2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees POLL

I absolutely agree. I have to check again, but except for R.E.M., there's shamefully NO indie or American underground acts from the '80s, specifically the bands that bridged post-punk to alternative music and laid out the path for that seismic shift in rock culture, even though none of their albums went gold, much less platinum. As mentioned in the Azerrad book referenced in the article, there was a great documentary series produced by the BBC (and broadcast on PBS) on the history of rock & roll, but one of the very few significant faults with it was the way they omitted any discussion on indie and underground rock in the '80s - it was like punk disappeared or moved on to other things in the UK after failing to break through the charts in the U.S., and then suddenly Nirvana appeared out of a vacuum.

Most of the bands picked out by Azerrad should be in the HOF to complete the picture: Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, Minutemen, Pixies (who aren't in the book for some reason), Minor Threat/Fugazi, and probably Mission of Burma, Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Dinosaur Jr too though I can see support for those bands being weaker. (I'd vote for them.) I imagine they all must be visible in the museum in some way, but they deserve to be celebrated and exposed to more listeners who would be fans but haven't found them yet.

(To be fair, R.E.M. eventually sold plenty, but not the others.)

(And Minor Threat and Fugazi really should be two separate inductions)

Personally, I'd limit that to Sonic Youth, Husker Du, and the Replacements (think I said as much 12 years ago in the first thread I ever started on here). Putting in Big Black would be like putting in Gary Puckett & the Union Gap.

Black Flag, Minor Threat and Fugazi seem like essential inductees to me for reasons beyond music - specifically the labels their key members founded. You've got SST becoming more or less the center of American underground music of the '80s (despite its terrible business practices that would quickly snowball and alienate everyone on its roster), and then there's Dischord which has become a model of lasting DIY idealism.

I probably should've said "for reasons that go beyond their music as well."

13 years ago, plus three days.

The Bert Blyleven Poll

any popular music profoundly shaped by rock culture since their beginning such as dance/disco or hip-hop), but nevertheless they manage to transcend the boundaries placed on their work. Not only Dolly Parton but figures like Miles Davis and John Coltrane

Miles is associated with rock! He was inducted in 06.

First part of quote was

acts that aren't typically associated with rock (or

I would probably consider Carly Simon more rock than Leonard Cohen, if I were forced to make a call. Did anyone say Carly Simon isn't a rock artist? I just thought the criticism was that she isn't of enough historical significance.

Don't know if anyone here said it here, but it's the kind of thing I'll hear or read all the time.

I've even seen the charge levelled at Madonna and the Supremes (no, not here), which is obviously ridiculous. But never Leonard Cohen. I'd say the is/isn't rock and roll distinction is, in general, where the bias against females is most blatant, and why Dionne Warwick (and maybe even the Shangri-Las) isn't in, as she definitely should be.

Without Pixies there wouldn't be a Nirvana, all reasonable persons acknowledge this, yet one band is more famous, innit?

Replacements are also a causal factor quite beyond their own sales.

So we're back to basically advocating for the Velvet Underground again and gah this seems like... well-trodden rhetorical ground for ILM/X

it just makes me want to burn down the Hall and magically erase its existence from our collective memories, rather than try to reform it and make it make sense

Big Black doesn't belong in the Hall, but Steve Albini definitely does. Induct him for "Musical Excellence" like Jam & Lewis. Without him, '80s and especially '90s rock would sound very, very different. Plus, it'd probably piss him off, so we'd get a good Twitter thread out of it.

You put one Azerrad band in, then you have to put them all in. Pretty much all of them had good critical reviews and could be said to be influential to *insert 90s alt-rocker here*

There isn’t really one of them all who really stood out in terms of fame or sales from each other, not enough anyway. The only one who really did was REM, and we’re not really counting them (plus they’re already in)

so r we gonna just keep up this discussion in two sep threads

Part of critic Ann Powers take in a public Facebook post. Eh, I have never been a Pat Benatar fan

It's a great year for artists who don't tower above -- the critically underrated and overlooked, the once-questionable, the genuinely loved hard workers who add depth to the music industry's vast middle ground. Pat Benatar, Carly Simon, Duran Duran, Eurythmics: that's a populist playlist if I've ever heard one. Which is why the failure of voters to induct Dionne Warwick, a true genius of the middle, makes no sense to me. Lionel Richie, her spiritual nephew, got in; her omission is the most egregious. As for Eminem, another inevitability but Tribe deserved that spot. I'm very happy with Harry Belafonte, Elizabeth Cotten, Jam & Lewis and Sylvia Robinson getting acknowledged, too.

