Missed Congeniality

Update: More injustices have been heaped into this "category." In 2021, the Award was used as intended to induct Billy Preston and Randy Rhoads, both impressive but, in fairness, mostly sidemen.
And then also... LL Cool J? Are you kidding me? Whom exactly, did he accompany? I have seen him perform, and he was able to command the whole stage himself just fine. He's one of the youngest recipients ever of the Kennedy Center Honors-- he's good enough for the Library of Congress but not the Rock Hall? He's been given performance awards by the The Grammys, Soul Train, MTV, BET, and the NAACP-- but he's not good enough for the Rock Hall?!
If RUN-DMC gets full Induction, so does LL. How the entire rap community did not protest this, I have no idea.

And then this year, 2022. Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis get it, and they also deserve the Ertegun as producers, but in a way this lesser award is sweeter because it recognizes their amazing musicianship.
But then the Musical Excellence award went to Judas Priest, one of the seminal metal acts. I know, and I have said, the Hall has a problem with metal, but this is not the way to deal with it. Just induct bands in the category where bands go, please! To their credit, Priest is acting thrilled they are in, not upset at being only half-in. But this is Otto the Bus Driver's favorite band-- doesn't that count for anything?
Plenty of deserving accompanists are going-- staying-- unrecognized and unappreciated because of these shenanigans. Deserving acts are getting insulted and deserving sidemen and -women are being ignored altogether. 

FIX THIS. Or at least STOP DOING IT. It's EMBARRASSING. 

In 2023, they Inducted Chaka Khan for Musical Excellence. Again, she's a Performer, and one that has been nominated multiple times. Is this the Hall's plan, going forward, for dealing with those who are nominated over and over (and over-- I think 8 times for her [with Rufus and solo], 11 for Chic with Nile)? To let them in... sorta? Give baby his bottle, throw the dog a bone?

The other ones in 2023 are fine. Al Kooper is in as the Sideman he is. Bernie Taupin is FINALLY in, also for Musical Excellence. He's not a Performer, but he's responsible for writing some of the best and most important rock songs. So this is the category used as intended. Sheesh. 

In the Fringes… Not in the Hall

A page in a sociology textbook shows two photos— one of businesspeople in suits and ties, and one of hippies in fringed vests and bellbottom jeans. The caption for both?

“Conformity.”

Even nonconformists tend to conform… to each other. They rebel in the same way, forming their own norms. As my college roommate, who showed me the textbook, put it, “What if I totally believed everything the hippies did, but felt most comfortable in a rugby shirt and khakis? Wouldn’t that be truly rebellious?”

How many acts in the Rock Hall are truly like no other, in the Hall or outside it? Yes, many acts are unique, but they still fall within certain parameters.

Their songs have verses and choruses. And a 2/4 or 4/4 beat. And they use guitars, basses, drums, and keys.

Truly “out there” acts, where the music— not just the fashions— stretch the boundaries of what “music” even is? Not so much.

I can think of only a couple of acts in the Hall like this, whose music is abstract, unpredictable, left-field… just plain weird.

Then again, maybe such acts don’t belong in a hall of fame. Maybe the simple fact of their incomprehensible unapproachability keeps them being niche acts with relatively few, if ardent, fans.

Still, it would be nice to have a few more of the most influential ones in there. Putting some more in the Hall would certainly raise the profile of those artists…

And what is rock music, if not a series of sounds that raise an eyebrow or two?

Update: In 2023 eyebrow-raiser Missy Elliott was Inducted as a performer. 

The Women Issue

Yeah, yeah…. You knew we were eventually going to get to this.

Here we go: There aren’t enough women Inductees.

In one category, they are shut out almost entirely: The Award for Musical Excellence, formerly Sidemen. It might as well still be called Sidemen, because only one Sidewoman— Patty Scialfa, a member of the E Street Band (which, first, should have been inducted as Performers with Springsteen or at least by itself in 2012 along with several other “backing bands” that got full Induction)— is in.

I can think of many women who deserve to be here. If you can’t, please watch the documentary Twenty Feet from Stardom. And then see the 2008 doc The Wrecking Crew and meet Carol Kaye. In any case, there are many women who have backed big-deal acts in the studio and on tour for decades, often as singers but even as musicians (like bassist Kaye). It should be easy to find dozens of worthy candidates, and yet here we are, and here they aren’t.

The next most glaring category in this regard is the Ertegun (Non-Performers) Award.  There are 50 winners (as of 2020), all of three of whom are women. And all of those are inducted alongside a man… and as part of a songwriting duo: Mann and Weil, Goffin and King, Greenwich and Barry. Not as “producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists and other industry professional(s).” Even though women have, um, been those things.

