POP-CULTURE COLUMN: Long live rock, killed by the CIA
By Dan Brown Who killed rock and roll? Turns out it was the CIA. This, according to a theory forwarded by Billy Corgan, lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins. “The industry purposely dialed down the ability of rock stars to have a voice,” he said on his podcast a month ago, as reported by Rolling Stone and other media outlets. He was talking about the end of his band's heyday in the 1990s: “Some people assert that the CIA was involved in all that, again, above my pay grade, but I saw it happen. I did witness it happen.” Corgan was speaking with his fellow 1990s rock star, Courtney Love. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen or heard the whole podcast.) He described how it was MTV, the fondly remembered music channel, that played a key role in rock’s supposed demise. “If you were at MTV or around MTV [in] 1997, ’98, suddenly they decided rock was out, when rock was still very, very high up in the thing and it was replaced by rap, right? Their standards and practices immediately shifted.” Now, I love a crackpot conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but there are much simpler explanations than the Central Intelligence Agency teamed up with MTV – such as Corgan, Love and the rest were making bad music. The bald singer said rock gods were sidelined like it’s a bad thing, but perhaps the music-buying public just got sick of what his band was offering, as can happen with any product. Smashing Pumpkins albums are no different from commodities like hand soap, hubcaps, and sundried tomatoes: They sell for as long as the market demands them. Consumers are fickle yet rational. And perhaps the truth is Corgan and his bandmates could not keep up with the changing tastes of music fans. It’s few musicians who have a career that spans decades. People who want a stable life don’t become rockers. Now, I won’t lie to you. I have rocked out to the Smashing Pumpkins. Not all their songs are mediocre. I particularly remember one day in the spring of 1995 when I was walking across campus on my way to handing in my final assignment of the first year of journalism school at Ryerson University singing “Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known” out loud. I felt elated screaming those lyrics. That Corgan-written song captured my feelings at that moment. Flash-forward all the way to 2026 and the same singer comes off as . . . entitled. Who knows, he could be right. Maybe all the music-industry executives and radio and TV programmers did get together around a big oak table to decide that rap was the new rock. Or maybe, just maybe, later Smashing Pumpkins albums sucked canal water, and rap video drew more advertisers to MTV. By the way, should rappers feel abused that hip-hop, in turn, took over as the dominant form of pop music over rap? Is the secret music cabal responsible for that shift in taste, too, Billy? But back to the CIA’s influence on the Billboard Hot 100. Readers with long memories know this isn’t the first time the American intelligence agency has been accused of meddling in the development of pop music. I mean, wasn’t it convenient at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius at Woodstock, in 1969, that the heavens opened up and the crowd of peace-lovers got soaked with rain? So clearly the decades-old rumours are true: If the CIA and MTV did actually join forces to hurt Billy Corgan’s feelings, then it’s obvious CIA agents seeded the clouds above Max Yasgur’s farm with silver iodide to make it pour on the festival of love, peace and music. Someone in the Nixon Administration wanted all those hippies to go home. Possibly even Tricky Dick himself. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Make the Grammy Winners Perform Right Then and There
By Dan Brown I have a theory on how to save the Grammy Awards. Why does the annual music award show need saving? Because when it aired at the beginning of this month, the televised ceremony drew only 14.4 million viewers, about a million fewer than last year. And last year, it drew about 1.5 million fewer viewers than the year prior to that. So the curve doesn’t look good. But don’t worry. I’ve got an idea that will bring viewers back, lend musicians much-needed credibility, and give the audience what it wants – a heap of authenticity. My strategy can be summed up in a single sentence: Make the winners in each category perform right then and there. That’s right. As soon as a winner in a category such as, say, record of the year, is announced, that person or duo or band would come up on stage. And instead of giving a boring speech or making a political statement, they would perform the song that won them the prize. Then the show moves to the next category. Repeat. So if I had produced the telecast this time, Billie Eilish would have sung her ballad Wildflowers immediately after she was named the winner for song of the year. Which is something everyone wants to see. Now let me answer the million objections that will be raised against this new type of Grammy show. The main one will be how it doesn’t give the winners enough time to prepare for performing live. But that’s kind of the point. Being forced to play an impromptu version of a big hit on the spot will separate the real musicians from the pretenders. It will give musicians