2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees POLL

All the 70s Rundgren albums are good imo but tbh Very Best of is what I come back to most.

That two-CD set Rhino put out would be perfect if they had included some Utopia cuts (like Very Best Of). But I don't think you're wrong - outside of Something/Anything?, I think The Very Best of is the most listenable Rundgren album you can get.

Got into some back-and-forth about the Foo Fighters with a friend the other night, and while I still wouldn't put them in myself, I've got to say, I had no idea they were as popular as they are (as measured by chart success).

It's gotta be Fela Kuti.

Clemenza, The Edge 102.1 has probably played them twice so far today.

OK, I just checked - they've played them three times since midnight: https://edge.ca/music/

They're definitely a famous rock band but "Everlong" is their only essential song afaic.

I stopped paying attention to the charts in the late '90s, so I remember them as a niche "modern rock" (a really wonderful term that I hope has long been retired) band and not much beyond that. Starting in 2002, they had an album run that went 3/2/3/1/2/1 on Billboard's main album chart. I missed Foomania.

They're definitely a famous rock band but "Everlong" is their only essential song afaic.

Agreed.

guess the latter could stretch toward the zings of Nigerian authoritah, that got him in so much trouble---so: Lenny Bruce as major band leader-?

Lenny Bruce was arrested and blacklisted; the Nigerian army murdered Fela's mother, burned down his studio, and nearly beat him to death. Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison.

“big me” is my foo opo, the rest can go in the dumpster

Yes, I did say after that, Later for all Western comparisons, along the lines that some of us used to make a little bit (and the James Brown comparison was fairly prevalent for a while, early on), just jump into the music, and let the associations ride on, til others take their place, as happens in music---not that many bands over here seemed "influenced" per se, but he was and is certainly a source of refreshment and inspiration.

To me, Rundgren is most interesting for his inspiration and influence on other artists. Over on The Band. thread, We've been discussing his experience in producing Stage Fright, and I said:
"Rick and Levon liked him enough to play on one of the songs on Runt, though. Didn't know this! So they were in on TR's window of opp for those, like Chilton, who glimpsed the proto-jangle-power-psych-pop etc. possibilities ( indeed, as I mentioned on the main Big Star thread: "a note to self on Twitter:
In radio interview on @BigStarBand's Live at Lafayette's Music Room, AC worries that forthcoming #1 Record is too much like Rundgren...")...
― dow, Sunday, February 14, 2021 1:29 PM"

More here: The Band.

Also, his "Open My Eyes" still kills, as finale ov The Bangles' fine Sweetheart of the Sun (2011).

I'll have to check out the Foo Fighters' greatest hits set. I wish I liked the music more, but it always seemed lacking - maybe just hearing the singles back-to-back will go over better.

Didn't realize they had a fan vote...Feli Kuti's way ahead, +30,000 votes over Tina Turner in second.

You can vote once a day, so who knows what that means. The Dolls are second last! I'd vote, but it says to login first, and I can't be bothered going through any kind of sign-up.

If the Shoes or Wussy ever get on the ballot, I'm signing up and buying 10 computers.

i'm reasonably sure i've never heard the foo fighters song they used in the announcement video in the original post. strange choice for a dionnne warwick song too.

but also that's a really good ballot as rock and roll hall of fame ballots go, foo fighters notwithstanding.

Didn't realize they had a fan vote...Feli Kuti's way ahead, +30,000 votes over Tina Turner in second.

You can vote once a day, so who knows what that means. The Dolls are second last! I'd vote, but it says to login first, and I can't be bothered going through any kind of sign-up.

Jesus, that's astonishing, but if anyone's that far ahead, I'm glad it's Fela. Last year, when Dave Matthews and Pat Benatar pulled way, way ahead of everyone else except Whitney Houston, I pretty much gave up on signing up for any future polls. Strangely, neither got inducted, so who knows how much weight the poll actually has.

wait are ppl itt actually casting votes on the rock and roll hall of fame

who knows how much weight the poll actually has

the fan vote results count as a single ballot. there are around ballots overall.

oops missed a word! around 1,000 ballots overall.

That part I knew, but I thought the main idea behind the fan poll was to sway other voters as well? At least one HOF voter said he passed on Kiss for years because they sucked, but then seeing the fan support made him think (IIRC) "who am I to judge? Vox populi, they get my vote."