Yes, this reflects the sausage-fest reality of the music industry. No, you can’t award who’s not there. Yes, it’s hardly the fault of the award that this has been the sad history of the industry.

But come on. Since 1986, there haven’t been one or two women “producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists [or] other industry professional(s)” deemed worthy of the award? Even looking back at the entire history of rock, which goes back some 70 years at this point?

None? Zero? Zilch?

Early Influences, you’re next. Seven out of 33. We’re talking about performers from, more or less, the 1920s to the early 1950s. Guess what? Women were performing back then, too. In all the genres that fed into rock. But only a fifth of these Inductees are female acts. Even accounting for the sexism of those days, they should be around 40%, not 20%, of this category.

OK, now for the Performers. There have been other websites crunching the figures here, but I’m going to take a different approach, closer to the Bechdel Test for women in movies.

We’re going to see if there are any years in which more than two women got inducted as Performers in the same year:

In 1988, three women got in, but all were Supremes, so three women but one act got in.

1998 (ten years later): Four women in two acts; this time each act (Fleetwood Mac, The Mamas and the Papas) had two women.

The following year, 1999, The Staples Singers made for three of the four women who got in, so still two acts.

That also happened in 2007 (eight years later). Four women got in…but three were Ronettes, so again only two acts.

And in 2013, three women got inducted in the same year. Two were in the same band (Heart). So three women, but again only two acts.

So… did it ever happen that three or more different acts, each one with female members, got inducted in the same year?

Yes. Once. In 1996— after 10 years of inductions… and not since, in almost 25 more years of inductions.

In that year, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Grace Slick (with Jefferson Airplane), Maureen Tucker (with Velvet Underground) and all four Shirelles were inducted. So, seven women inducted as Performers in one year..!

Along with 19 men.

I found at least nine years in which no female Performers were inducted at all. There were zero years in which no male Performers were inducted at all.

Have men simply been the ones more “allowed” to make music in all that time? Maybe. But… given all the music that gets in? I mean, think about how wide a variety we are talking about here, from disco to punk, from folk to rap.

Women are slightly more than half the population. Given the historic sexism of the music industry, maybe allowances have to be made. You can’t award someone who wasn’t there.

But to say that there are simply no women worth inducting in some years? And only one or two the rest of the time? Impossible.

There are many lists online of women who are both eligible and deserving. In 2021, everyone who dropped their first album in or before 1996 will be eligible, Maybe not enough women were making records in the very early days (which I doubt), but by the mid-1960s, they had likely caught up. At this point, there is really no excuse. There aren’t enough women Inductees.

“When you know better, do better,” said a great singer (and poet, and author…), Maya Angelou. So, Rock Hall… do better.

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/15/796717978/41-women-who-should-be-in-the-rock-roll-hall-of-fame

Update: They did better! 

In 2021, three different acts with women were Inducted as Performers: The Go-Go's, Tina Tuner (solo this time) and Carole King (both solo this time and as Performer this time). Several other women were nominated, as well.

In 2022, four different acts with women in them were Inducted as Performers: Pat Benatar, Dolly Parton (yes, really!), the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox, and Carly Simon. Additionally, folkie Elizabeth Cotten got in as an Early Influence and there was even a women winning the Ertegun-- Sylvia Robinson. 

This is very gratifying and heartening. Keep it up! 

2023 was another banner year for women: as Performers, Kate Bush (after several tries), Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott. None in the other categories, but three women with very different styles all in one year should be the norm. 

Singling out Singles

If you walk up to the bell, the saying goes, ring it.

So the Hall inducts songs now, as of 2018. And that’s great. It inducted six songs in that year, and another six in 2019.

And in 2020… zero.

Please don’t tell us this is going to be like the Ertegun (Non-Performer) and Early Influences and Musical Excellence (Sidemen) all over again… where you say you’re going to give an award but then forget to actually do so.

Is this a consolation prize? Steven Van Zandt explained: “…not to say these artists will never be in the Rock Hall. They just are not in the Rock Hall at the moment.” Uh-hunh. And I have a bridge to sell you.

Look, it’s fine to have a consolation prize. The Musical Excellence award should not be that— at least not for Performers, as it has become.

But Singles will work. Or could, given a chance. How many times have you heard, “How could (act) not be in? (Song) is one of the best rock songs ever!” See, OK, yeah, maybe that song is… but can you even name any other song by that band? Even if you can name five, that doesn’t make them Induction-worthy, necessarily.

And so— induct just the song, then. If the implication is, “You’re getting this one song in, but never your whole band,” while that sucks on some level, it’s at least an answer. And it’s not a loss; your song— and your band’s name, attached to it— will be in the Hall. Forever. While that’s not an induction, it’s way better than nothing. Tons of great bands will never get anything at all, Hall-wise.

