Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Nominees 2024

clemenza you seriously look at this list and say she deserves to be the top five at the exclusion of the rest?

judges strictly on her music

also nice try with the Dylan thing but she's not carving out a uniquely atypical singing style like Bjork or Dylan or Damon Suzuki she's was just trying to sing in a conventional style but she didn't have a strong voice, it's like saying Paula Abdul is Mary Margaret O'Hara or something

She would seriously be one of my five picks from that list, yes. I started thinking a few years ago she should go in. I'm trying to look at the totality of her career, which encompasses a lot.

(Would she be one of my five picks going outside that list? No, not at all.)

what is your list?

of the poll choices?

I posted above: Sinead, Tribe Called Quest, Cher, Mariah Carey, Eric B. & Rakim.

Many others I would put in before her, some from that list of snubs that's up: the Shangri-Las, Dionne Warwick, the New York Dolls, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, the Shoes (kidding--that's my personal HOF), on and on.

tbh the Shoes made a perfect album something Cher cannot boast of

Gonna disagree on the Cher not having a strong voice part.

(xpost) We have reached consensus!

On whether she's Hall-worthy, I don't have a strong opinion

I used to love the short jokes she made about Sonny on their TV show. I'm not sure if that should figure in or not.

changing gears, Sinead is guaranteed getting in this year and it's kind of infuriating to see her be applauded by some of the same assholes who were fine with her post Pope scorning

also the fact that they will do it now when they can show a pretty picture of her and have Elvis Costello or someone solemnly intone about her talent rather than having to worry about what a living, breathing Sinead might have said during her acceptance speech

I wrote a long thing about Jane's a few years ago🕸 that sums up why they're an instant vote for me. And why they're very fucked up and I can understand why a lot of people might hate them, especially Perry.

I’m only a year younger than you Unperson but I definitely felt at the time Jane’s Addiction weren’t scary, just gross. RHCP at least looked like they were having a good time. And what was progressive politically about JA compared to Nirvana’s openly pro feminism pro-LGBT stance?

I am worried the davehead contingent might get there way this time which would be a real drag

Oh, until I noticed Oasis in the mix, I was 100% convinced DMB would be cruising toward induction this time around with absolutely no static. I still basically think that. His boring awful music demo hasn't had a rallying cause in quite some time.

"I Want To Know What Love Is" sucks though, don't get me wrong.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, February 11, 2024 10:35 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no it doesn’t!!!!

Lol I love Foreigner ballads more than their rockers

Gramm's voice was butter but he seemed to really dig deep for the ballads, incredible sense of dynamics.

"Waiting for a Girl Like You" > "I Wanna Know What Love Is", but I like both.

Of the non-ballads, "Urgent" is the best IMO. Foreigner was at its best when they were rocking in minor keys and sounding stressed out, the joyous rockers to me always sounded too forced. "Hot Blooded" don't do it for me

i love Foreigner w Lou Gramm SO much but Mick seems like such a dickwad I kinda dont want them to go in out of spite

also if it includes this garbage = instant disqualification

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiPkqX8SYgE

Is Foreigner one of those bands whose touring edition has no original members?

Mick is the only original member now
It’s a shitshow

I'd induct the Smiths before any of them

Same here, they should have been in 15 years ago, but I was just limiting the scope to that era in the mid-‘90s.

I never got Foreigner but I was surprised how even a few prominent haters held up “I Want to Know What Love Is” as some great defining moment in ‘80s rock simply for the gospel choir.

On whether she's Hall-worthy, I don't have a strong opinion

― never trust a big book and a simile (Neanderthal)

but is she Daryl Hall-worthy?

I never got Foreigner but I was surprised how even a few prominent haters held up “I Want to Know What Love Is” as some great defining moment in ‘80s rock simply for the gospel choir.

― birdistheword,

Nope. It's also because Lou Gramm sings it really fucking well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jA-_g_iSY0

To be fair, it’s not a bad single.

I can't stand "Cold As Ice," "Feels Like the First Time," and ugh "Hot Blooded," but I love the mid-tier things like "Blue Morning, Blue Day," "Long, Long Way From Home," and "Jukebox Hero."

“Urgent” seems to get some love - made it on to Dave Marsh’s 1001 list.

the nu-Foreigner is funny because I saw them in 2006, with Kelly Hansen on vox (he's still there), other hired guns, and Mick, and the stage banter was so awkward. like it felt like a hair band concert at times with all of the PG-13 bantz

"Let's give a round of applause for the LADIES in the audience!"

*roar*

"Do we ...have any NAUGHTY ladies here tonight?"

