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I’ve made this candid confession before: as an idiotic 13 year old, I actually went through a phase when I thought Ted Nugent was a better guitar player than Jimi Hendrix. Eventually, as I acquired a bit more perspective on things rock-ular, I realized how stupid that was. One of the catalysts for my critical re-evaluation of Uncle Ted had nothing to do with how fast he could go “tweedlee-tweedlee-tweedlee-tweeee” on the guitar. Rather, it was a single line from one of his songs, “Free For All.” In it, avowed drug-shunner Nugent boasted: “Stakes are high, and so am I…”
Even as a 13 year old, I smelled a rat. It was certainly “cool” to make claims about how high you were back then, and — had it been anybody else — this lyric would have just been another effort at achieving fringed buckskin jacket and mirrored shades status. But the Nuge was different — he was the first “straight-edge” rocker, and here he was, bragging about how high he was. Just to sell more records! Hypocrisy!
This got me thinking about other rock star hypocrisies. I’m sure you can think of a few, and I know we’d all like to hear about them. I’d like to believe our musical heroes and heroines say what they mean and mean what they say, 100 percent of the time. To be painfully honest, though, I’m not sure that’s always the case. I think it’s time we brought these all-too-human shortcomings into clear — and perhaps brutal — focus. We need some tough love. How have your heroes let you down? How have they displayed hyprockrisy?
I look forward to your responses —
HVB
Cobain: “…and I swear that I don’t have a gun”
Nuge was high on life.
Without getting into lame backstory betrayals, like “John Lennon was a multimillionaire singing about the working class!” or “Oh my god, Joe Strummer was the son of an MP!” – things I can’t recall doing with artists I love – I’m drawing a blank, Hrrundi. Glad to hear that one instance of Nuge’s hiprockrisy (awesome term – someone’s gotta have more to add to this thread so that we can add the term to the Glossary) straightened you out…a bit:)
Stryper
Those examples you share aren’t so lame, Mod. I think Paul Weller’s been guilty of more than his share of hyprockrisy in a similar way. All those political songs about working men, and dude hasn’t held a job in his entire life.
There have got to be more. Surely Paul McCartney is guilty of *some* hyprockrisy! That whole “I’m just a regular bloke with a big fluffy dog, down-to-Earth values and a farmer’s common sense” thing just doesn’t co-exist with, a.) being a Beatle; b.) being a multi-trilionaire; c.) being more avant-garde than John Lennon.
Was Elvis guilty of hyprockrisy? That’s an interesting question to ponder. I bet townsmen Mwall and BigSteve would have some thoughts on that one.
Oh, and… having actually seen them in concert, I can fully agree with cdm’s Stryper call-out!
How about Roger Waters railing against war and fascism on The Wall, while warring with his bandmates and acting like a dictator?
I can’t really think of a way Elvis was guilty. His was more a case of unresovable contradictions.
I don’t think he lives there anymore, but when it was discovered that Morrissey was living in L.A. some people were really outraged.
No, I’m standing by the lameness of hiprockractic accusations regarding rock’s “Working Class Heroes.” Someone’s got to give voice to working people, and it’s usually not a fellow working person. For one thing they’ve got to work. For another they don’t have the luxury and/or bravery to stand outside their condition, unless we’re talking about Seger. I feel like Lennon, Weller, Strummer, et al are doing the work of artists. I even have to give The Boss His due on that level as much as I often wish for some defining moment of hiprockrisy to bring Him tumbling off the pedastals His fans have put Him.
For me to condemn a rocker for hiprockrisy I need to have believed in what they’re about on the level you once believed in Nugent. I feel for the 13-year-old HVB, man.
I’ll keep thinking about it, believe me.
As a guy who almost never writes love songs, here’s a blanket hiprockrisy that I’m always willing to pull out when accused by the love of my life for not being romantic enough to write her love songs: I call hiprockcrisy on songwriters who write a lot of love songs yet can’t keep an actual relationship for more than 3 months! Perhaps, like artists who’ve been married a half dozen times, they have more experience with the feelings of “falling in love,” but there comes a time when the artist needs to SHOW ME THE LOVE!
Hiprockrit!
(That feels good.)
Elvis was certainly no hypocrite. Like Pete Townshend, he was more of a contradiction.
TB
Like BigSteve said…
TB
NOW you’re firing on all cylinders, Mod! Good one! Also, kudos to Oats for identifying a very specific example of hirockrisy in Roger Waters.
I know John Denver is not exactly rock, but remember when this Rocky Mountain High environmentalist got caught installing his own underground strategic gasoline reserve on his property during the 70s oil crisis?
Oh god, that crushed the admiration I had for Denver, BigSteve!
Was Elvis guilty of hyprockrisy?
a white kid who rose to the top playing what was considered black music while hating black people? that’s pretty fuckin hypocritikal.
for me, that goes beyond contradiction.
i love Elvis man, but he was a straight up southern racist.
I beg to differ with you, Shawn. I think the whole Elvis was a racist thing has been overblown. Of course, I didn’t know him personally…
http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/peter_guralnick_elvis_racist.shtml
TB
I don’t think rock heroes singing about the working man is hyprockrisy. You can’t help it if your songs sell; you’re not going to give all the money back.