Would you rather hear, from your crush, “Maybe… someday…” and be strung along for ages? Or get a simple, devastating— but final— “Ain’t gonna happen,” so you can mourn and move on?

I would further argue that having a song in the Singles list is better than being considered a “sideman/woman” when you— and everyone else— knows you were in the damn band.

How can I say that? Turns out, there have been studies done on Olympic medalists. Gold winners are happiest, of course. But Bronze, third-place, winners are second happiest. They didn’t lose, they medaled! “Hey! Got an Olympic medal! I will have ‘Olympic Medalist’ in my name here on out. I got to stand on the podium, see my country’s flag flown at the Olympics, come home with a prize…”

Silver medalists, meanwhile, were the least happy. Remember, in some Olympic competitions, you can lose by a tenth of a point, or a hundredth of a second. All that came between you and Gold was a hangnail, an eyelash!

So while the fact that the Hall is already— in just the third year!— skipping a year of Singles inductions is upsetting, the fact that they are doing it at all is a good thing. Now they have to, y’know, actually do it... not just step up to the bell, but ring it.

And let six songs in every year. We may run out of “Early Influences” at some point, and even “producers” (who knows how the industry will change?!)… but it will take ages to run out of Singles to induct, even at the rate of an EP’s worth a year.

https://www.futurerocklegends.com/blog_files/The_Rock_Hall_Singles_Category_Clings_to_Life.html

Update: I do not see that any Singles were inducted in either 2021 or 2022. Harumph.

Getting Behind in “Behind-the-Scenes”

So… the whatever you want to call it—  the Non-Performers Award or (since 2008) The Ahmet Ertegun Award— which once were two things and now seem to have merged, even retroactively (all those who won Non-Performers when it was called that are now considered Ertegun winners)…

You know, the award for contributing to rock history without being on stage? That one.

Well, since 2015, they have only given it out in two of those years— once in 2016 and twice in 2020.

Thing is, before that, it was annual. It was given to at least one person or (usually songwriting but sometimes producing) team from the inaugural year—1986— to 2003.

That’s a pretty solid run. Enough to encourage anyone who could reasonably be up for it to think, “OK, maybe this year.”

Then… they stopped giving it. For five years! Then they gave it in 2008.

Then in 2010, they gave it to six recipients! It seems like they suddenly remembered: “Oops! We forgot we give this award! Better make up for lost time. Just give a bunch out at once.”

OK! Whew! Back on track! They gave it every year again, from 2010-14.

Then… 2016. OK, skipped a year. That can happen.

But then, not again until this year, 2020. A four-year gap!

What the hey?

Here’s the thing. This category is HUGE and vague. It encompasses “songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists and other industry professionals.”

And there is not even a 25-year built-in time lag between when you began in the music biz and when you become eligible, as with performers. Everyone in rock-industry history is a candidate right now! 

And they’re telling us that four or five years go by and you can’t think of anyone worthy? Year after year?

While most websites tracking snubs focus on performers, there are critics out there who have made lists of pros who should get an Ertegun. They can also see if the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, or Radio and Broadcast halls, have inducted anyone who also needs one.

I am not going to sit here and sift through all 50 current Ertegun awardees to determine what percentage are execs vs producers vs songwriters (and many are two of these things, or all three)… vs DJs or journalists. A quick glance reveals far more execs and producers. I see 9 or 10 I would consider songwriters.

But if someone wants to do a breakdown of who’s there based on what their actual contribution was, I’d love to see it (and comment on it). I predict there would be clear patterns that would suggest which kind of Ertegun awardee is missing.

And so maybe another 10 people who deserve one can, in 2021, stop waiting. That’s right, it’s time for another 2010-type clean-up sweep. Maybe consider doing a sweep in every year that ends in zero? Or is a multiple of 5?

Of course, then the Hall just has to go back to giving one or two out every year, making sure not to ignore the songwriters (again, take a peek at their Hall)… without whom we would have far less music to begin with.

But, if you're gonna bother having the award? Bother awarding it.

https://www.audiovisualrepository.com/blog/Producersrockhallsnubs

https://www.songhall.org/

Update: In 2021, there were two inductees as Early Influences, three for Musical Excellence, and one Ertegun. In 2022, two more Early Influences, two for Musical Excellence, and three Erteguns.

Good, good. Let's keep that up, shall we? 

There were two Early Influence, three Musical Excellence, and one Ertegun inducted. 

Small Words, Big Difference (a Question of Backing Bands)

What words? The words “and the.”

Some acts are just considered solo acts; One Person. Some are considered a band, a bunch of people, a Group.

And then there the halfway-between acts, the ones with “and the” in the names. They have names like One Person and the Group.