There's always an artist or three we don't like.

And an artist or three left out

So we're back to basically advocating for the Velvet Underground again

I mean, VU got in! (maybe that’s your point…)

Right, but once you have done so it unleashes the deluge of all the other "influencers who were not particularly famous" and that way lies madness

Because you get to a reductio thing where basically every musician ever should either be inducted, or none should.

Burn

It

Down

Re: Carly Simon, did anyone argue whether James Taylor was rock when he was inducted? tbh I figured she was nominated partly because of that - if you induct James Taylor, you have to at least nominate Carly Simon. I think Taylor has more worthy songs, but I'm not sure I would have inducted either.

I gave Benatar another try and played Best Shots but it was really tough getting through the whole thing. So much of it felt overwrought.

The Velvets didn't make it in their first year of eligibility, and an argument could be made that part of what got them in was recognizing Reed & Cale's careers, particularly since at that time the former's solo work didn't seem a lock for induction.

xxp personally I kind of prefer that. On some level that got me into exploring music. Like there's a LOT more than what I've heard on the radio, going back to my grandfather (and even great-grandfather's) childhood, and that sense of discovery even applied to famous musicians - I knew Louis Armstrong, but as a harmless celebrity, not a revolutionary musical genius. Something like Lionel Richie's solo career is like, "oh that guy" and nothing more.

Also, no room for DJs in the hall? Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles, Jeff Mills, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox, Tiesto, Sven Väth, Talla 2xlc?

Flash is in there

xp there's always been a strong bias against anything rooted in dance or electronic music. There's Madonna and they're kinder towards disco-era stuff: Abba, Donna Summer, the Bee Gees and Nile Rodgers (not even Chic and not even as a performer), and they finally rammed Kraftwerk in with the "musical excellence" consolation, but there's nothing else past them, not even global superstars New Order. With that in mind, I think it's going to be a long while before you see more DJ's, not unless they're part of a hip-hop group.

Also, no room for DJs in the hall? Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles, Jeff Mills, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox, Tiesto, Sven Väth, Talla 2xlc?

― Siegbran, Friday, May 6, 2022

they're not real musicians, man

As an influencer, and a responder, drawing in elements of many genres, incl. of popular music, also many musos from same, for his work and their own subsequent projects: Arthur Russell, who confounded mimimalist peers by booking The Modern Lovers at the Kitchen (later he and Ernie Brooks recruited each other for a wild range of projects). As he testifies in Tim Lawrence's Arthur bio, Rhys Chatham was shocked--but then went on to massively loud works like "Guitar Trio" and in Theoretical Girls with Branca, but of course Arthur himself went into other poptastic visions. I nominate all of those people, also David Mancuso, Larry Levan, Tom Moulton, probably some more DJs and remixers.

I don't know what producers are in, sessioneers like the Funk Brothers and Wrecking Crew should be. Arrangers---?

and they finally rammed Kraftwerk in with the "musical excellence” consolation

Kraftwerk was inducted as a “Early Influence.” Which makes sense: Alan Lomax traveled to Düsseldorf in the ‘30s and made field recordings of Blind Lemon Kraftwerk (later shortened to just Kraftwerk) for the Library of Congress which were hugely influential.

LMAO, forgot about that. Kudos to Lomax for getting Florian pardoned on that murder rap.

The “Musical Excellence” category was originally designed for session musicians (Funk Brothers, Wrecking Crew, Muscle Shoals, others who weren’t necessarily part of those scenes like James Burton and King Curtis), songwriters, producers, and engineers. But there’s also the Ahmet Ertegun Award which has gone to producers, promoters, managers, and songwriters (Holland-Dozier-Holland, Frank Barsalona, Gamble & Huff, Brian Epstein). So maybe “Musical Excellence” is really now just a consolation/2nd-place “award.” More to the point, the categories are no longer adequately defined (if they ever were) so they just toss shit up in the air to see where it lands.

lol xp

See That My Computer Is Kept Clean

Yeah, the Musical Excellence awards and the Early Influence awards are now silver medal ghettos for black music and queer music

Real dumb and shitty

They should retroactively induct everyone dropped in that pile:

As it stands: Chic, Gil-Scott Heron, LL Cool J, Kraftwerk and Judas Priest

Just quietly move them into the regular class and keep it moving

silver medal ghettos for black music and queer music... They should retroactively induct everyone dropped in that pile

there is indeed a ghetto feel to those awards, but for what it's worth they all *have* been inducted. if i'm not mistaken, their plaques on the hall of fame walls look exactly like everyone else's plaque on the hall of fame walls. the plaques don't say "musical excellence" or "early influence" or "actually voted in" or anything like that, and the hall itself doesn't make any such distinctions anywhere inside the actual museum.