There's an opening here for so many rigged-election/Curt Schilling jokes, I don't know where to start.

I had just sort of assumed that Bon Jovi got in bc of the fan poll but if it's one in 1000 idk.

Well, the new guy replaced Jann Wenner is John Sykes, the president of entertainment enterprises for iHeartMedia (fka Clear Channel), and he made it clear he wanted to push for more populist choices - basically the biggest sellers.

Kot and DeRogatis talked about this when Kot was a regular voting member (and may still be). This was before the Stooges finally got in, and Kot said he always voted for them, but DeRogatis didn't believe his vote would matter based on his experience at Rolling Stone. As DeRogatis would re-enact it, "Hey Jann, looks like the Stooges got a lot of votes." "What? No, no, BILLY JOEL should be in! We're inducting him!"

DeRogatis's former co-host and Chicago Reader critic Bill Wyman actually looked into it and incorporated it into his NYMag/Vulture ranking of all of the Hall of Fame inductees. Ranking something like this is obviously ludicrous, but it gets a LOT of readers, and Wyman actually uses these features as an excuse to do some reporting, weaving what he finds into the entries. So even if you disagree with his tastes, it's worth scrolling through just to see how the HOF works. (For example, I never knew how slimey Ahmet Ertegun's Atlantic Records could be.)

https://www.vulture.com/2018/05/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-artists-ranked-from-best-to-worst.html

*replacing Jann Wenner

*clicks*

3. Bob Dylan (1988)

*regrets*

Queen fans may want to avoid the end, not unless you enjoy rage.

how do you rank the sex pistols over the rolling stones? (i love the sex pistols)

like, body of work has to count for something

How do you rank 27 artists above Stevie Wonder?

haha yeah as i went down the list i was getting more and more pissed

Who knew U2 were from one of the “most fucked-up cities in the Western world?”

Oddly, the hate assessments don't annoyed me - what did were the quick and barely detailed dismissals of great artists he clearly didn't listen to. Not when he admits to it though - particularly doo wop groups which he calls a blind spot.

*don't annoy me

Small irony: last place Bon Jovi are criticized for being overly concerned with their hair, first place Chuck Berry was a professional hairdresser.

Rush are there bc they're a big name that sells tickets but they also lack a single song you could play for someone to convince them of their import.

The idea of a hall of fame is antithetical to rock and roll but ranking every single inductee from best to worst is a worthwhile endeavour.

I tried doing it just in thought, and it feels like it would be fun for about a third of it, when you're revisiting artists you probably enjoy immensely. But then there's a morass of artists that you kind of like - particularly ones who have done as much bad work as good - and then it turns into a masochist endeavor evaluating the ones you hate, at least if you really want to consider who's worst, this shit artist or that one. It's more tempting to do that first third and then add all the artists you think they've missed, particularly the ones that aren't likely to get in.

it has a lot of weird wrong ones that are side by side, like the Yardbirds directly above Lou Reed (who I like the Yardbirds but they are band whose reputation lies largely in what its members did after they quit the band)

jackson 5 over the temptations

janis joplin is ranked above jackie wilson which is just a travesty if you're talking about soul singing

I remember that list when it came out...I thought the rankings (if not the write-ups themselves) were most interesting for me in the middle. Up at the top and towards the bottom, the artists tend to be so hugely important or so marginal, I find the rankings almost interchangeable. It's in the middle third where I thinking too-high and too-low and all of that.

The rankings are kind of loose - he notes that somewhere in the beginning (i.e. is #62 really better than #63 on any given day?)

But yeah, Jackson 5 over the Temptations? I love the Jackson 5, I'd induct them, but they were at least a cut below the Temptations. I love Janis Joplin, but I wouldn't put her over Jackie Wilson either.

bill wyman is literally the worst living music writer afaict

When Joe Posnanski ranked his 100 greatest baseball players last year, it became apparent at a certain point that at least 10 players were ranked where they were because of their uniform number (e.g., Jackie Robinson was #42). If only pop stars wore numbered uniforms.

bill wyman should stick to playing bass for the rolling stones

XP

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/a6/bd/c4/a6bdc4df454c07343acd6ae13bf10b79.jpg

^^Inducted Twice

Once too often