This just in: An aging white dude has issues with talented youths.
Today in Get Off My Lawn news, Don Henley is still not cool with Frank Ocean. And, for good measure, he isn’t the biggest Kanye West fan out there, either. But let’s first start with Henley v. Ocean.
Henley’s beef with Ocean goes a few years back, when Ocean released “American Wedding” on the Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape, which featured a sample of The Eagles’ Hotel California. Henley threatened to sue Ocean, saying, “I heard it. I was not impressed. He needs to come up with his own ideas and stop stealing stuff from already established works.” Henley also wondered if Ocean understood copyright law, essentially rhetorical musings by Henley because he obviously feels like Ocean doesn’t.
“Mr. Ocean doesn’t seem to understand US copyright law,” Henley said in 2014. “Anyone who knows anything should know you cannot take a master track of a recording and write another song over the top of it. You just can’t do that. You can call it a tribute or whatever you want to call it, but it’s against the law. That’s a problem with some of the younger generation, they don’t understand the concept of intellectual property and copyright.”
Fast-forward a little more than a year later, and the Eagles’ drummer is still throwing shade at Ocean and still waving his fist in the air angrily. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Henley held fast to his claims that these damn kids these days are failing to grasp even the most basic tenements of copyright law.
“Some of these young kids have grown up in a world that doesn’t understand or respect copyright material or intellectual property. They look at songs as interactive playthings. I didn’t think he was cool. I thought he was a talentless little prick. And I still do.”
Ouch, Don Henley. A “talentless little prick?” Someone obviously hasn’t heard Channel Orange.
As far as growing up in a particular world, other parts of the interview cover Henley’s upbringing and the influence that “black music” had on his career, as well as the influence R&B had on The Eagles. But hey now, that was different. All of those covers Henley played in his formative years, kicking around various dives and haunts in Texas were… I don’t know, different or something.
Let’s move on.
Also in the interview, Henley took some shots at future presidential candidate and current fashion mogul Kanye West, who surprise, surprise, Henley is not a fan of. West has been known to dance on the fine law of what is cool and isn’t cool with copyright laws, and you best be sure if he went so far as to spit in the face of said laws with either an Eagles song or a Henley solo jawn, Henley would have beef with Yeezus, as well.
“I’d be just as pissed off. I don’t like him, either. He won’t be president. He’s either incredibly arrogant or incredibly insecure, or some combination of the two.”
He won’t be president?
Excuse me?
Stay tuned on this one. I’m sure Henley has plenty to say about hotshot young baseball players not respecting baseball’s unwritten laws, the complicated cellphones we use nowadays, and the lack of drive-in movie theaters in America.
(Via Stereogum)
