Life As We Know It is Over...MADONNA is now in
The ROCK AND ROLL Hall of Fame!

What the HELL? MADONNA???? Nothing she's ever sung brings the concept of Rock and Roll to mind...Madonna is probably one of the most adept women ever as far as marketing herself goes...and she needs all the help she can get, because she ain't that good looking and her voice is barely serviceable. Plus, she revealed that she took the drug "Ecstasy" while touring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building once upon a time. If she were any kind of rock and roller at all, she would've used acid or grass instead, ha ha...

I'm kidding there, but I maintain that NOTHING about MADONNA (who's making her 'point' in the picture at left) comes even CLOSE to even remotely having anything to do with the spirit of rock and roll. She's more a singing Marilyn Monroe poster than anything else. When her popularity began to wane, she published a table-top book called "SEX" which features more parts of her than I'd ever wanna see; she musta been thinking, "you've seen the best of me, now see the rest of me!" Uhhh, no thanks...my reaction to the decision to include Madonna in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? PFFFFFFTHBT!!!!! Kinda makes me wanna ask, "How much did she pay the committee that approved her induction?"

Madonna's done basically everything she can to stay timely, current and relevant, and like a really bad case of the flu, she just won't go away. I've heard her music, and her bland brand of dance-pop is basically just generic manufactured musical garbage with a whole bunch of synthesizers and big echoey electronic drumbeats tossed in for good measure. It's awful stuff. Madonna is to Rock Music what Martha Stewart is to Homemaking. Bland and fashionably irrelevant.

Other inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame include THE VENTURES (great group that never ever sung a note); they had big hits such as "Walk Don't Run", "Ram-Bunk-Shush", "Hawaii Five-O" and others. On the back of their albums, could be found the information, "The Ventures Proudly Play Mosrite Guitars". Well, all except the drummer, anyway... "Walk Don't Run" is one of my favorite-ever instrumentals; afterwards, they came out with "Walk Don't Run '64", which was drastically different, but equally as good. They shoulda recorded a different version of that song every year! They also recorded one album as the backup group for singer Bobby Vee, which turned out to be really great. Aside: Bobby Vee also recorded an album with The Crickets, Buddy Holly's old group. (By that time, Buddy was in Rock and Roll Heaven.)

Also making it into the Hall was JOHN "Cougar" MELLENCAMP, whose songs All Began To Sound The Same; "Small Town" was the last record of his I paid any attention to. My favorite song of his is "Pink Houses", a great song of deprivation and alienization; Mellencamp has always been kind-of a "Rock And Roll Working Class Hero", remaining true to his Midwestern roots. He had a heart attack a few years ago. Most rockers have addiction problems. Mellencamp's biggest problem is Cholesterol. And even tho I don't listen to him anymore, he wrote the most profound rock and roll lyric that Anyone Will Ever Write: "Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is gone". (from 'Jack and Diane') That is SOOOOO true.

Also inducted, THE DAVE CLARK FIVE , whose lead singer died a couple of weeks ago. The "DC5" were at one time one of the greatest threats to The Beatles in terms of popularity, back in the time when it seemed like a different "British Invasion" Rock and Roll group was #1 on the charts each week. One of the more interesting times in music for me, because a whole lot of American Bands formed at that time, and for a while, music was creative, interesting and FUN, with British and American bands sending their musical messages across the "pond" and back. Anyway, the DC5 was unusual in that their group leader was the DRUMMER. You don't see THAT very often. My favorite song of theirs? "Bits and Pieces", where the whole BAND actually stomps on the floor of the recording studio. STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

This next inductee is someone you prob'ly never heard of: LEONARD COHEN, who's written some crafty songs (none of them hits), and he made a few records in the '70s to prove to the masses that He Could Not Sing At All. One of Cohen's most famous songs is "Suzanne", with the line, "you touch her perfect body with your mind" before getting lost in all kinds of pseudo-metaphoric imagery...I've heard some Cohen's albums, and they are all very morose and intellectually morbid in a really depressing kind-of way. And the only person in History whose voice is Worse than Leonard Cohen's is Kris Kristofferson...Cohen can't carry a "tune in a bucket"; Kristofferson CAN'T FIND the bucket. When Kristofferson sings, he sounds like a dying man in the middle of the Mojave desert, croaking out one last request: "water...Water...WATER..."

Finally, you won't know these inductees at all...KENNY GAMBLE & LEON HUFF , slick producers of "The Philadelphia Sound"..."Me and Mrs. Jones" by Billy Paul (1972) was one of the biggest Philly-Soul hits. They also produced an instrumental hit, "TSOP" (The Sound Of Philadelphia), which was recorded by Philadelphia Musicians under the name "MFSB", which allegedly meant "Mother, Father, Sister and Brother", while others to this day swears it stood for "Mother Fricking Son of a Beach". Another "Philadelphia Sound" hit produced by Gamble-Huff was "Back-Stabbers" by the O'Jays, which actually hit the top of the charts. WHAT THEY DO??? Or perhaps you might remember "When Will I See You Again" by The Three Degrees. G&H produced that one as well. Those were all good songs from the early '70s, recorded on Gamble & Huff's "Philadelphia International" label. I really don't think of this musical style as Rock and Roll, but I suppose if Madonna is "Rock and Roll", so is "Philly Soul". It's hummable; sounds good on the radio.
____________________

Finally, no, she wasn't elected into any hall of fame, but Martha Stewart (mentioned above), who could push a guy off the Golden Gate Bridge and keep that bland generic smirk on her face, is Officially Not On Home Detention Anymore. She's now doing commercials for Macy's. I have to ask, do Real Women in America actually follow any of Martha's stupid homemaking ideas? Pfffffthbt!!!