Put it this way: Finding out that Prince only meant that sex-shall-set-you-free for himself? THAT’S hyprockrisy. Weller? Lennon? McCartney? That’s something else, and it may not be cool, but it’s different.
Yeah, I don’t buy the Elvis racist thing. What makes you say so, shawnkilroy?
TB, thanks a lot for posting the link to that Guralnick piece on accusations of Elvis’ racism. I had no idea that had any traction beyond the rhetorical power of Chuck D’s dramatically acceptable proclaimation in “Fight the Power.”
Well, I may be a little too close to the whole Elvis thing to give it a proper consideration (I worked at Graceland for almost two years when I lived in Memphis!), but Guralnick is Gospel to me. As far as I’m concerned, if he didn’t write it, then it didn’t happen. His are the best Elvis bios ever written and I encourage any music fan to give them a go. They perfectly balance the man and the myth. They’re not smear campaign a la Goldman, but they also paint the portrait of a very human person with warts and all. I’m currently wading through his bio of Sam Cooke (courtesy of MickAvory), but who’s got time to read these days?
I’ll go to bat for Big E.
TB
I’m with you on Guralnick’s books, TB. I may have asked you this before, but have you ever considered writing up a piece for the Hall on your Graceland experiences? I’m sure, for instance, that Townspeople want to know if you ever took a leak in one of The King’s thrones.
The greatest insult is that you would choose to write this on March 2nd, which everyone knows is the birthday of the one true working man of rock ‘n roll, Eddie Money.
I remember reading an interview with Lennon and he was talking about the song God and the litany therein. He was asked why he said “I don’t believe in Zimmerman” and not “I don’t believe in Dylan” and the answer was something to the effect that “Zimmerman was his name, that ‘Dylan’ was a fake and Bob was a phony for changing his name”. And I thought that was funny coming from a guy who had changed his name to John Ono Lennon.
How about all the hair metal bands in the 80s dressing like transvestite streetwalkers? What was that all about?
Other elements of his career aside, I’ve made the argument before on this list that Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” is guilty of hyprockrisy. Yes, if you pay attention, it’s clearly a song criticizing problems in American life. But it’s too easy not to pay attention to that and just treat it as a fist-pumping anthem to how great America is. Amazing marketing trick, I grant. But the song’s popularity at the time was not due to its message: it was due to the way Springsteen constructed it (intentionally, I’m suggesting; I don’t think he’s a fool) so that it could be a hit through the ease with which listeners can ignore its message.
mwall, I have to disagree with your charge. I think Springsteen was trying to get his message across to an audience who would have been much less receptive had it been recorded (as it originally was) as an acoustic dirge.
Due to its ambiguity (sad verses, big chorus, heavy back-beat) it’s a rather subversive pop song. And its message is more complex than war is bad–rather, it is how the legacy of Vietnam affects what it means to be American, to be “born in the USA”). If people can’t pick up on this or choose not to, that’s not Springsteen’s fault.
I disagree too, mwall. If the recently completed Winter Olympics taught us anything it’s that America really IS the greatest country on earth. We would have been even greater if we could have eked out that win over Canada in the hockey finals, but still, The Boss was right to raise His fist triumphantly.
All joking aside, I think “Born in the USA” is a highly effective song. It gets the listener all pumped up, and then if he or she is paying any attention (ie, is not working for a Reagan re-election campaign), it allows for some piercing moments of analysis and reflection. To me it’s very much the technique that John Fogerty used in CCR’s “protest” songs, as they used to call them. That Nebraska-style treatment I heard Him play live once isn’t even music. He might as well be sitting at Charlie Rose’s desk and pontificating when He approaches His protest songs in that manner.
You guys have disagreed before, but I’m sticking to my guns. Of course it’s not Springsteen’s “fault” when people don’t pick up on the song’s “subversive” elements, nor should the song have been dirge–it can clearly and purposefully be taken two ways, and that’s the hyprockracy here. I don’t say it isn’t effective or even brilliant hyprockracy, because I think it is brilliant and effective. But whoever said that hypocrisy of any kind was necessarily dumb and ineffective?
Good point, mwall. On your closing statements we can agree – but we’ll be sure to disagree next time this point is raised in a new context!
mwall, on that basis, Randy Newman, for writing “Sail Away,” must be the biggest hyprockrit, ever.
Absolutely, Good Doctor.
Abstainer Gene Simmons wailing….
“It’s cold gin time again, you know it’ll always win”.
Ok, I know Ace wrote the song. How come Ace never sang this one.
U2 for practically bankrupting Negativland and their label, SST, with a lawsuit over Negativland’s hilarious send-up of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Ted was high on “NUGE”!!! not drugs!
dr john, we have a WINNER for most hiprockritical act ever!
Aren’t the biggest hyprockcrites since Stryper Creed?
Man, I feel dirty just typing that.
achieving an elevated state doesn’t always involve drugs. It could come from playing a hollow body gibson or shooting an arrow into the side of a deer.
Welcome nimrod. But imagine playing a hollow body or spearing a deer WHILE doing drugs. Now that’s Nirvana.
A mosquito. My libido.
I call hiprockrisy on The Boss for his Man of The People pose coupled with his obvious control freak reality.
Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are”, written as a birthday present to his first wife, comes to mind. Sounds like somebody should have gone changing just to please him, if they knew what was good for them!