The 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

The 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees were officially announced on December 20th, five days after votes were due. The Rock Hall announced six inductees in the Performer category and one Musical Excellence inductee:

Performers:

Musical Excellence:

Inductees will be honored at the Induction Ceremony in Brooklyn on April 7, 2017.

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Dave Grohl is on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee

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Dave Grohl has a long history with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In addition being inducted as a member of Nirvana in 2014, he has given induction speeches for Queen in 2001 and Rush in 2013. At the 2015 induction ceremony, he performed with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and with Ringo Starr during the all-star jam. Grohl was instrumental in getting Ringo inducted that year in the Musical Excellence category, despite not formally being on the Nominating Committee.

Soon after the 2017 Rock Hall ballot was announced, Perry Ferrell revealed that Grohl told him he was responsible for getting Jane’s Addiction nominated. That led us to speculate that the Bad Brains nomination had Grohl’s fingerprints all over it as well.

Yesterday, Rolling Stone published a story about Bad Brains where H.R. confirmed that it was indeed Grohl that pushed their case.

As with other newly added Nominating Committee members such as Tom Morello and Questlove, Grohl was immediately successful in getting his picks directly on to the ballot (Nominating Committee members supposedly put forward two names each). Fresh voices seem to carry a lot of weight with the Committee, so Grohl may be most successful early in his tenure. With his experience on the Sonic Highways documentary series, he’s sure to have a long list of artists he wants to join him in the Hall of Fame.

The chances we will see artists like Motörhead, Minor Threat, Pixies or Fugazi on future ballots just went way up.

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Future Rock Legends Predicts the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

The majority of the 800+ member Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Voting Committee is comprised of the 449 living inductees. The average inductee / voter is a white male about 69 years old (Don Henley, Ron Wood, Iggy Pop, Elton John and Sammy Hagar all fit this profile). The rest of the Voting Committee is a mostly anonymous group of artists, historians and members of the music industry. Presumably, this group is slightly younger and more diverse than the inductees, but that is just speculation based on the small number of voters who have been discovered.

In recent years it has been difficult for “younger” artists who aren’t transcendent first ballot-types to get inducted. Titans of the 80s and 90s such as Nine Inch Nails, the Cure, the Replacements, the Smiths, Janet Jackson and LL Cool J have all made appearances on the ballot, but haven’t been welcomed into the Rock Hall yet. Voters have been far more likely to induct their peers of the 1960s than their musical progeny.

Future Rock Legends predicts the five inductees of the Rock Hall class of 2017 will be:

  • Pearl Jam - A true first ballot Hall of Famer. This has been a foregone conclusion for over 20 years, back when Eddie Vedder performed with the Doors on the Rock Hall stage.
  • Electric Light Orchestra - Jeff Lynne is the only member of the Traveling Wilburys who isn’t in the Hall of Fame, but only because E.L.O. had never been nominated until this year. Given his career and the respect he holds in the industry, he should coast into Cleveland now that he’s finally been given the opportunity.
  • Joan Baez - Like Cat Stevens and Leonard Cohen before her, Baez will likely be inducted after finally debuting on the ballot (eligible for 31 years!). Also if Baez gets in, there’s the potential to get a certain Nobel laureate back to the induction ceremony.
  • Journey - Sure, the fan poll winner has been inducted every time, but that doesn’t mean that it is guaranteed. However, Journey fits in nicely with last year’s AOR-friendly class and should have enough megahits to get the nod. Fans hoping for a Steve Perry reunion at the induction ceremony should remember the Rock Hall has an abysmal record negotiating these things.
  • Chic - The Rock Hall nominated 19 artists this year, the most since 1990. We’re guessing that Chic could benefit from a diluted ballot, where it will only takes about 1/3 of the voters to get an artist into the top five.

