1 Klaus Meine is intelligent and articulate. So if you listen to the "Wind of Change" podcast, and I recommend that you do, they eventually confront Klaus Meine regarding the CIA's theoretical participation in the creation of the Scorpions song. Now living through the eighties, the only "metal" band that really got respect was Guns N' Roses, whose credibility has been eviscerated by Axl Rose's facelift and the squandering of the band's recording impact through delay and... As for the rest of the acts... It ended up being a formula. Now some, like Van Halen, had success before MTV. But do we consider Van Halen metal anyway? I wouldn't. But if you look at the acts that played the Moscow Music Peace Festival... Skid Row may still be on the road, but sans Sebastian Bach, they've lost what made them rise above to begin with. Then again, despite having model good looks, Bach was a hothead and the whole enterprise looked like adolescence on steroids. (However, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I love "I Remember You.") Mötley Crüe? The band may have had commercial success, but it never got respect. One could actually say their travails were equivalent to a "Real Housewives" franchise. As for a standout track... You don't hear their music played by anybody but fans these days. Ozzy? Somewhere along the line, Ozzy became a legend. Let's leave it at that. And Bon Jovi made that one phenomenal album with Bruce Fairbairn, "Slippery When Wet," who died before they could reunite in the studio, and the band never quite reached that height again, but it sustained, and now "Wanted Dead or Alive" is a veritable standard (helped along by "The Deadliest Catch," although the song was already embedded in the public consciousness). Never underestimate Jon Bon Jovi's good looks, and in addition, the band represented a younger generation, taking over the airwaves from the rockers who'd triumphed in the sixties and seventies. And the Scorpions? They were GERMAN! All I am saying is when you look back at eighties hard rock, you don't think credibility, you think excess and entertainment, good times. However, these acts had light years more impact upon society than any of today's musical stars. That's what I realized listening to this podcast. 2 There are ultimately two issues in the "Wind of Change" podcast, and neither of them involve the question of the CIA's involvement in the Scorpions song. a. How America has turned into Russia b. The techniques and credibility of the CIA. Let me try to nail this... The Russian government trades in conspiracy theories, its goal is to keep its public from knowing, never mind investigating, the truth. It is constantly spreading falsehoods...starting by allowing Putin to escape accountability for the Second Chechen War at the advent of his tenure. When confronted with the concept of the CIA being involved in the creation of the Scorpions' "Wind of Change," a Russian woman who was associated with the band's gigs in the U.S.S.R. doesn't believe it's true for even a second, but does think that the CIA could have spread the rumor. And when this woman continues and the story is played out... Let me get your knickers in a twist. Conventional wisdom is that Covid started from a Chinese lab leak. But this is untrue. No one knows for sure, but the experts still believe it came from a wet market. Yet as soon as Trump got back into office, he had an edict issued declaring the lab leak theory true. And you've got the right wing propaganda machine reinforcing this falsehood. Hell, we saw the president spewing untruths on NBC yesterday, with seeming impunity. America is now the land of conspiracy theories. It is said in this podcast that the Russians hoped that their country would turn into the U.S., they couldn't foresee the U.S. turning into Russia. Which is what has happened. As for the CIA... Untrustworthy and double-dealing, it's a fount of misdirection and misinformation. And you learn all this in the "Wind of Change" podcast, which is not only very informative, but easy to listen to. 3 So, like I stated above, the MTV acts who appeared at the Moscow Music Peace Festival would mainly be considered entertainment. However, listening to this podcast, you can see they had influence. People in Russia trading illegal Scorpions tapes... I ask you, is anybody in an oppressed nation trading Dua Lipa tapes? BTS? Taylor Swift? There's nothing there. Entertainment for acolytes that exists in a walled garden. Those who don't care don't want to care and there's no reason for them to care. Because there's no underlying meaning. It's mostly entertainment for the brain dead. Mindless. Now of course it was different in the sixties. Music moved the culture. But listening to this podcast I was stunned to realize how powerful MTV was. We think of its ability to make musical acts international successes, we tend not to look at its cultural power. It was a youth marketing platform. And even though the acts wanted to get rich, they were all anti-establishment, at least to a degree. They didn't, they wouldn't, comport with cultural norms. Selling out to corporations? Who'd want to be involved with these people? These acts didn't have brand extensions, it was them and their music and that was it. Sure, they sold t-shirts, but they were emblematic of fans' belief in them. It wasn't a rip-off enterprise. And if it wasn't related to music, they didn't do it, they didn't even think of doing it, because they wanted to live the rock and roll lifestyle, before the smartphone camera, when sex and drugs and alcohol...that's why you did it! These were renegades. As soft as they appeared back then, compared to today's acts the gulf is laughable. As for the Scorpions... Klaus Meine speaks English with more thought and analysis than seemingly all in today's Spotify Top 50, AND IT'S HIS SECOND LANGUAGE! We used to hang on the words of our musical heroes. Now we pay attention to their antics, but why would we listen to these commercial nincompoops? 4 So the monoculture is history. MTV took the power of rock and roll and supercharged it. And then mostly abandoned music when it was discovered that half hour programs got much better ratings than endless music videos. You might switch the channel if you saw a video that didn't appeal to you, but that was far less likely if you were watching "Remote Control" or "Cribs" or the rest of the lifestyle product featured. One could actually argue that MTV was a harbinger of today's fame for nothing culture. Then again, MTV did change cultural mores... MTV did more for racial integration/harmony than any book or movie or... It was nearly as positive as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black people were featured right along whites, and they were stars and... There were gay people too, like Pedro Zamora, the "Real World" cast member who died of AIDS. And then it all devolved into the internet era. A Balkanization of power and ideas. All those angry that they could not triumph previously decried intelligence and expertise and planted their own flags and ultimately made the landscape incomprehensible. You can't break an act. Then again, are the acts worth breaking, is the issue that more people are not listening to certain songs or that they don't want to? I'd posit the latter. Which begs the question of whether we're at the tipping point of a renaissance, because the mercenary music business is so far from the ideals and power of songs, it has followed commerce into if not irrelevance, meaninglessness. 5 As for the CIA's involvement in the Scorpions' "Wind of Change," I leave you with this: Bob, I'm asking that my name be withheld because I don't need the "hate mail" that will inevitable follow. I was in the room when Klaus came up with the idea for "Wind of Change". In fact, I was a fly-on-the wall, from its inception to its completion, and I was one of the first two or three people to hear the song. Furthermore, I played keyboards on the demo ... and also on the final album version, recorded at Keith Olsen's Sound City Studios in California. This "CIA" thing is preposterous! Ridiculous! Anyone who claims otherwise wasn't there! There's a great story about a fan once approaching George Harrison, and saying: "I have a rare bootleg recording of The Beatles rehearsing. Would you like me to make you a copy?". And George replied (try to imagine his laconic Liverpool accent), "I don't need to hear it ... I was THERE!". Well ... I was there when "Wind of Change" was written and demo'd ... in my home studio! I can say, with certainty -- I do not recall any CIA agents being present! -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