For a while there, the Hall seemed to divide the “and the” groups into two further categories. If the backing people also sang, but only sang (and maybe danced), then they were ushered right in along with the lead. But if they played instruments? Well, then-- maybe yes, maybe no.

In 2012, six backing bands got full inductions. All of them were “and the” acts. Their leads had already been induced, as One Person-type solo acts, despite (or because of) the “and the”in the band's name.

Yet, there are still bands out there languishing in “and the”-land. In one famous case, they did get inducted… but in the Sidemen/Musical Excellence category. Even thought they had been together— as a band with the frontman (who got full induction as One Person)— for 40 years, and made all but two or three of their 20 or so albums together.

What almost makes this worse— and what definitely makes it more confusing— is that more than 15 acts with “and the” did get in as such-- both the One Person, as well as the “and the” Group-- in one fell swoop of an induction. And that other six “and the” groups who got separate induction from their frontman, but are still fully inducted as Performers.

All we’re looking for, here, is a little consistency. And for the Rock Hall to stop even caring about the “and the” thing. That they have cared at all has caused— still causes!— nothing but consternation and indignation from the fans, the critics, and the musicians themselves.

New Rule: From now on, and retroactively, a band called “One Person and the Group” is just as much a unit fit to be inducted all at once as a band simply called “The Group,” “The Adjective Group” or even just “Group.

And the “and the” should not mean so much. As far as Inductions are concerned, those words should mean nothing at all.

Also, if a One Person act has had the same backing personnel for 40+ years? That’s a band.

Here are the members that did not get in with the rest of their bands:
https://www.futurerocklegends.com/Snubbed_Members.php 

Update: In 2022, Pat Benatar got in... but so did Neil Giraldo, her longtime musical partner, along with her. My sources tell me she stuck to her guns so he would get in, too. Are you listening, Mr. Springsteen? 

Piano Rolls (and Rocks)

Let’s face it— the primary instrument of rock music is, and has been for a while now, the electric guitar. 

It’s not the only music you can play on that instrument, and other instruments can play rock… but few things are as associated with each other as rock is with the electric guitar. If you were cataloging recordings by genre, using universally recognized icons and symbols, you’d use an electric guitar-shaped label for the rock albums.

But yes, pianos have been used to make rock music— and make music rock— from the get-go. Plenty of rockstars, including Rock Hall inductees, use it as their primary instrument. And plenty of others, whose main instrument is the electric guitar, will “bring it down a bit” in concert by plinking out a plaintive ballad on the ol’ ivories.

I’m not saying that the Rock Hall needs to induct more piano players, or start prioritizing them. Well, I am implying that. And I do think it would be nice to acknowledge just how much rock music has been made on these instruments.

It just might induce the Hall to take another look at synth-led bands… in my dreams…

Perhaps, the next time the Hall looks for a “special exhibit” topic, it can spotlight the piano and all of the Inductees-- and Early Influences-- who have rocked the house with, well, the instrument that uses as much lumber as the house.

Seriously, wouldn’t you like to see, and hear, a history of rock ’n’ roll piano? I’d watch that documentary and buy its box set.

https://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_keyboard.html

Update: Billy Preston was inducted with an Award for Musical Excellence in 2021, and also that year keyboard-based band Kraftwerk was inducted as an Early Influence (in a later genre: electronic music).

Then in 2022, Duran Duran was Inducted, as was Lionel Richie, who plays piano when he plays something, and composes on piano regardless.

In 2023, keyboardist Al Kooper was inducted for Musical Excellence, which is good because he belongs in, and that's how he belongs in. 

Singer-but-not-songwriter

 Insane as it may seem, there is a book titled How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll. Also, the song “American Pie” insists that “the music” died when Buddy Holly did. In 1959.

In the book, the author explains that rock was written by pros and sung by teenagers who could sing but not write songs. That has been the template for pretty much forever, with one group of people composing and another group performing. True for pop, jazz, gospel, and much of classical. Even much of folk music was performances of traditional, older material. Some people did perform their own work, of course, but the real idea was to hand that part of the job to the experts-- the same why an architect did not build the house, nor did the carpenters ink the blueprints. Two separate jobs.

Then along came The Beatles and ruined everything by knowing how to sing and write their own songs! Now, neither those non-singing composers nor those non-composing singers could get work!

Well, the Rock Hall kinda wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, they honor those Brill Building songwriters who, pre-Beatles, wrote and composed the rock music of the 1950s, as Ertegun (previously “Non-Performer”) winners.

On the other, they almost entirely induct Performers who write their own material. Only maybe 20 or so— of 200+ acts inducted as Performers— predominantly performed what was handed to them.

So… where are the rest of those? All those non-singing songwriters wrote all those songs for someone to sing. If it was OK to write but not sing... why is not OK to sing but not write?