A quick note about some of the other artists on the ballot... Tupac is one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists, but like Nine Inch Nails, the generation gap might be too big to overcome this year... The Rock Hall voters have previously rejected Kraftwerk, Janet Jackson, MC5, The Cars, Yes, The Zombies, Chaka Khan, Joe Tex and The J. Geils Band. Given that they gravitate towards the fresher names on the ballot, it will be tough for one of these artists to get over the top... It’s truly remarkable that Bad Brains was nominated this year, but don’t expect to see them back on the ballot anytime soon... If there happen to be six performer inductees, we’ll predict the J. Geils Band will slip in... By pulling artists off of the Performer ballot and inducting them in other categories (Freddie King, Wanda Jackson), the Rock Hall has previously demonstrated their lack of respect for the process. Keep an eye out for what they might do in the other categories this year.


For ten years we have been conducting our own unofficial poll here which, unlike the official Rock Hall poll, requires voters to select five artists on their ballot. The results (after 2166 ballots):

  1. Kraftwerk 41%
  2. Depeche Mode 41%
  3. E.L.O. 38%
  4. Pearl Jam 37%
  5. Janet Jackson 35%
  6. MC5 31%
  7. Bad Brains 31%
  8. The Cars 30%
  9. Chic 29%
  10. 2Pac 28%
  11. Yes 28%
  12. Joan Baez 24%
  13. Journey 24%
  14. The Zombies 20%
  15. Jane’s Addiction 13%
  16. Steppenwolf 13%
  17. Chaka Khan 13%
  18. Joe Tex 12%
  19. The J. Geils Band 11%

For the record, the top five in the official Rock Hall fan poll were Journey, E.L.O., Yes, Pearl Jam and The Cars.

The Rock Hall Induction Ceremony will take place on Friday, April 7 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

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The Rock Hall Fan Poll is a Mess (Again)

Not a normal vote curve
After last year’s epic fan poll debacle, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame tried to fix things this year. They outsourced the fan poll to Votem, a “revolutionary mobile voting platform,” that makes bold promises on its website:
Multifactor authentication ensures votes are cast legitimately, while top-of-the-line encryption protects fan voter privacy and anonymity.

Featuring 100% accuracy and transparency throughout the entire fan vote process, Votem removes any potential for human error or controversy caused by miscounting or mishandling votes.

Well, after a relatively uneventful first six weeks of voting, today the Rock Hall made up for lost time by releasing over 575,000 new votes today that were “cached in the voting system.” They also arbitrarily decided to extend the voting deadline by 10 days to December 15th.

The Rock Hall updated the vote totals after an internal “audit,” likely prompted by a tweet from Journey which suggested the poll may have been “hacked” after their lead over E.L.O. shrank from 5,000 votes to 2,000 votes over the course of a week.

What kind of polling operation holds onto 40% of votes for a month and then releases them all at once with little explanation? Certainly not one that supposedly features “100% accuracy and transparency.” This is the same “transparent” poll that didn’t show vote totals for over a week after voting started. This is the same poll that promises “voter privacy and anonymity,” but then sneakily registers you for the Rock Hall newsletter when you vote with your email address.

This is the same polling company that is supposed to “remove any potential for controversy.” (Did the Rock Hall actually pay for this service?)

As Steve Miller said about the Rock Hall back in the spring, “I think it’s time for the people running this to turn it over to new people, because it doesn’t need to be this difficult.”

Votem did not respond to questions regarding their poll methodology.

Update: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame offered up additional details about the vote increase, also insisting that the poll had not been “hacked.” The Rock Hall shared their own graph of results for the month of November, which shows the extra votes distributed over the course of the month.

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Iconic Rock Talk Show thinks this whole thing could have been handled better.

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What Does Rock & Roll Look Like?

THEJAM
In 1986, Canadian artist Michael Keirstead created the “The Jam Part I - A History” to illustrate “the musical influences that shaped the evolution of Rock music.” It’s a fantastic piece filled with Rock & Roll Hall of Famers from the 1950s through the 1970s. Here is who is on the poster (everyone is in the Rock Hall except those that are linked):
  • John Paul Jones
  • Jimmy Page
  • Robert Plant
  • John Bonham
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Nick Mason
  • Rick Wright
  • David Gilmour
  • Roger Waters
  • Elvis Presley
  • Marc Bolan
  • Jim Croce
  • Chuck Berry
  • Little Richard
  • Buddy Holly
  • Jim Morrison
  • Kin Hensley
  • Pete Townshend
  • Keith Moon
  • Roger Daltrey
  • John Entwistle
  • Janis Joplin
  • Brian Jones
  • Mick Jagger
  • Ron Wood
  • Charlie Watts
  • Bill Wyman
  • Keith Richards
  • Jon Lennon
  • Yoko Ono
  • George Harrison
  • Ringo Starr
  • Paul McCartney
  • Alice Cooper
  • Grace Slick
  • Muddy Waters
  • Bill Haley
  • Johnny Winter
  • Don Everly

