2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees POLL

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.

And KISS.

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

There are plenty of equally or more objective criteria: years active, number of albums, number of band members, average tempo of songs in the catalogue, frequency of plagal cadences, number of "l"s in the band name, ...

guys I saw Ed Sheeran won a grammy but he's musically terribly how is this possible

frequency of plagal cadences

The Who and the Rolling Stones are already in there.

world without end

Something that continues to puzzle me: for all the complaints that x, y, or z "isn't rock and roll"--be it Carly Simon or whoever--I've never once come across anyone directing that at HOF member Leonard Cohen.

I'm not saying Carly Simon should be in--she shouldn't--but I don't see how she is any more or less rock and roll than Leonard Cohen. Ditto for other many other artists who are subjected to that.

Cohen could party.

Carly partied non-stop, she just did it on yachts.

Voter Two in that NY Mag article actually had a great and articulate response to those fretting over what's rock and what's not:

[Fela Kuti is] hugely important. People like to talk, “Why are they nominating people like Fela Kuti and Dolly Parton? That’s not rock and roll.” To which I would say, “Shut up. You’re an idiot.” One of the great things about rock and roll as a construct is that it’s a really porous art form that absorbs the best of a lot of other art forms. The remit of rock and roll is constantly expanding and evolving. The influence that Fela’s work has had in the genre is something that wouldn’t have been particularly well understood in, say, 1975. Maybe around 1982, because at that point, David Byrne and Brian Eno, among others, had discovered those rhythms. Fela’s work seems canonical to me. I’m very glad to see him in the mix.

I agree with him, but I also get the sense that it will remain a polarizing issue, one that's more likely to have those who don't agree at all (see Voter One). If I had to come up with a compromise, I'd say create a new category, "Beyond Category" (the highest praise Duke Ellington bestowed on people or music he loved). It would fit as both a broad philosophical description and a narrow literal designation: acts that aren't typically associated with rock (or 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 among many others.

Here’s a RRHOF voter and making the case that there should be more alt rock & indie bands in the hall (ALERT: Uproxx link). It’s not particularly great writing, but he discusses that NY Mag interview… and when you see all the passed-over “buzz bin” bands listed out like that, it does make ya think.

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.