bragging rights when they pull off an amazing live version of their song, and will no doubt lead to some immortal, if imperfect, performances. Besides, this will all be done out in the open. Any act that feels it’s not up to performing live with little lead time can skip the ceremony if they get nominated. (Or they could, you know, rehearse.) No one will have a gun to their head. Nominees should consider it a unique opportunity to show they have real chops. There will be no doubts about their success being due to studio wizardry or fancy production. The overall effect will be the public will come to appreciate genuine performers even more. (Naturally, the show would be packaged into a Live at the Grammys playlist and album.) The repeated complaint I hear about the current music industry is that the songs are too processed, they lack soul. I work with young people, the biggest music-consuming demographic, and the one word I hear from them the most is “authenticity.” They are hungering for it. They want more of it. This is exactly what my version of the Grammys would provide. As for what happens if a tune wins in more than one category, that’s a detail that can be worked out. And if the winners feel strongly they need a safety net, the Grammy producers could borrow a backup band from one of the late-night talk shows to help individual winners who aren’t used to performing solo. Besides, aren’t the Grammy winners supposed to be the best the music industry has to offer? This shouldn’t be a problem for them. My scheme would also encourage them not to drink or do drugs before the show, would eliminate embarrassing speeches where the recipient doesn’t know what to say, and would increase viewership by adding an element of genuine unpredictability. This may sound like an outrageous proposition, but at this point what do the Grammys have to lose? Just more viewers, who are already tuning out by the millions. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Go Ahead, Buy Only the Greatest Hits
By Dan Brown Greatest-hits albums have a bad reputation. But sometimes all you need or want from a singer or band is their greatest hits. And I’m here to tell you that’s OK. You may remember the Kids in the Hall sketch in which Bruce McCulloch (as a record-store employee who is just a bit too devoted to the Doors) derides best-of collections as being for a lesser form of music fan. “Greatest-hits albums are for housewives and little girls!” he tells a startled Kevin McDonald. (By albums, I mean all formats of music, whether it’s vinyl, cassette, CD, download or stream. I’m sure McCulloch’s character would hate them all.) The knock on them from “serious” music fans is that they’re a money grab with no artistic credibility. They take little effort to produce and are almost pure gravy for the artist. It’s kind of like a university student recycling an old paper by submitting it to two different professors. By now, they are a rock-and-roll cliche. I don’t know who the first musician was to ever say, “Hey, let’s re-package some of our old numbers and see if we can sell fans the same material a second time,” but acts of a certain generation have all put one out. Your Aerosmiths, Police, U2. You know them. From what I understand, the typical band contract in the old days was for five albums, a live album, and a greatest hits. The best-selling physical album of all time is a greatest-hits collection, the first from the Eagles which, if you believe rock lore, the group’s members didn’t even want to put out because they were “serious” artists. The funny part is, it doesn’t even have their most-recognized song, Hotel California, on it. Speaking of the Eagles, I am a diehard fan of their drummer, Don Henley, but I’m going to give it to you straight: You don’t need to buy/stream all of his solo work. You’ll do just fine getting one of his greatest-hits collections. On the front of one of them, Actual Miles, Henley is dressed as a used-car salesman, which has got to be the most self-effacing album cover ever – he’s equating his greatest hits with a pre-owned car. So much for romance of the music industry. As with Henley, for so many artists isn’t necessary to hunt down every song they put out. Most of us are not completists, and in a world of limited resources we shouldn’t feel bad about that. None of us actually need a boxed set. You’re not a bad person if, like I did, you grab only the Guess Who’s greatest hits and leave it at that. The truly maddening part is when groups leave one of their most crucial numbers off their best-of, just so they can put out a second volume. Maybe it’s guilt from pulling stunts like that that motivates some acts to put a “new” song on their best-of offering. Yet these supposedly fresh takes are usually whipped up in a few hours in the studio, or are alternate takes, or are material that simply didn’t have a home on any other release. Again, laziness is the dominant vibe. The greatest-hits mentality has even spread into other areas of the entertainment world. Canadian fiction writer Alice Munro released My Best Stories in 2009, giving fans a fresh package for work she did long ago. So this holiday season, go ahead. I give you permission to get that greatest-hits package for the music fan on your list. But also get the one you want, as well. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