*roar*

"I like the naughty NAKED ones, myself"

*crickets*

"um...ok , here's Waiting for a Girl LIke You"

I like Cold as Ice, but FLTFT is the exact kinda shit I hate with Foreigner. the jubilous rockers always sounded so boring with them, cookie-cutter. I liked it better when they sounded like they were all doing a hair of the dog to forget about the previous day's misery

gargling the hair of dogs more like

It's funny that people get all wound up about Foreigner not having any "original" members left. The whole band was cobbled together by Jones and his manager out of available studio hacks and also-rans anyway. I mean, there's about as much of a "definitive" version of Foreigner as there is a "definitive" version of King Crimson or the Fall.

Lou Gramm is pretty definitive. Hansen's a great singer and probably sings the songs better than Gramm would at this stage of his life, but he also sings them noticeably differently.

the rest are pretty unimportant.

other than the two dimwitted brothers, does anyone care about the other members of oasis? boner and whitey or whoever.

always thought it was a mistake leaving Growing Pains to be in a britpop band

show me that smiiiile

Oasis's only essential release is Wibbling Rivalry

"Long Way From Home" is so good, it's like a secret world where Foreigner was like some weird progeny of BoC & 10cc

We’ll probably have the same actress-or-singer debate next year or so when JLo get nominated.

And 15 years from now with Bradley Cooper.

(If you say that in a Dave Chappelle voice, it's funny.)

Selena Gomez more likely, but yes.

Ridiculous how much the bar's been lowered. I guess John Travolta should be inducted - he had enormous hits (never mind that they sucked) and he actually played an important part in the massive popularity of disco.

OK I'm glad I brought up Foreigner so I can see that we all like different aspects of Foreigner. Maybe I am the only one for whom "Feels Like The First Time" strikes some deep resonance in my '70s kid spirit and leaves it ringing for minutes.

Maybe this is related to how much I like Styx. Oh now I think I need to go post about Styx in the "Worthy Acts Snubbed" thread.

does anyone care about the other members of oasis?

Well, for 10 years Andy Bell from Ride was in there. Must be kind of fun to be back in Ride, with that wild experience under your belt.

Foreigner is pretty much butt rock with glimmers of better things here and there. Like "Urgent" (which, thanks to Mutt, sound remarkably like the Cars) or "Girl Like You" (which features Thomas Dolby! The tale:

The introduction was created by Dolby using a Minimoog synthesizer. Dolby remembers Lange leaving him to his own devices in the studio one night, "like a kid locked in a toy shop" to develop the intro to the song with six tracks of the multitrack available. As a result, he made the "Eno-esque" ambient drones. These were sustained single notes in a minor scale, each recorded on a single track of a (separate) 2" multitrack tape; Dolby "played" the faders on the mixing console at Electric Lady Studios (by fading in and out the sustained notes) like a mellotron and bounced down the result onto two tracks. Drummer Dennis Elliott likened the intro to "massage music" but Jones liked it and it stuck.

My friend and I have a theory that a host of players got tons of work in the '80s just because, very talented or no, they were the only ones that knew how to even turn the synths on. Dolby, Harold Faltermeyer, Greg Phillinganes, etc.)

This discussion sent me to Tidal to listen to Foreigner and I think they might be up there with the Eagles on the "the singles are good to great, the album tracks are trash" scale. I listened to "Waiting For a Girl Like You," which is a good early 80s radio rock song, half crunch and half New Wave, but the next song is "Luanne," which features the lyrics

Luanne, Luanne
Why do you run and hide?
Luanne, Luanne
Don't keep your love inside
I wait around for you after school
You slip away and I don't see you
Don't know what I'm gonna do
If you can't see how much I need you
We met, one day, and then, you ran away
I've searched the whole town looking for you
I know you're there, somewhere

Now, I get that this is supposed to put the song into the "teenage love" subgenre of rock 'n' roll (the song has an old-timey Chuck Berry-esque guitar riff), but when these words come out of Lou Gramm's prematurely aged soul-man throat, they are 1000% a horror movie about an old pervert stalking a schoolgirl.

I didn't realize Dolby was so involved with the band, including "Urgent" which (in addition to him playing on it) was even influenced by one of his demos which was a surprise to him. Also didn't realize that was Junior Walker playing the sax - that's kind of like a supergroup recording that single.

i can't wait for the ceremony with sudsy, dingle, dikki, mick, wally, hernando, and shad weathersby.

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60242db4353f6c38279c800b/3435172b-1260-4aa4-a483-9de008a2a97d/HiRes-Foreigner-2021_credit.png

Apparently this is the song that partly inspired "Urgent"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHd9ZJCAPNs

Sort of like later Cars and other "Mutt" projects, I'm not sure how much of the band is doing what on "Urgent."

Hilariously, here are the isolated drums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpDP0y8zTA8

I've heard Mary J. Blige's "Family Affair" off the car radio twice this week--once pre-nomination, once post (today). She wouldn't be one of my five, but I did have that on my Pazz & Jop list for whatever year it was--loved her possible nod to Chuck Berry with "hateration/botheration."

holleration iirc