Keirstead followed up that work with “The Jam Part II - Long Live Rock & Roll” which continued the project showing the following decades of rock stars (with a slightly more Canadian bias).

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Here are the people illustrated (this time Hall of Famers are linked - most are not in the Hall of Fame yet):

For many rock fans, this is what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame should represent (even if it happens to be almost entirely white). If the Rock Hall also saw it that way, they might even have a chance to induct most of those people. But that’s not the way the Hall of Fame wants to represent rock and roll. They choose a far more ambitious path -- to include many of the different branches that sprung from the roots of rock and roll, including disco, electronic music, pop, and most controversially, hip hop. That makes their task exponentially more difficult. It’s hard enough to properly honor and represent the most important artists of one genre, but to try to capture the essence of popular music from the past half-century becomes an impossible task. There will inevitably be important artists who get left behind which leaves fans of all genres eternally frustrated. The current format of inducting just five artists per year does a huge disservice to their mission “to celebrate the musicians who founded, changed and revolutionized rock & roll,” when their definition of rock and roll includes an ever-expanding number of artists and genres. The Rock Hall has created an intractable problem.

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The 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

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The Rock Hall announced the 2017 Nominees this morning.

Please vote in our fan poll!

Much more to come.

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Using VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists as a Predictor for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Soundgarden-CharlesPeterson-e1359725565549
Back in 2000, VH1 compiled a list of the “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.” Although the exact methodology is unknown, the list was “selected by a panel of rock artists that included Pat Benatar, Def Leppard's Joe Elliott, Ozzy Osbourne, Scott Ian and John Bush of Anthrax, Korn's Dave Silveria, Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple, Dave Grohl of Nirvana/Foo Fighters, Mike Bordin of Faith No More, Skid Row's Sebastian Bach, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Yngwie Malmsteen, Lita Ford, and Geddy Lee of Rush.”

Because the “hard rock” genre definition seems pretty loose here, 34 of the 100 are Rock & Roll Hall of Famers (Update: As of 2017, 36 have been inducted). Apparently, the difficulty for the remaining artists is just getting on the ballot. Only five of the remaining 66 artists have ever been nominated: Nine Inch Nails, MC5, New York Dolls, Bon Jovi and Yes (Update: Yes was inducted in 2017).

Although the Rock Hall doesn’t primarily focus on hard rock, in the last four induction years Deep Purple, Cheap Trick, Green Day, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, KISS, Nirvana, Rush and Heart have all been inducted. Just give them another 30 years to induct the rest.

Here is the full list (linked artists are not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame):

