for decades is that Rock and Roll is whites only.
If Wenner had genuinely apologized instead of issuing a fake public relations apology through his publisher, some good might have been done. But I think we’ve all learned by this point that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, particularly when that dog is a rich white guy with a personal narrative to push.
