Fred Goodman
With the rarest of exceptions, the music industry is a festering slime pit populated by rabid weasels, a soulless corporate machine devoid of morals and compassion and dedicated to the pursuit of the almighty dollar, artistic integrity be damned.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The book opens with his rose-colored recollection of a summer at camp during the early 70s, when rock ‘n’ roll was a “secret language” teenagers could use to suss one another out. “First you’d check to see if the basic language was there–the Beatles, the Stones…Motown and Stax; the San Francisco groups; Dylan,” he writes. “After that you’d probe special interests for signs of sophistication or character flaws. For instance, a passion for a perfectly acceptable but lightweight group like Steppenwolf showed a certain genial rebelliousness but suggested a lack of depth; a girl who listened to Joni Mitchell could probably be talked into bed but you might regret it later….It was, I recall, a remarkably accurate system.
“Nearly 25 years later,” he continues, “much of it spent as a music-business reporter, I’m not sure that secret language still exists.” Goodman goes on to admit that the music was started by blatant careerists–Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis–but contends that Dylan and other 60s heroes shifted rock’s parameters to include “a quest for legitimacy, values, and authenticity.” Rockers borrowed these traits, he posits, from Phil Ochs and other folkies, whom he presents as paragons of artistic integrity.
For all of these reasons, The Mansion on the Hill is a miserable failure as a morality tale. But there’s another way to read the book, and that’s as a sort of business-oriented Hollywood Babylon for the rock world. For sheer entertainment value, Goodman’s book easily outshines other recent exposes, including Bruce Haring’s Off the Charts, Jory Farr’s Moguls and Madmen, and William Knoedelseder’s Stiffed, offering plenty of ammunition for all of those who think that music follows a close second to politics in terms of corruption and careerism.
Goodman charges that Landau virtually remade Springsteen, creating a political and social conscience that wasn’t there before and that, by the time of Born in the U.S.A., proved to be very good for business. “Creatively and financially, Landau’s influence had been profound, providing many of Springsteen’s artistic touchstones and the framework for his new civic and social consciousness,” Goodman writes. “But with Springsteen, it was increasingly difficult to tell what was personal and what was persona. As a performer he was making millions of dollars putting on shows in football stadiums that ended with the benediction ‘Let freedom ring–that’s what we’re here for, even if we have to fight for it every day.’ But pressed on his own sense of civic responsibility by Rolling Stone reporter Kurt Loder, Springsteen couldn’t remember ever voting in an election.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): book cover.