  1. Led Zeppelin
  2. Black Sabbath
  3. Jimi Hendrix
  4. AC/DC
  5. Metallica
  6. Nirvana
  7. Van Halen
  8. The Who
  9. Gun N' Roses
  10. KISS
  11. Aerosmith
  12. The Sex Pistols
  13. Queen
  14. Soundgarden
  15. Pink Floyd
  16. Cream
  17. Ramones
  18. Ozzy Osbourne
  19. The Clash
  20. Alice Cooper
  21. Pearl Jam 
  22. Deep Purple
  23. Judas Priest
  24. Iron Maiden
  25. Cheap Trick
  26. Motörhead
  27. Iggy Pop
  28. Rush
  29. Mötley Crüe
  30. Red Hot Chili Peppers
  31. Def Leppard
  32. The Doors
  33. Rage Against The Machine
  34. Alice In Chains
  35. Jane's Addiction
  36. Frank Zappa
  37. The Yardbirds
  38. MC5
  39. Neil Young & Crazy Horse
  40. Stone Temple Pilots
  41. Ted Nugent
  42. The Kinks
  43. Nine Inch Nails
  44. ZZ Top
  45. Pantera
  46. Scorpions
  47. Rollins Band
  48. Janis Joplin
  49. Smashing Pumpkins
  50. Slayer
  51. Thin Lizzy
  52. Faith No More
  53. Korn
  54. Sonic Youth
  55. Blue Öyster Cult
  56. White Zombie
  57. Heart
  58. Anthrax
  59. Bad Company
  60. New York Dolls
  61. Jethro Tull
  62. Ministry
  63. Boston
  64. Steppenwolf
  65. The Cult
  66. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 
  67. The Rolling Stones
  68. Hüsker Dü
  69. Megadeth
  70. Living Colour
  71. Lynyrd Skynyrd
  72. Foo Fighters
  73. Twisted Sister
  74. Pat Benatar
  75. Spinal Tap 
  76. Bon Jovi
  77. Hole
  78. Marilyn Manson
  79. Ratt
  80. Green Day
  81. Pixies
  82. Queensrÿche
  83. King's X
  84. UFO
  85. Whitesnake
  86. Foreigner
  87. King Crimson
  88. Tool
  89. Lita Ford
  90. Rainbow
  91. Danzig
  92. The Black Crowes
  93. Lenny Kravitz
  94. Yes
  95. Fugazi
  96. Meat Loaf
  97. Primus
  98. Mountain
  99. Bad Brains
  100. Quiet Riot
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Tom Morello's 2003 Speech Inducting The Clash into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

tom-morello
When Tom Morello passionately inducted KISS into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, it was widely hailed as one of the best induction speeches in recent history. One of the reasons it was so great was that Morello clearly had a personal connection to the band’s music and was a vocal advocate for their induction.

In 2003, Morello (and the Edge, in a separate speech) had the opportunity to induct another one of his greatest influences, The Clash.

I had the good fortune to see The Clash at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago when I was a teenager. It was an experience that changed my life. Even before the first note was played, the transformation began. I bought a t-shirt in the lobby. I was used to buying heavy metal t-shirts that had lots of pictures of garish wizards and dragons on them. But this Clash shirt was very different. It just had a few small words written over the heart. It said “the future is unwritten.” And when I saw the Clash play, I knew exactly what that phrase meant.

The Clash perform with passion, commitment, purpose, righteousness, and an unflinching political fire. There was such a sense of community in the room, it seemed like absolutely anything was possible. I was energized, politicized and changed by The Clash that night. And I knew that the future was unwritten and maybe we fans and that band would maybe write it together.

Joe Strummer was even playing through the same little amp I used when I was a high schooler. They proved to me that you didn’t need a big wall of Marshall stacks and a castle on a Scottish loch to make great rock and roll music. All you had to do was tell the truth and really, really, really mean it. I’d never seen a better band before that night and I’ve never seen a better band since. That’s very true.

The Clash were one of those rare bands that were greater than the sum of their parts, and yet the parts were awesome. Mick was the brilliant arranger and tunesmith, always looking forward musically. Let’s hear it for Mick. Right on. Always looking forward musically and pushing the boundaries of what was possible for a punk band, of what was possible for any band. Paul was just so damn cool looking. And as you’ll see, he’s still so damn cool-looking tonight. He’s running it like a pimp. And the image of him smashing the bass on the cover of London Calling, sums up the fury and beautiful force of the band. He also wove in the reggae influence that completed that Clash chemistry -- of three chords, a funky groove and the truth.

Terry Chimes provided the cavalry charge beats that propelled some of their early anthems, but it was Topper that made it all possible with his drumming. He effortlessly, and with great originality and skill, steered the band through genres undreamt of by their peers.

But really, they had no peers. Because at the center of the Clash hurricane stood one of the greatest hearts and deepest souls of 20th century music. At the center of the Clash stood Joe Strummer.

