This week, L.A. Weekly posted a list graciously entitled, 'The 10 Biggest Classic Rock Douchebags.' And what better to drive traffic to their website than to skewer some legends? Sacred rock cows such as John Lennon, Carlos Santana and Bruce Springsteen – all of whom made the Top Five.
Author Jonny Whiteside starts out the top 10 with a stab at the Grateful Dead‘s Jerry Garcia (a drug addict whose "guitar was always listless, flabby and aimless"), Bob Dylan ("a serial plagiarist"), John Fogerty (a master of "sanitized bubblegum blues and all around douchery"), and Lou Reed (a pretentious "chronic dullard").
Then there's David Crosby, whose "appalling legacy of faux-folk rock epitomizes the worst of hippie-era dreck." Whiteside describes Bruce Springsteen as "a lifeless groaner who hypocritically spices up the most clichéd, meathead masculinity with a pathetic drizzle of Woody Guthrie-damaged, nakedly opportunistic "social conscience." (Okay, Have to admit I agree with him on that one.)
Producer Phil Spector gets roasted for his "rotten, overdone music." Whiteside says, "The so-called 'Wall of Sound' brought nothing but an unwelcome, needlessly grandiose fog to pop music and did nothing whatsoever to advance rock ‘n’ roll. (Umm, yeah. Not to mention the sh*tty job he did with most of the Let It Be album.)
John Lennon is accused of being an abusive potential racist and "a second rate pop hack," while Santana is a predictable guitarist-turned-footwear mogul. Frank Zappa, for his part, tops the list due to his alleged status as an inveterate loudmouth who’s revered for his music despite being "an overstimulated, unfocused megalomaniac who wanted to come off as smarter than you."
You can read the full article here. Then leave your comments below. Flame on!
-Spencer