And it’s not true that all of such acts are pre-Beatles. Some of them are Motown acts. Even some major rock acts were more vocal interpreters than writers.

Which is fine. It’s just strange that not being able to write songs doesn’t disqualify you from being inducted…

…until it does.

Update: Tina Turner, who to my knowledge did not pen her hits, was Inducted in 2021.  

Longshots and Critical Darlings

In linguistics, there are two main schools of thought. Prescriptivists would say that “alright” is unacceptable, since it should be “all right.” Descriptivists would say “alright” is… fine, because so many people have used it for so long, it has become acceptable. 

So the question is… what is the purpose of the Rock Hall? To tell people which rock acts are important, or to reflect which acts the people themselves already think are important?

Since its very inception, the Rock Hall has been about prescription, not description. It is run by experts, we are told, who really know which acts are really important for us to know about and listen to.

And that’s fine. After all, the acts that are on the radio and loudspeakers in public places and in superhero movie soundtracks… you already know about those. They are easy to find out about. You don’t have to attend a class or visit a museum— just sit down, turn on the closest music-playing tech, and there they are.

If museums serve a function at all, it’s to educate. And that means telling you things you don’t know, and can’t learn from the TV and radio.

If they serve another function, it’s to preserve history. In pop-culture, “history” is last week. Come on, name last year’s winner for Best Picture at the Oscars.

There is a story about a boy on an archaeological dig in the Middle East. He excitedly shows the dig’s leader a pottery shard he found, with some writing on it. “Nice,” says the leader. “That’s 200 years old.” The boy gets even more excited, until the leader says, “You can keep it. We’re looking for things that are 2,000 years old.”

But this not rock science, it’s rock music, which has been around less time than some people still living. Still, even music that’s 25 years old is… “old” in music terms.

Once, in the mid-’00s, my own wife referred to a 1980’s song as “old.” I took umbrage; I listen to that era’s music, but also jazz and blues from the 1930s, folk music that’s even older, and classical that’s older yet. “No,” I said, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic is an ‘old’ song. That song on the radio is younger than you, and I am not married to an ‘old’ woman.”

So it’s important to tell people about music they don’t know, whether it’s because it was always obscure, only popular among a certain group of people, or— gasp— made before they were born!

On the other hand, if the Rock Hall did not induct bands people know, they wouldn’t sell any tickets. It’s a balance.

There is a book I have called The Rock Snob’s Dictionary. I suppose I am to a degree a musical snob. But because I am, I can introduce my kids to music their friends can’t. I know what songs the songs on the radio sampled, or plagiarized, from. When my kid doesn’t recognize, say, a sitar in a song, I can tell him that’s what it is.

It’s the job of the experts in the Hall to tell us what, and who, we don’t know, not to just echo what’s popular. “Fame” runs both ways. It can be a “hall of the already-famous,” or a “the famous-because-they-are-in-the-Hall.”

A TV station once advertised the reruns they broadcast by saying, “If you haven’t seen an episode, it’s new to you!” even if it is, you know, old. And education is about what’s new to you, even of it is “already knew” to others.

So there should be at least one inductee every year that makes people go, “Who?” Because the next step after that can be, “Well, if they got in, they must be pretty good! I’m gonna go check ’em out.” Which is when the preservation and education happen.

And that’s pretty damn alright.

Update: Todd Rundgren got Inducted in 2021. 

Did We Run Out of Early Influences Already?

As with the Non-Performers/Ertegun Award, the Hall seems to have lost steam in giving out the Early Influences Award.

It was given every year, from the inaugural year— 1986— to 2000.

Then, not for nine years, until 2009. It can be understood if, during that time, people just assumed that anyone worth receiving it already had.

But then, they started giving it again… every three years, for some reason: 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018…

In fairness, it is potentially possible to run out of people who one can say both lived before rock music was a “thing” and also contributed to its development. Reasonably speaking, they would have had to be active between 1920 (the early days of blues and jazz) and 1950, probably in the US… and have not just performed, but likely recorded and been broadcast somewhat widely.

Still, it’s hard to fathom that-- even with those narrow parameters-- only 33 people qualify.

Rock pulls from so many other genres, and in so many ways. Rock is not just about the music— it’s about stage presence, dance moves, costuming, vocal inflections, and that rock attitude and energy that electrify.

Certainly, we can look across a three-decade span in one of the most musically fertile places in world history and come up with someone every year to who contributed to rock music.

I have an idea. The Hall began inductions in 1986, and as of this post's first posting, it has inducted the class of 2020. That’s 34 years of inductions. And, as of 2020, there are 33 Early Influencers.

So let’s call that “close enough for jazz” and just say that the Hall has inducted, at least on average, one Early Influence per year.