Joe Strummer died on December 22nd, 2002. But when Joe Strummer played, he played as if the world could be changed by a three minute song. And he was right. Those songs changed a lot of people’s worlds forever, mine at the top of the list. He was a brilliant lyricist with anger and wit always stood up for the underdog. And his idealism and conviction instilled in me the courage to pick up a guitar and the courage to try to make a difference with it.

In the great Clash anthem White Riot, Joe sang, “are you taking over? / or are you taking orders? / are you going backwards? / or are you going forwards?” And when I heard that, I wrote those four lines down, I put them on my refrigerator, and I answer those four questions for myself every single day. And to this day, I still do.

Joe Strummer was my greatest inspiration and my favorite singer of all-time and my hero. I miss him so much and I was looking forward to him standing on this stage and rocking with his friends tonight. And I know that he was too. I’m grateful though to have the tremendous legacy of music that the Clash left behind, cause through it, Joe Strummer and the Clash will continue to inspire and agitate well into the future. In fact, the Clash aren’t really gone at all. Because whenever a band cares more about its fans than its bank account, the spirit of the Clash is there. Whenever a band plays as if every single person’s soul in the room is at stake, the spirit of the Clash is there. And whenever a stadium band or little garage band has the guts to put their beliefs on the line to make a difference, the spirit of the Clash is there. And whenever people take to the streets to stop an unjust war, the spirit of the Clash is definitely there.

Tonight, we will honor the Clash, and Joe Strummer, with toasts and applause, but the best way to honor them is by putting the Clash’s philosophy into practice. By waking up each morning  knowing that the future is unwritten, and that it can be a future where human rights, peace and justice come first. But it is entirely up to us. To me, that’s what the Clash was all about.

They combined revolutionary sounds with revolutionary ideas. Their music launched thousands of bands and moved millions of fans. And I cannot imagine what my life would have been without them.

During their heyday, they were known as the only band that matters. And 25 years later, that still seems just about right to me.


Tom Morello Inducts the Clash into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Library and Archives, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

As a prominent member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, Morello, like Stevie Van Zandt and Robbie Robertson, will likely be called upon again to deliver additional induction speeches in the future.

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Steve Miller Exposes the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Calls for a Change in Leadership

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The biggest news to come out of the 2016 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony was Steve Miller’s harsh words for the institution and its organizers. In the press room after his performance, Miller unloaded:
The whole process is unpleasant. The whole process needs to be changed from the top to the bottom. It doesn’t need to be this hard. There is nothing fancy going on out there that requires all of this stuff.

They need to get their legal work straight. They need to respect the artists they say they’re honoring, which they don’t. I don’t have any of my paperwork signed, I have no licensing agreements with these people. They’re trying to steal footage. They’re trying to make me indemnify them.

When they told me I was inducted they said, “You can have two tickets - one for your wife and one for yourself. Want another one? It’s $10,000 - sorry that’s the way it goes.” I said, “I’m playing here. What about my band? What about their wives?” They make this so unpleasant.

They came this close - [publicist asks Miller to wrap it up]

No, we’re not going to wrap this up - I’m going to wrap you up. You go sit down over there and learn something. Here’s what you need to know. This is how close this whole show came to not happening because of the way the artists are actually being treated right now. So I’ll wrap it up.

In a separate interview with AP, Miller had further thoughts:

It wasn’t very overwhelming. It was kind of like a lazy kind of night with a bunch of fat cats at the dinner table.

It’s not a real pleasant experience, to tell you the truth. The reason it isn’t is because they make it so difficult for the artists. I think it’s time for the people running this to turn it over to new people, because it doesn’t need to be this difficult.

I don’t know why I was nominated for this, because i’ve said this about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 30 years and I don’t get along with the people who run it. When I found out about it, I felt like I was in a bullshit reality TV show.

Miller also said, "My fans take it seriously. I really didn't want to show up... You tell me what the hell is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and what does it do besides talk about itself and sell postcards?”

Some of Miller’s criticism of the institution came out during his eight minute acceptance speech on stage:

And to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I’d thank you for your hard work on behalf of all musicians. And I encourage you to keep expanding your vision. To be more inclusive of women and to be more transparent with your dealings with the public. And most importantly, to do much more to provide music in our schools.

