Very probably, nobody should pay attention to Kiss’ Gene Simmons anymore, but unfortunately he can’t close his big mouth and it is printed on serious websites like The Guardian. The latest Simmons’ rant? He is complaining that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is not rock enough: ‘They can run their organization any way they’d like, but it ain’t rock! It just isn’t! If you don’t play guitar and you don’t write your own songs, you don’t belong there’, he said in an interview with radio.com.
Simmons is mad at the organization and accuse them to ‘dilute’ rock & roll and to basically induct anybody: ‘I have no beef with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You go on with your bad self and get more disco artists. Get the Boston Pops Orchestra to be inducted! A long time ago it was diluted. It’s really back room politics, like Boss Tweed. A few people decide what’s in and what’s not. And the masses just scratch their heads. You’ve got Grandmaster Flash in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Run-D.M.C. in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? You’re killing me! That doesn’t mean those aren’t good artists. But they don’t play guitar. They sample and they talk. Not even sing!’
What a prick once again, a prick who has the arrogance to determine what is rock music and what isn’t! He is just an old guy who likes to put things into separate boxes, this is how his primitive mind works at a period where it becomes more and more difficult to make the difference between pop, rock, rap, metal, post-rock,… He puts label, it’s easier for his simple mind and this is how the world makes sense to him: ‘Donna was my next door neighbor for many years, I knew and liked her, she was on my [1978] solo record. But if you asked Donna, ‘What kind of artist are you?’ do you think she would say ‘rock?’ If you asked Madonna, ‘What kind of artist are you?’ do you think she would say, ‘Oh, rock!’ So what they hell are they doing in the Hall of Fame?’
Wasn’t Kiss the biggest rock band in the world? Stupid me who has always thought that ‘I Was Made for Lovin’ You’ was totally glam disco! And how could I forget about ‘Rock & Roll All Nite’ and its ultra poppy chorus? Kiss has never been a rock band they were the Backstreet Boys with big make up and when we look back, they just sound ridiculous. I am sorry but these ‘rock’ songs didn’t age well and are now used as background music for attractions at Universal Studios. Would Gene also want to kick Stevie Wonder or James Brown off the rock and roll of fame because they are more funk than rock? Shouldn’t Simmons know that rock & roll is more an attitude than a genre? But he totally contradicts himself, did he forget what he said in 2013 when asked to comment on Kanye West declaring he was the world’s No. 1 rockstar: ‘I know Kanye and he’s playing the game and he’s got you wrapped around his finger because you are talking about him and we’re actually more about guitar and drums. He’s right of course in the sense that rock has become a pale thing to what it once was.’ See, hip hop, rock, even Gene couldn’t make the difference a year ago.