How’s about, then, going forward, they induct one more Early Influence every year, to keep the average going… until they really run out.

https://www.cleveland.com/life-and-culture/erry-2018/11/53debedacc4690/rock-roll-hall-of-fame-20-earl.html

Update: in 2022, they Inducted music preservationist Elizabeth Cotten, who like Pete Seeger kept the old songs alive by always singing them. 

In 2023, Link Wray, an early rocker, was inducted as an Earl Influence after multiple nominations.

Foreign (Language) Affairs

What language is Rock ’n’ Roll?

While Rock, as a genre, was born in America, the Hall seems to have followed the pattern of the British Empire when choosing its inductees. Which is to say, they are almost all from English-speaking places.

The British Empire spread the English language far and wide. At least 60 countries, when listing their “official languages,” include English. These nations range from the US and Canada in the Western Hemisphere to the UK and Australia in the Eastern one.

And, with the exception of ABBA (who sing in English), that’s who is in the Hall, too: acts from English-speaking countries. The inductees from Jamaica— Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff— also sing in English; Jackson Browne was born in Germany, but sings in English.

Glancing at the list of all the inductees, I see Richie Valens as having a hit in a non-English language: the Spanish “La Bamba.”

Some bands who are in have songs with a line or verse in French: The Beatles’ “Michelle,” Billy Joel’s “You Are the One,” Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers,” ELO’s “Hold on Tight.”

But an act whose primary language is not English? I don’t see any, among the 300+ inductees. Do you?

One could argue that major acts from non-English-speaking places don’t have the same reach and impact as ones that do. But isn’t that a circular argument, a Catch-22?

And is it even true? Half a billion people speak Spanish on Earth. Another 270 million speak French, and some 200 million speak German. They must be listening to some rock music— even if we don’t hear it in the US or UK— that may have gone platinum there? Doesn’t that count?

Forget trees falling in forests; if rock isn’t in English, does it still make a sound?

And sure, one and a half billion people speak English. But there are more than seven billion people in the world.

And yeah, Asian music is based on very different principles and modes than Western music, so rock’s roots aren’t necessarily that deep for a lot of the world. But… they do love rock everywhere, even in Asia; how many albums have the words “at Budokan” in their titles? (It’s a Japanese concert hall).

Yes, we R-O-C-K in the U-S-A. But also, we “keep on rockin’ in the free world.” And rock music has the power to chip away at regimes in other less-free places, too, from Russia to Iran. Look at the history of rock vs. the Berlin Wall or vs. apartheid, for just some examples.

So it would be a powerful statement to induct an act or two (at least) whose main language was not English. It would send several messages: that rock is a global cultural force, that rock is an international “language” beyond words— and that when we rock over here… they echo our sounds right back at us from over there.

And when they do, we listen.

https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2020/03/remember-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-japan-thats-ok-no-one-else-does.html

Update: Kraftwerk, born and bred in Germany, was Inducted in 2021; while they debuted within the Rock Era, they were considered an Early Influence on a later genre: electronic music. 

Funny Business

One of the major criticisms of rock music has always been its lack of respect for any authority. It openly mocks the powers that be, and is snide and sarcastic in general. It has fun, but also makes fun and pokes fun.

But sometimes when rock is being the class clown, it’s actually funny. Novelty songs have been part of all music from time immemorial, and that’s no less true of rock.

And yet, the Rock Hall has never seen fit, in its three decades-plus of operation, to even nominate a novelty act.

Granted, there are only a handful of novelty acts that might even qualify. But that just makes their exclusion all the odder.

Rock is supposed to thumb its nose at the establishment. People were worried, when the Hall was opened, that putting rock in a museum might make it codger-ly and stodgy. Did their worries come true?

Rock laughs at everything, even itself. By inducting even one novelty or parody act, the Hall would indicate that it understand this, that it acknowledges the place of comedy in rock… and that it’s not afraid to crack a smile now and then.

https://www.change.org/p/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-weird-al-yankovic-for-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame

The Non-Heavy Side of Soul

While there seem to be rock acts that rock too hard for the Rock Hall to induct, soul does not have that problem. Lots of heavy R&B, soul, and funk acts are in. More could be, and should be, inducted— but the objection does not seem to be that they are too heavy.

No, for soul, the problem is the opposite. If a R&B, soul, or funk act is not heavy enough, that’s a problem for the Hall.

Thing is, lots of acts on the lighter side of R&B and/or soul are hugely popular. Their hits have remained the mainstays of party-DJ set lists for fifty years in some cases.

To say they were not influential is also ridiculous. Much of today’s music owes its existence to those acts. They have been covered and sampled endlessly.

