2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees POLL

(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."

Maybe Classic Rock Sites like her, but I really don't ever remember hearing anything by her on Q-107 during its heyday.

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.

― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, May 7, 2022 9:57 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think more to the point, no one was saying, "Hey, come on, Pat Boone sold a ton of records and had a tv show! And Neil Sedaka wrote some huge hits!" I mean, yeah, while nominations may have seemed simple in the '80s and early '90s, Charley Patton didn't get in until last year, and Link Wray still isn't in.

(And Louis Armstrong was inducted in 1990.)

One thing that gets at what I'm talking about is the lead paragraph of Jon Pareles' piece on Madonna's induction:

Leave it to Madonna to make the right gesture. For her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she didn’t worry about whether her career as a pop hitmaker, image maker, sex symbol and provocateuse qualified her as a important figure in any narrowly defined genre of rock ’n’ roll.

Now, that was written in 2008. Maybe general perceptions have changed drastically since then, to the point that Carly Simon is now unquestionably viewed as a rock and roll artist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/arts/music/11fame.html#:~:text=Leave%20it%20to%20Madonna%20to,of%20rock%20%27n%27%20roll.

Fwiw, from a similar Google search, here are some quotes from a few Leonard Cohen fans at https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1524 from five years before Cohen's induction, about the suggestion that he should be in:

When I think of Rock 'n' Roll, I don't think of Leonard. When I think of Leonard, I don't think of Rock 'n' Roll.

I agree, 'Rock 'n' Roll' just ain't it. True originals cannot be categorized, pidgeon-holed or labeled. Look at Johnny Cash; he crossed Country, Rock, and finally "Alternative". Maybe 'Alternative' is as close as you can get to a 'class' for LC. The 'classiest' of all.

As far as Leonard being inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame is concerned. I don’t think he is the kind of artiste who would ever be bothered by it, not even an iota. It may be something that would mean more to some of his *fans*.

Personally I doubt it if Leonard will ever be inducted into the hall of fame. For the simple reason that Americans by and large want sunny songs, celebrating the joy of life, happy stuff ... There is little place, if any, in American culture for the plaintive no matter how it is expressed. For this reason Leonard has never been mainstream in America. In fact for this reason “Various Positions” was never even released in the U.S. Contrarily, Leonard has always been popular in Europe because they embrace the reality of emotions, no matter what colour it comes in. Anyhow, my take on Leonard being inducted into the hall of fame is that it would be like putting the sun on display in MOMA, or Whitney or a suchlike place.

My sense is that it matters little even if Leonard was inducted into the RnRHofF, if his music and poetic vision are not understood and truly appreciated.

Cohen himself described his induction as "an unlikely occasion" and said "It is not a distinction that I coveted or even dared dream about."

The Guardian recalled Jon Landau's 1970 comment "I have seen the future of rock'n'roll, and he is not Leonard Cohen" when reporting his induction

Anything from after he was inducted? Personally, I've never come across anyone questioning him or Tom Waits in the way they questioned Madonna.

Haha I went looking for what controversy there was about Madonna and found this doozy:

“Why am I not in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame? That has a lot to do with the fact that you can’t always explain why people are rotten. Why do some people violate other people and commit vicious crimes and lie?” Nugent told KNAC.

“Why isn’t a band like Triumph in there, but Grandmaster Flash is?! That’s just dishonest,” he said. “Why are Patti Smith, ABBA and Madonna in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, but not STYX?! Are you kidding me?! You can only explain that is that the people who made those decisions are just plain rotten people. The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame should genuflect to Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, the Motown Funk Brothers. Are you kidding me?! How dare you put Grandmaster Flash, ABBA and Madonna in that?!”

I feel like I have to circle back to my original point: that the is/isn't rock and roll distinction (which is pretty arbitrary to begin with) has fallen disproportionately on females, and that it serves as a good explanation for why Dionne Warwick has not been inducted. Unless it's her commercials for the Psychic Friends Network keeping her out, I'm having a hard time coming up with anything else. (I know--race. I think with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, at least with regards to earlier artists--'70 and before? pre-disco?--race is less of a factor. I'm not saying it's absent, it never is, but 6 of the original 11 inductees were African-American. As they should have been.)

Whenever I want to point the finger at lunkheadedness, I should always begin by googling Ted Nugent.

Styx? Jesus, if you have to ask...

I didn't realize there was so much debate as to whether to consider any of these people as rock n' roll. It's probably because my gateway into rock history was through books that didn't make the distinctions I'm hearing some people making now. Like hip-hop, Madonna, Carly Simon, Cohen and I'll even add a lot of country artists were all in the same books devoted to rock, and in retrospect lumped in as being different parts of the same "rock" culture.