Big Black doesn't belong in the Hall, but Steve Albini definitely does.

I might delete the "definitely," but I was thinking this too, that he'd make more sense on his own.

I'm going to start working up a Ken Keltner test for prospective inductees. That was something baseball writer Bill James came up with for prospective Baseball HOF candidates: 15 questions that could be used as general guidelines for induction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keltner_list

Sample question: "Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?"

That's a pretty high bar for pop music--if you were ever regarded as the most important artist around, even for five minutes, you're probably an obvious yes--so you'd need different questions.

(No, I'm not really going to work on this.)

if you were ever regarded as the most important artist around, even for five minutes, you're probably an obvious yes

This raises the Terence Trent D'Arby conundrum.

Re: Leonard Cohen: of course there's a lot of sexist discrimination against female acts, but he probably gets in for being dark and edgy, like a mellower Jim Morrison. Can you imagine Kurt Cobain namechecking Carly Simon in song? And even at his most becalmed or slick, he was never really "soft rock" like her or James Taylor.

I was ruminating that in the first years of the Hall, it must have seemed so simple to the nominating committee. Everyone knew what "Rock and Roll" was, everyone knew who had been great at it, and nobody was advocating for Louis Armstrong, Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Nino Rota, Ravi Shankar or Glenn Gould.

Mick Jagger is on "You're So Vain"! Idk what point we're arguing, though, since Simon was inducted. I am willing to make an argument against Leonard Cohen if the demand is there for it.

TTD is an interesting counter...I was pretty attentive to everything that was going on back then, so I remember his "moment" pretty well. He definitely got a lot of attention, but I'm not sure if he was ever given the full Dylan/Rolling Stones/Clash treatment. My recollection is that, when his LP came out, Prince was pretty solidly viewed as the Most Important Artist Around, with maybe some support for the Talking Heads (not from me!), and Public Enemy coming up quickly.

Sign 'o' the Times came out March '87, and was not as universally adored then as it is now - Rolling Stone's review basically called it a grab-bag. TTD's debut came out in July, and he went to #1 with "Wishing Well" when Prince could only get to #2 with "U Got the Look"; he was definitely the "new kid in town" for five minutes at least.

I was ruminating that in the first years of the Hall, it must have seemed so simple to the nominating committee.

I like to imagine Jann Wenner in 1986 with a dreamy look in his eyes, thinking to himself "one day Lionel Richie and Pat Benatar will be in here".

I don’t know a ton about Leonard Cohen, but I don’t really get why there would be any controversy about his eligibility (is it because he doesn’t shred on guitar?) Or is the idea that some folks were objecting to Carly Simon, and so – “why don’t they object to Cohen too”?

Posting on the run there...Having thought about it, I think "Most Important Artist" was a somewhat crowded field in the summer of '87. Besides the people I mentioned--Prince (Christgau gave Sign 'o' the Times an A+--"Merely the most gifted pop musician of his generation"--and it dominated Pazz & Jop, which carried at least as much weight as RS's often shortsighted reviews), Talking Heads, and Public Enemy (first album only--I maybe jumped the gun by a few months there)--there was also Springsteen (still), Michael Jackson (still), Madonna, U2 (the tree album), R.E.M., Run D.M.C. and/or the Beastie Boys, Husker Du, and maybe others. I just don't remember TTD being accorded the same treatment on the basis of one LP. "New Kid in Town," yes, but to me, not the same thing.

I'm not objecting to Cohen being in there, just the idea that he (or James Taylor, or Tom Waits) are any more "rock and roll" than Carly Simon (or Madonna, or the Supremes).

From a quick Google, I can find evidence of one Twitter rando mocking Simon's inclusion and a bunch of classic rock sites with articles listing five or ten reasons why she should have been included.

(is it because he doesn’t shred on guitar?)

A good reason btw; shitty Casio keyboards and tuneless mumbling also disqualifying factors

Maybe the perception of her is a lot different than I think it is, I don't know. Could also be some confirmation bias in that--people who've been advocating for her are much more likely to post something than someone who doesn't think she should be in. (Who's going to post a "10 Reasons Why Carly Simon Shouldn't be in the HOF" piece?)

Anyway, I like this comment from one of those advocacy pieces: "I bet she thinks the Hall of Fame is about her."