2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees POLL

we do have the rnrhof for giving us LULU though, so it's good for that

I thought it was Alban Berg.

I thought it was Maurice Gibb.

Inductions will be announced this week, so Vulture interviewed two anonymous voters. The points of agreement are pretty fascinating.

Team Voter Two

Team Voter Two

― jaymc, Tuesday, May 3, 2022 11:07 AM (twenty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Me too, although Voter One was pretty otm re: Beck. And both are wrong about the MC5.

lol @ Voter One voting for MC5 and then immediately calling them a bullshit act with only one good song

Team Voter Two here too though I'm a bigger fan of the MC5 and the Dolls, and Beck is a definite a vote for me (first induction, but he's been eligible for several years now - the wait's long enough). Even though I wouldn't vote for the Eurythmics, I probably like them more. A B+ band sounds right, but I'd say the UK version of their Greatest Hits is an A-. And totally OTM re: "[A Tribe Called Quest is] part of that explosion of fascinating and innovative hip-hop acts that arrived in ’87 and ’88. Those types of acts are underinducted in the Hall of Fame." Voter One's take is moronic.

At least neither of them would ever vote for Carly Simon.

*first nomination (not induction)

voter one railing against old man rap is hilarious. the hall is dedicated to old man rock.

On that note, did Pat Benatar experience a resurgence? Those hits always felt like crap I wouldn't hear outside of classic rock radio.

Again, they need to induct more women, but jfc, Carly Simon and Pat Benatar? Really?

While I personally love three Carly Simon songs--"That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," "Anticipation," and "You're So Vain"--agree she has no business in the HOF (or really even being nominated). Pat Benatar's even worse.

leading that piece with voter #1's take on pat benetar is brutal, theres no coming back from that.

Skimmed quickly--voter #2 is so much more aligned with my own thinking.

I also love "You're So Vain." Great single and the only track I own from Carly Simon.

FWIW, "Best Shot" is probably the one Benatar track that I can enjoy thanks to the riff and chorus, but it also feels like a shitty fake rock song.

Rufus with Chaka Khan have been nominated a bunch of times and they're actually good, maybe even great. If they wanted a multi-platinum selling female artist, they should've inducted them.

Is voter #1 Rick Beato or just a 25 year old Berklee graduate?

I think the best argument for the world ending soon is to prevent anyone else from being vaulted into this institution.

And the inductees are: Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Eminem, Eurythmics, Judas Priest, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, and Carly Simon.

Other inductees: Harry Belafonte, Elizabeth Cotten, Allen Grubman, Jimmy Iovine, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and Sylvia Robinson.

Priest snuck in with Jam and Lewis, but I’ll allow it. Duran and Dolly were two of my other votes. Everyone else…*shrug*

I voted for Benatar and Priest. Really surprised to see Eurythmics get in.

Wrong thread got bumped: Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Nominees 2022

Wait, what? I thought Dolly had asked to be removed from consideration

Collectively (and subjectively), that has to be the worst group of inductees ever. Eminem, yes, and Dolly Parton, yes, and yuck.

fuck yes, Judas Priest

xp agree 100%. The committee inductees are all right though.

Judas Priest and Eminem seemed inevitable. Dolly, not my scene but why not. Rest looks a bit lightweight, but what do I know.

lose Eminem and Priest and the list reads like inductees into the Doctors Office Waiting Room Music Hall of Fame

Yeah this is gross

Seriously, it really does feel like something shitty radio programmers from back in the day threw together rather than something rock journalists and historians would pick.

I guess this is what ABC wants the Oscars to turn into to - commerce over art and a celebration of the biggest promotional budget and airplay.

It’s a hall of fame, not a hall of merit.

I don't think "fame" has ever been taken that literally in any Hall of Fame, whether it's music, sports or otherwise.

This is their stated criterion fwiw:

Honoring bands and solo artists who, in their careers, have created music whose originality, impact, and influence has changed the course of rock & roll.

It does seem like they have moved more to just recognizing literal fame in this millennium, compared to the early years of the hall.

Don't want to detour this, but I think fame very definitely played a part in the baseball HOF for its first 50 years at least. It's why Jim Rice would get in rather than Lou Whitaker (to name just one example).

Given the nature of professional sports, players who perform at a high level in MLB almost have to be famous, but you also have a LOT of famous players who have no chance of getting in the baseball HOF. More importantly, the baseball HOF has been really good at inducting historical players who were never celebrities (due to the era they played or other factors). No one ever argues against those inductions with "who the hell knows that guy?"

(I should say historical FIGURES, not just players - it goes beyond what happens on the field)

Baseball is less subjective because you have stats. In rock the only objective criterion is popularity, everything else is taste. So naturally the fame component looms larger in the rock HOF.

I wouldn't file every other criteria under taste though, that feels too generalized and broad. Like I don't think it's just a matter of personal taste that should get someone like the NY Dolls in. They're important the way the Ramones are important, not for their meager sales but for breaking new ground - laying the foundation for not just other bands but whole new genres and movements that would have a bigger place in the culture.

Regardless, I know someone who made a pretty good argument about how the HOF should be broadly inclusive, that it needs to be a complete picture of the culture, addressing both massively popular acts and historical/aesthetically important ones in equal measure.

I should add, I have doubts about that argument, but placing myself 100 years from now, I do see the value of it, even with music I don't like at all. Like if you're going to the HOF and want to learn the history of rock music in the 20th century, it makes little sense to show innovative music without a hint of what those innovations were supposedly reacting or responding to.

In rock the only objective criterion is popularity, everything else is taste.

I'd have to go back and check, but I think Homer Simpson scientifically and irrefutably proved that rock achieved perfection in 1974.

anybody's blood pressure going over 130/80 based on RRHOF nominees/inductees should probably hit the bong

Like if you're going to the HOF and want to learn the history of rock music in the 20th century, it makes little sense to show innovative music without a hint of what those innovations were supposedly reacting or responding to.

Extending this line of thinking, you could a get an even truer picture of the culture if you also induct AOR bands with one mid-ranking radio track (e.g. the Quireboys), bands who failed to get their demo signed, high school Battle of the Bands contestants, etc., to get a sense of where the innovators and reactors were coming from, what they were rising above, and what their ground-level influence looked like.

My karaoke version of "Silent Lucidity" was robbed.

xp tbh that sounds like a much cooler & more interesting museum than the RRHOF!

The Rock Hall of Obscurity

xp It does make sense to have that documented in the museum or at least preserved in their archives while you still can easily and thoroughly.

I was watching Footlight Parade the other day and my first reaction was "holy shit, they used to put on fully-produced mini-shows like that at movie palaces?" If it was a big part of movie going culture from that era, it's probably an obscure fact now with very limited documentation.

there should be a Rock and Roll Hall of Shit

That could be a new wing to the HOF - door opens up to an outdoor field of manure.