I would have thought the controversy would be about the quality of their work. I thought Cohen had skeptics since the beginning, but they seemed to warm to him when he made that magnificent return in the late '00s. I always thought he was a great songwriter and loved his voice from all stages of his career, it was just his records that seemed hit-or-miss. The common knock was that they were overproduced, but to me he just seemed like a very erratic recording artist - his strengths didn't extend to arranging or recording, he was mostly about writing and performing.

I think it was very much a point of contention when Madonna went in. (Why she enlisted Iggy Pop to perform her song; benefitted both of them.) As some of the stuff Sund4r has dug up on Carly Simon, maybe that's changing.

xp I also thought about Tom Waits along the same lines (i.e., “if you’re gonna question Cohen”…)

Some of those observations doubting why Cohen would be inducted are very arguable; and of course he was inducted anyway

Like hip-hop, Madonna, Carly Simon, Cohen and I'll even add a lot of country artists were all in the same books devoted to rock, and in retrospect lumped in as being different parts of the same "rock" culture.

Yeah, it just seems so natural that a wide variety of “rock era” stuff has always been considered part of the broader rock ‘n’ roll diaspora – covered by Rolling Stone, history books, etc. I never would’ve thought to question any of it either

Anything from after he was inducted? Personally, I've never come across anyone questioning him or Tom Waits in the way they questioned Madonna.

I did, a few posts up! Don't tell my wife.

Dude bangs a few trashcan lids together and puts on an “I’m so interesting” fedora, that’s rock ‘n’ roll? ;)

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.

except that louis armstrong did get in in the first years! along with jimmie rodgers, jimmy yancey, hank williams, louis jordan, lead belly, woody guthrie, les paul, bessie smith, the ink spots and charlie christian. is that a list that "anyone who knew what rock and roll was" would agree was, in fact, rock and roll?

(also, i find myself ruminating right now on the fact that ricky nelson was inducted in year two, along with aretha franklin, bo diddley, marvin gaye, smokey robinson and roy orbison. was there a time when ricky nelson was really considered in that league? is he considered in that league now?)

Marcus included Legendary Masters in his Stranded discography, but I agree, he does stick out. Bill Haley does too, and I'd even extend that to Eddie Cochran.

Looking at that list of "early influence" inductions, it makes sense why no one would object at the time. Those inductions involved music created before rock n' roll crystalized into something everyone would recognize. As a result, "early influences" is a lot more defined - there's no question it refers to important work pre-dating that of the main inductees.

Ricky Nelson's work is at least a cut below what Chuck Berry et al from the first wave made to define rock n' roll, but his best work is still great. He still cut some really lame shit - specifically the type of harmless teen pop that was big before the Beatles came along - but he made sure to get the stuff he really liked on tape, and compilations like Legendary Masters generally do a great job focusing on that. He put together a great band (James Burton was still a little-known teenager to most and this was his most visible work), and guys like John Fogerty later cited those records as being a major influence and leaving a big impression before they tried making music themselves.

the Terence Trent D'Arby conundrum

^ my favorite Robert Ludlum novel btw

Anyway when we talk about producers and engineers, why not just keep going and include acousticians? The person who decided that the Record Plant in Sausalito should have tan shag carpet on the walls made a huge contribution to the sound of Rumours.

Why stop there; someone probably brought a tray of tea into Abbey Road at just the right time to perk up the Beatles.

(Lest I sound too flippant, I should say that the arts are collaborative by design, as they should be, and I've never thought of artists as being in competition with one another, so top-x lists and ranking and awards and halls of whatever have never appealed to me, but I understand that one can be mildly interested in the conversation while not endorsing the whole institution.)

Looking at that list of "early influence" inductions, it makes sense why no one would object at the time. Those inductions involved music created before rock n' roll crystalized into something everyone would recognize. As a result, "early influences" is a lot more defined - there's no question it refers to important work pre-dating that of the main inductees.

i completely agree. but inasmuch as it included figures like louis armstrong, charlie christian and hank williams, it also shows that jazz, country, folk and other branches of the american musical tree were built in to the dna of the rock hall of fame from the beginning, and any complaints that only people whose musical licenses include the word "rock" with a capital R should be considered for a place on its walls have always been, and continue to be, foolish.

I think I mentioned this earlier with Ornette Coleman, but during a big tribute concert in his honor (possibly the Brooklyn concert that was also his final public appearance - one of my BIGGEST regrets as I planned to go but had to skip it due to work), someone pointed out that many of the participants weren't usually known as jazz musicians - yet Coleman's influence on their work was very much apparent and they certainly belonged there. It brought up the argument that the most fruitful results of his innovations were now being found in experimental and avant-garde music more closely associated with rock rather than jazz. Who would've predicted that in 1962, a year after Free Jazz was released and with Coltrane's freer masterworks just around the corner? It's another reason why I don't like it when so much emphasis is put on categories because who knows how the music is going to evolve? (Again, "Voter Two"'s great defense of the Fela Kuti nomination speaks to this.)

Indeed, most of what I know about Coleman and "harmolodics" is via Royal Trux.