If you follow the dealings of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, none of this is news. We have been documenting the Rock Hall’s issues with women, transparency and treatment of artists for years.

Artists have been complaining about the Rock Hall for decades too. In 1997, Neil Young boycotted the ceremony for similar reasons that Steve Miller outlined above:

Young, who was inducted as a member of Buffalo Springfield, boycotted the performance because of a dispute with the rock hall over its refusal to provide him with enough free tickets to bring his family to the $1,500-a-plate dinner.

In a letter to the rock hall, VH1, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun and his Buffalo Springfield bandmates, Young also said he was upset with the rock hall's decision to sell broadcast rights to VH1, feeling that featuring the ceremony on TV commercialized and cheapened it.

”The VH1 Hall of Fame presentation has nothing to do with the spirit of rock 'n' roll," wrote Young. "It has everything to do with making money. Inductees are severely limited in the amount of guests they can bring. They are forced to be on a TV show, for which they are not paid.”

Let’s also not forget the Sex Pistols letter.

What makes Steve Miller’s statements so important is that he decided to step on the neck of the Rock Hall on the night he was being inducted. Usually any bad feelings get pushed to the side on a night filled with so much positive energy from your peers and fans, but Miller knew that his words would carry the most impact at that moment.

The question now is, will this actually change anything? The Rock Hall has been mismanaging artist relations for years, which has led to numerous lost opportunities for induction ceremony reunions (including two this year alone). When will the Rock Hall board wake up and realize that this isn’t working on nearly every level? The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s primary responsibilities are running the induction process, organizing the induction ceremonies and raising money. How much more failure in each of these areas is the Rock Hall willing to endure?

Steve Miller said, “I think it’s time for the people running this to turn it over to new people, because it doesn’t need to be this difficult.” We agree.

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E-Rockracy: Public Image, Damaged: The Rock Hall's Public Perception Problem

Before last night’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, fellow Rock Hall follower Eric Layton wrote a great piece about the increasingly damaged institution. After the Ceremony last night, 2016 inductee Steve Miller echoed many of these sentiments. Reposted here with permission.

As the stars converge and the hype builds for the 31st Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Brooklyn tonight, it's important not to lose sight of an inescapable fact: By any measure, the Rock Hall is an American institution with a tarnished public image. Sad to say, but it's lost hearts and minds. When tickets for your annual watershed gala event are going on StubHub for $12, and the simulcast of said event at the museum isn't sold out, well, those are bad omens.

There's an acute public perception problem here, and the reasons go beyond why your favorite band isn't in the hall yet; in fact, let's please put those reflexive, tiresome, moody blues to rest for now. In considering the Rock Hall gestalt, there are two entities that feed off each other. First there's the museum in Cleveland, which opened in 1995 and is an exceptionally-curated music fan pilgrimage. Secondly and most significantly, there is the organization that spearheaded the museum, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, NYC-based and formed in 1983 by the late Ahmet Ertegun, Jann Wenner, Seymour Stein, Jon Landau, and others to recognize achievement in popular music.

That mission sounds simple enough. In fact, the early years, marked by the privately-held induction ceremonies at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, were a relatively non-controversial, celebratory breeze. Elvis! Chuck Berry! Bob Dylan! Aretha! The Beatles! But as decades have gone on, and as Wenner has dubiously claimed "all the no-brainers" are inducted, it seems that myriad issues have cropped up that threaten to irrevocably damage the very idea of "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." These issues include, but are not necessarily limited to, transparency, communication, gender equality, credibility, common sense, and conflicts of interest:

  • Transparency - Most people that follow the hall closely, as well as casual observers/everyday rock fans, get a sense that most major Rock Hall decisions are being made behind closed doors. This is a non-profit that is driven by donations, but the institution seems to act with impunity and zero accountability. Does anyone on the outside, let alone donors, know what's going on? Sure, financial numbers get disclosed.  But missing is the basic information that would actually matter to the populist masses the Hall is purportedly courting to buy memberships and tickets to the museum/induction ceremonies. The most corrective measure the Hall could take toward transparency would be to disclose the vote counts that decide who gets inducted. A press release is issued, and news outlets and social media are abuzz on announcement day, but it seems no one truly questions the results. (Does anyone truly believe that Steve Miller got more votes than Janet Jackson? That's not to take sides in support of either, but most fan polls outside the Rock Hall's bot-corrupted fan vote had Janet well ahead, and you'd think there would be at least some parallel).
  • Communication - The fact that most people believed that N.W.A. would perform at the induction ceremony tonight, only to be highly disappointed yesterday when they saw Ice Cube's interview in the New York Times saying they weren't performing due to disagreements with the organizers, is a prime example of the Rock Hall dropping the ball when it comes to communication. How long was this known? It certainly wasn't in the Hall's best interest to disclose that fact. Going broader in terms of the 2016 ceremony, why are there only five performer inductees this year? Previous years have had quite a few more. A sixth slot could have gone to a deserving artist like Yes. Again, there are no real answers from the Hall, just speculation across the board that maybe they're trying to shorten what have been admittedly long ceremonies.
  • Gender Equality - There's not a single female inductee this year, not even a single announced presenter tonight that is female. Furthermore, per the essential Rock Hall resource Future Rock Legends (futurerocklegends.com), "Of the 547 Rock Hall voters we have on our unofficial list, 9.3% are women." Expanding the voting body to include more women is urgent, crucial, and ridiculously overdue. 
  • Credibility - The Hall-run, official fan vote for the 2016 induction class was an abject disaster. Overtaken by bots and registering an inhuman 160,905,154 votes, it's exhibit A for the Hall to come up with a more secure, credible fan voting system. (And yes, Chicago fans, the point is taken that you are passionate, and that you voted a bunch. But you didn't vote 37 million times, as the official Rock Hall fan vote would have us believe.) This needs to be fixed before the next set of nominees is announced.
  • Common Sense - When choosing which band members to induct (or not induct at all, as in tonight's Steve Miller "sans Band" scenario), the committees apparently need to do more research, consult the bands, and use some common sense. In the case of Deep Purple, vocalist Red Evans is being inducted, but bassist Nick Simper was excluded, which is confounding as they played on the same records and were in the band at the same time. Yet every drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was inducted? Inconsistency at best.
  • Conflicts of Interest - The late Bert Berns is being given the Ahmet Ertegun Award for Lifetime Achievement tonight, an honor that is apparently determined not by voting but via the unilateral decision of a nomination committee. Steven Van Zandt and Paul Shaffer are producing a Broadway musical about Bert Berns, and they are both on such a committee. The red flags being raised here, justifiably so, are conflicts of interest, and the overarching sense that the Rock Hall insiders are just going to do whatever they want. Berns, a storied '60s producer, record man and songwriter, has accomplishments that have more than earned him this honor, but it's too bad his induction has this shadow of impropriety over it. 

In closing, the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten, upon learning of his band's induction, fired off a burning missive to the Hall in 1996, calling it a "piss stain." He added, "Your anonymous as judges but your still music industry people (sic)." Maybe Rotten's was among the first hearts and minds lost.

That doesn't mean the Rock Hall can't course-correct and win back those that still believe in a credible, well-executed, and balanced recognition of musical achievement. Fixing these issues isn't just the right thing to do; it may even secure the Rock Hall's long-term future.

by Eric Layton -- originally posted on E-Rockracy on 4/8/2016

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Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee Changes

To follow up on the big Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee shakeup from last year, we now know which members were ousted and who remains.

The 13 members who were let go:

MemberYears on the Committee
Bill Adler17
David Bither14
David Dorn2
Gregg Geller26
Bob Hilburn28
Brian Keizer9
Arthur Levy26
Joe Levy15
Joe McEwen26
Bob Merlis24
Claudia Perry17
Touré9
Roy Trakin13

We list the 28 survivors on our Nominating Committee page, and it should also be noted that they did not add any new members to add a fresh perspective.

It seems unlikely there would be another major change in the Committee this year unless there is disruption in the leadership of the Rock Hall Foundation.

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