To the editors:
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Bill Wyman’s comment [“Bringing the Noise: Public Enemy on the Front Lines,” August 31] that “Public Enemy blows every other rock ‘n’ roll band on the planet away,” makes me feel embarrassed for him. I saw P.E. last New Year’s Eve at the World in New York, and it was the worst, most disappointing show I’ve ever seen. After showing up two hours late (at 2 a.m. instead of midnight, in spite of dimmed house lights and flashing stage spots that started at that first second of 1990, creating an atmosphere of anticipation that dragged maddeningly into acute frustration), the “band” then spent the first twenty minutes boring the tired crowd with their desultory, self-serving, self-righteous preaching, including a pointless and moronic tirade against John Wayne (?!).
Wyman seems to have fallen into the trap of scrambling to declare allegiance to the moment’s critical vogue, which is to gush breathlessly over Public Enemy. I question his description of P.E. as a “rock ‘n’ roll band.” (Or as a band, for that matter.) What they are is a group of rappers who orchestrate sound bites, more like sound editors than a band. To my mind, rock and roll means guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, and vocals. Obviously there can be more to it than that, but that bedrock is where the particular category of rock and roll finds its definition. (Just as bluegrass is largely defined by its instruments: guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo; and its inclination toward certain musical intervals and patterns.) Rap isn’t rock. It’s in a category of its own.
Bill Wyman replies:
