2019 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

This is the left-field choice for this year. Much beloved by fans of tough ’70s rock, the band is known in the U.S. for a couple of semi-novelty hits from the middle part of that decade: “Jailbreak” and “The Boys Are Back in Town,” the latter a pop-rock confection for the ages. Leader Phil Lynott, who played bass, also wrote a goofy thing called “The Cowboy Song,” which on a good night makes you think it might be the greatest rock song ever written. He produced some interesting stuff as a solo act after disbanding Thin Lizzy but died a few years later after becoming debilitated from heroin addiction. Like most critics, I like Lynott’s stuff and carefully collected his more obscure work back in the day, but now it feels like another pet act whose nomination was brokered by someone in the nomination room, like the Zombies’ last year, rather than part of an effort to capture the history of the music fairly. I don’t really think Thin Lizzy is Hall of Fame material.

this guy has never heard a Thin Lizzy song in his life has he

Eh, Thin Lizzy does nothing for me. I don't viscerally hate them the way I hate T. Rex, I just think they're massively overpraised.

the album cuts and not the singles is where the greatness lies imo but i don't doubt you've dug deep.

Wait, viscerally hate T. Rex!?

Xpost Whereas Bill Wyman... hasn't.

I love Lizzy

Depeche Mode doesn’t have one

They have a song that became so popular it has a fucking line dance you choad.

The irony of a metal guru hating T Rex!

Veronica Moser suggested induction meant something tangible to the Doobie Brothers--I'm just trying to figure out what that is. VM also mentioned "bottom line," so I assume that means a financial advantage of some kind.

― clemenza, Wednesday, January 15, 2020 12:38 PM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, I suppose it's possible. I know that whenever I hear ads for shows by bands like Chicago or Journey, the fact that they're in the HoF is always mentioned.

The hall seems to have given up on Rage Against the Machine following two nominations immediately after its eligibility, which was nuts. Tom Morello is a talented guitarist, but the band’s corner of the music world wasn’t all that interesting and felt like more of a niche than an innovation.

ok interesting train of thought

ftr I love Pat Benatar inordinately. Her songs still fucking move me in totally unironic ways. If, by some cosmic misunderstanding, I ran an institution that sought to honor kickass musical performers she would be in it. Near the top.

But I am a little o_O about why "had years of opera training" or "formal training" or "classically trained" should be among the ways we praise rock acts.

All the mousefuckers in Mannheim Steamroller are "classically trained" and their music still blows dead bears.

Maxims that I hope are uncontroversial:

1. You can be extremely well-trained and not rock.
2. You can be completely untutored and rock quite a bit.

Isn't this kinda central to "rock" as a cultural construct? The Pistols quite famously could not play their instrumentzzzzz blah blah blah I am already boring myself adskasljkqhgq3;oh

Just found out that, while Carole King is in the HoF as a writer (a joint award with Gerry Goffin), she's not in as a performer.

xpost who was using it to praise her music? the discussion was around the quality of her singing, not the music itself.

I used to praise Chester Bennington's singing too and I hated Linkin Park and had he had a relevant background that was germane to the topic of his singing....i'd bring it up!

After a few albums of insane folk rock under the name Tyrannosaurus Rex (one of the least appropriate rock names ever, given the music), he finally went electric, changed his band’s name to T. Rex, and ascended with a deranged rant called “Bang a Gong.”

not the worst offender in this piece, but christ this is some seriously bad writing. "insane"! "deranged"! in what universe does t. rex (who i love) sound like that?

Somehow very Trent to just casually mention this:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/trent-reznor-rock-roll-hall-fame-937871/

It’ll be interesting to see who inducts you. Any idea who you want to see do that?

No. Like I said, this is still fresh information. And I just had a new baby over the weekend.

Whitney Houston in before her cousin, Dionne Warwick.

Someone much smarter than me can probably write a mathematical formula determining with some degree of accuracy at what point literally every act will be in the Rock Hall. Like, if x=y+ time divided by r, then Nickelback will be in by 2051 or something.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, January 15, 2020 9:59 AM

I may have mentioned this on another HOF thread--I do tend to repeat myself--but there's a few of them, and I'm too lazy to check.

I had an idea few years ago for a book, based on Bill James's Baseball HOF book, that would try to do exactly that--quantify who gets into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's what James's book tried to do; figure out how it was that the players who were in there got in, as opposed to arguing that x should be in but y shouldn't. He came up with an elaborate point system that very accurately set a benchmark for who was in and who wasn't: under 70 points was no, over 100 was yes, 70-100 was the gray area. (Not nearly so accurate for the PED era, which came later.)

The problem--partly why I abandoned the idea--is that you can only objectively quantify so much when it comes to music. Chart positions, record sales, and awards, yes. But when you try to do that with influence, fame, aesthetic worth, you can only be so objective. It's easy to say Chuck Berry and the Velvet Underground get 10 for influence, that Elvis gets 10 for fame, and that the Shoes get 10 for aesthetic worth...okay, change the Shoes to Bob Dylan. And that Europe get zeros for influence and aesthetic worth. (Fame, I don't know--I still remember them.) The gray area between, often very difficult.

Europe gets 10 points for aerobics.

I know you could make make an alternate Hall of Fame out of snubs that would rival the existing one BUT

The notion that neither Jane's Addiction or the Pixies aren't in while the likes of lameass contemporaries Pearl Jam, NIN, RHCP and Green Day (!) all are—is truly laughable

I'ma go ahead and take Pearl Jam and NiN right back out of that pile, thank you.

I get that Pearl Jam has to be in because "industry" but there are a bunch of industrial acts that predate and better NIN...but I know, hall of FAME

even NiN doesn't identify as "industrial", unless you think Downward Spiral was the only album they released

yeah, obviously they drew from that well even before and after then, but Reznor is a pop artist first and foremost and draws from a much larger well than just Jim Thirlwell

The irony of a metal guru hating T Rex!

― papa stank (Neanderthal), Wednesday, January 15, 2020 12:28 PM (three hours ago)

i loled!

xp I just think back to that first Lollapalooza with a bunch of great bands—Siouxsie, Buttholes, Rollins (NiN too!) and how every night they all stuck around in the wings to watch Jane's just absolutely wipe the floor with them. Have they even been nominated?

yes, and they've been a finalist as recently as two years ago

I drove through Cleveland a few weeks ago w/ my daughters hoping to see the Zeppelin rig that was on display on the Met last year only to find that the vast majority of stuff from that exhibit didn't make it to Cleveland

When I asked why not this woman (also disapppointed) explained that while the building looks cool from the outside, making it a pyramid means the floors are too small to exhibit a lot of the things they'd like to :-/

We did however get to make logos and stickers for our imaginary bands and take turns thumping away in a drum closet

I love Jane’s Addiction for 2 albums (spread across three albums) but the idea that they are de facto better than the Banshees makes me lol really hard

Also, I’m a goth

i would say nin had a much profounder impact on rock and pop music than jane's addiction but also that assumes that any such criterion exists for the rock hall, which it doesn't, so it doesn't matter

"Influence" is supposed to be one of the criteria...

"supposed to be" being the operative phrase there

xo I didn’t say they were better or more deserving than the Banshees!

For a few short years Jane’s were just devastating live, on that tour in particular. Just a really intense, strange energy that I’ve never seen matched on stage.

I was curious about when exactly the RRHOF went off the rails (beyond “having a hall of fame for rock and roll”) and in YEAR 2, they managed to vote in Ricky Nelson before the Drifters or the Platters.

Why do we still have these arguments?

^^^^^^^ otm

xo I didn’t say they were better or more deserving than the Banshees!

For a few short years Jane’s were just devastating live, on that tour in particular. Just a really intense, strange energy that I’ve never seen matched on stage.

jesus christ

do we count Lollapalooza as part of Jane's influence? because then you could make a strong case they were as influential as any on the 90s...

https://external-preview.redd.it/iVGdNr7UjYsHE6u3VbLjLfnx2RVyKab96TqI_eYa5-I.jpg

How have the Banshees (and Joy Division, and The B-52's, and DOLLY f'in PARTON) NEVER even been nominated before ???

How many Country artists are in though?

Nine Inch Nails leaves me cold and I don’t care about this Hall of Fame, but I know this much:

In 2019, Reznor and Ross received songwriting and production credits for the number-one single "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X, which sampled their track "34 Ghosts IV" from Ghosts I-IV.[274] "Old Town Road" broke the record for most consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.[275] As producers for the song, Reznor and Ross garnered a CMA Award nomination for the 'Musical Event Of The Year' award, along with Lil Nas X, featured artist Billy Ray Cyrus and producer YoungKio.[276]

goddamnit every year i remember Blue Oyster Cult isn't in, what a bunch of bullshit

rt

It’s really bizarre that Depeche Mode and NIN (the aggro Depeche Mode) - both deserving - get in before Kraftwerk, but I guess that’s just sales figures. What I really wanna know is why Whitney gets in when Mariah Carey, a way more rock and roll artist at the end of the day and also objectively more popular, has never even been nominated. I mean, I know it’s because Mariah is still alive. But it’s still bullshit. And how was Outkast not even nominated? They’re a shoo-in, and they were eligible as of last fall.

Actually I’m pretty sure Outkast were eligible in 2018- “Player’s Ball” was a Christmas single. In 1993.

How is Mariah “objectively more popular” than Whitney? At a glance, looks like they’ve both sold between 200-250mm albums worldwide; can each claim impressive-sounding chart records; and have each won a ton of awards (though Whitney seems to have the edge there, as she apparently holds the Guinness Record for “most awarded female artist of all time”).

Having grown up with both, I feel like Whitney was always on a higher plane than Mariah in terms of status and perceived artistry. (Which is not to say that you are wrong about Whitney’s HoF honor owing largely to the fact that she is deceased; maybe that’s true, I have no idea.)

Also not sure I agree about OutKast being an immediate “shoo-in” upon eligibility, but whatever.

Postmortem, Whitney is bigger than Mariah if Spotify is the metric - which surprised me. I’m just talking about raw numbers with regard to hit singles and album sales. So I’m probably fudging the numbers a little bit. My read is that Whitney Houston had massive sales and basically no respect from critics before she died in 2012. Mariah Carey had equally massive numbers, equal critical disdain giving way to grudging respect in the late 90s and thereafter once she aligned herself with the hip hop nation. And once she went hip hop she never let go, never went back, never played it off like it was just a phase. She knew which way the wind was blowing.