King Kaufman's Sports Daily
A Hall of Fame debate worth having. Plus: Vasectomy madness in Oregon. And: Billy Crystal suits up.
Read more: Sports, Madonna, Music, Baseball, Billy Crystal, Major League Baseball, Hall of Fame, King Kaufman, Sports Daily, MLB
March 12, 2008 | Letter writer mynamehere -- I'm thinking that's not a real name -- writes:
King, I know you've mentioned you're a fan of the Monkees...
Let me just stop mynamehere there and say this: Uh, yes, I've said that.
Enjoy this story?Thanks for
your support....so I was just wondering. Yesterday Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Monkees are still waiting for a little well-earned cred. What do ya think?
I love that it's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Back when I was aware there was such a thing as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I used to call it the Rock and Also the Roll Hall of Fame.
To steal a joke from, I think, "M*A*S*H," the instrument has yet to be devised that can detect my interest in the question of who is in the Rock and in Addition to the Rock Don't Forget the Roll Hall of Fame. It's like the baseball Hall of Fame has gotten to be in that regard.
But I'll debate anything, and I would have to say Madonna's contributions to popular music and so on and so forth (both rock and roll, in other words) exceed those of the Monkees, much as I love me some Monkees. I guess you could call it a peak vs. career value question, though it's really not much of a question. Madonna wins on both. She had a bigger flurry of bigger hits, and then she lasted forever.
"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" is, in my opinion, the perfect rock, combined with roll, record. I understand I might be the only person who thinks this, although I also understand I'm about to get 4,000 e-mails from people who think exactly this. But I don't think a person without my particular quirk could put "Like a Prayer" next to "Steppin' Stone" and find it lacking.
And Madonna, though she looked like a peak-only performer at the start -- you won't believe this, kids, but she used to get lumped in a lot with Cyndi Lauper -- put together that long, hugely successful career, inventing and reinventing herself countless times.
She's inner circle. She's Stan Musial or something. The Monkees? Vince Coleman comes to mind. Pretty spectacular there for a little while, but not the same thing at all.