Lighter rock, disco, and pop are in. So the idea that there needs to be some sort of heaviness to achieve worthiness or authenticity? Nah.

Think of the concerts during the induction ceremony once these bands start getting in... Getting asses in seats is only going to be hard because they will all be up boogie-ing.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-snubs-randb-legends-like-janet-jackson

Update: Tina Turner got Inducted in 2021, as did Billy Preston, with an Award for Musical Excellence. And then Lionel Richie got Inducted, in 2022.

Folk Heroes

Folk music is in the Rock Hall. At least several of those acts that perform both folk and folk-rock, as well as those clearly-rock acts that draw heavily from folk.

Those who performed predominantly folk music, though… even some of them are in, even though they don’t necessarily rock that hard.

There are maybe a handful of folk and folk-rock acts that could, and should, still be inducted, though. And especially for those who were part of the Greenwich Village and Laurel Canyon scenes, time is running short for inducting them, um, pre-posthumously (humously?).

Folk had several major influences on rock. One was making rock socially aware. Folk music has always been tied to the news and the needs of the people, and rock can get somewhat self-involved and self-indulgent; folk music, along with blues, helped it grow a conscience.

When you want to "bring it down for a minute," you play one of your rock songs unplugged, on an acoustic guitar (now, who thought of that first?).

Folk, in the global sense, also introduced other cultures, languages, and instruments into rock.

And many rock songs began life as folk songs. Read through the titles of songs of Alan Lomax’s field recordings for the Smithsonian, and Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag book, and you may be surprised at the number of titles you recognize from your classic rock stash.

For the most part, the Rock Hall has done right by folk music, inducting such acts as both Early Influences and more recent ones as Performers (it needs to follow the same pattern with blues.) With the induction of, as I said, perhaps a half-dozen more acts, the Hall can comfortably say it incorporated the acts we could reasonably expect to be included.

I can also think of a few, who, if added, would really show that the Hall knew its stuff. These are the ones that true folk fans and critics know are a big deal, even if they aren’t household names.

http://www.thefolkmusichalloffame.org/

Update: Carole King got in as a performer in 2021, which makes her the first in twice, but in two categories. 2022 saw the induction of Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten as Early Influences. Is Belafonte a "folk" musician, though? Yes, world music is a folk idiom, and he performed (and preserved) traditional songs on acoustic instruments. Just because the folks aren't white doesn't mean the music isn't folk, folks.

Country Music in the Rock Hall?

Some country musicians are in the Rock Hall, mostly as Early Influences. And… that’s fine. County music has its own Hall of Fame that predates the Rock Hall by decades (it was chartered in 1964). As of 2017, 11 acts are in both Halls.

So it’s not like country musicians don’t get recognized (also, they have the CMAs and other recognitions).

I can only think of one or two acts who are solidly “country” whose appeal is wide enough to get into the Rock Hall, and a handful of country-rock acts who aren’t in who could or should be.

But, unlike rap artists, no country acts seem to be clamoring to get in, and none of the country fanbases seem to be banging down the doors for their pet act to be inducted, either. One wonders if that would make them seem less “country” to others who care.

That said... this article pitches 11 more country musicians to add:
https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2017/02/11_country_artists_to_consider.html

Update: One of the biggest entertainment stories of 2022 dealt with this! Dolly Parton was nominated. She declined. Then she found out that non-rock acts are regularly inducted, so he said: OK, induct me if you want. Throughout, the Hall never changed its tune-- she was nominated and would stay so, despite her initial wishes to the contrary. Spoilers: she was inducted. Her reaction was pure Dolly: "I guess I'm a rockstar now!"

2023 saw the Induction of Willie Nelson. I did not see as much of a fuss about this being made as with Dolly, which in a way in a shame-- but in another way means she normalized the idea, big time. 

So that's 2 more from the above link's list. I looked at it again and of them, and I can see, getting in: Garth Brooks (sheer popularity), Merle Haggard (rock attitude), Patsy Cline (as an Early Influence), and Glen Campbell (for Musical Excellence-- he was a sideman first, a member of the storied Wrecking Crew, and certainly the breakout star from among that bunch of talented people.)

Not on the list is Vince Gill, who has toured with the Eagles since Glen Frey's passing. 

Getting the Blues (Inducted)

Plenty of blues artists are in the Rock Hall, and plenty more should get in… and will, as long as the Early Influences category is still offered (whether they are "running out" of such potential inductees will be discussed in a later post).

But what about those blues players who were not, well, “early”?

The blues dates back to at least the 1920s, which means it had a 30-year head start on rock music. 

But the blues did not stop when rock started in the 1950s! Many of the blues acts that were playing at the time kept right on playing. Still, as long as they pre-dated, say, the 1960s, they likely remain thought of as “early” influences.

However, some blues acts only began in the late 1960s. Or in the 1970s. Or even in the 1980s and later. Hardly “early” anymore, by that point. (As of 2020, any act that debuted in 1995 or before is eligible for induction.)

And, well, what about them? What about the blues acts that co-existed with rock but did not pre-date it?

Some Inductees have been a hard sell to the public, in terms of them counting as “rock” and therefore eligible for the “Rock” Hall. But blues? Even non-“early” blues should be an easy sell for Rock-Hall inclusion.

One of the blues’ biggest causes of, well, the blues, is that it is seen as archaic, a relic of the past. This makes it hard to sell tickets, gain radio airplay, and entice new blood into the genre.

By only inducting blues acts that are “early,” the Hall feeds into that problem, even if unwittingly.

But by inducting blues acts that debuted in the mid-’60s and after, the Hall would shine its huge spotlight on this venerable genre. It would show that the blues is still vibrant into its second century, and necessary in the new millennium.

And it would show that the Hall itself—willing as it is to embrace disco, rap, and whatever Nine Inch Nails is— hasn’t forgotten rock’s basic roots in the blues, and is dedicated to making sure the blues remains healthy and vital right alongside rock.

As one blues Inductee sang: “Blues had a baby and they named it rock ’n’ roll.”

And as the Bible says: “Honor thy father and mother.” 

This article is the most recent I could find about blues artists in the Rock Hall... and it's from 2014.
https://vpm.org/listen/articles/623/blues-inductees-to-rock-n-roll-hall-of-fame

Update: Charley Patton was Inducted in 2021 as an Early Influence.

The 1950s and the 1980s

The unending passage of time is going to mean two things for those hoping to get into the Rock Hall. One is that some will die before they get in, which is a damn shame. Many older Inductees have remarked that they were glad to be receiving their laurels before they were pushing up daisies. But for some, even those who beat the “live fast, die young” rock paradigm, inductions came posthumously.

Better late than never, sure. But earlier is even better still.

The other thing that will happen is that even if they die, so too will anyone who remembers them. Members of the generation who grew up in the earliest days of rock— who actually used the terms “sock hop” and “soda jerk” and “getting pinned” when they were new coinages— are fast becoming memories themselves.

A rock star who was just 20 in 1950, would be 90 in 2020. If you were their 15-year-old fan, you’d be 85 yourself.

What it comes down to is this: any act from the 1950s and early 1960s (alive or not) has a handful of years left to be inducted while alive… and not that many more years after that to even be inducted posthumously-- before no one who was around when they were is around now to induct them.

I grew up watching Happy Days, American Graffiti, and Grease. But some grew up living the experiences I only saw onscreen. They have to hurry up and induct as many of these early greats as possible while someone still knows who they were, or even that they were.

Another group of artists who are very under-represented in the Hall are 1980s acts-- especially those synth-based, New Wave acts who “sound like the ’80s”-- but also arena rock.

We'll discuss the Hall’s dislike for synth-based acts in another post (this bias also affects prog rock). But as far as that decade of music getting in, the aforementioned steady march of time will remedy that.

To define our terms, acts whose debut album came as late as 1989 have been eligible since 2014, while those who debuted at the outset of the decade, in 1980, have been eligible since 2005 (15 years now!). 

Not to be cold, but eventually, the Boomers will have to leave the Hall in the hands of Generation X. When a critical mass of Xers gets into the Hall, expect a tidal wave of ’80s acts to be ushered in, synths and all.

Already, some of the standard-bearers of ’80s music are in their 60s. And so part of me wants them to be inducted now.

But another part of me knows they will be, soon enough. Meanwhile, for the remaining deserving '50s acts, “soon enough” might not be, well, soon enough. For them, the Hall has got to get on the stick.

That's a reference to stick-shift cars, and if you're too young to know what those are... well, that's kinda my point.

I can't seem to find a list of 1950s acts that anyone thinks as been unfairly omitted... but a fan listed these in 2016-- and some have in fact been inducted since: his picks for 1980s acts that have been snubbed:

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/dd23beatlesfan1/30_artists_of_the_1980s_that_deserve_to_be_in_the_rock_and_roll_hall_of_fame/

Update: I wrote this in 2020. In 2021, some '80s acts got in: LL Cool J and The Go-Gos, and even the 1990s Foo Fighters, and Jay-Z. 2022 saw even more '80s acts inducted: Pat Benatar. Duran Duran, and the Eurythmics, as well as the 1990's Eminem.

2023 saw the Induction of Link Wray as an Early Influence. He had been nominated several times. 
'80s acts that are in now are Kate Bush (also after several tries), and George Michael (of WHAM!). Chaka Khan finally got in also, sort of, with a Musical Excellence Induction.