Future Rock Legends Predicts the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

Voting for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2013 induction class ends on December 3rd. Which of the 15 nominees will be honored in L.A. at the induction ceremony on April 18th? Here are the six artists we predict will be inducted as performers:
  • Public Enemy: A top 50 artist in Rolling Stone’s list of Immortals? That’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, just like Nirvana will be next year.
  • Donna Summer: When the most powerful person in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction process publicly regrets that Summer wasn’t inducted before she died, well, you can be sure she will get in this year.
  • Randy Newman: He’s a Tony Award short of the EGOT, he’s obviously an industry pro, and he will fit right in at a Los Angeles induction ceremony.
  • Chic: When you have been nominated seven times, it’s not a matter of if you’re getting inducted, it’s a matter of when.
  • Rush: This is the seventh year of the Future Rock Legends induction poll, which mimics the voting on the Rock Hall ballot. Every year, the top vote-getter in our poll has been inducted, but we have never felt less confident that the results of our poll have any correlation to the results of the Voting Committee. But our bet is that the Rock Hall won’t give the middle finger to all of the fans by snubbing Rush in the same year they start an official fan poll that Rush absolutely dominated. (Deep Purple is the other overwhelming fan favorite in the polls, but it just doesn’t seem possible both Rush and Purple would be inducted in the same year.)
  • Heart: They have been riding a wave of publicity over the past year or so. A Rock Hall induction would be the cherry on top.
Like many others, we are predicting a back door induction of Albert King in the Early Influence category, exactly the same way Freddie King and Wanda Jackson were inducted. We discussed the ridiculousness of this type of induction last year, so we won’t get into it here, but it really shouldn’t happen this way. As for the other categories? As Rock Hall Monitors points out, it’s nearly impossible to predict who will be selected, however we wouldn’t be surprised to see Terry Stewart honored in the Non-Performer category in the next couple of years as he enters his final year as president of the Rock Hall Museum. We also like this intriguing rumor from Rick Vendl (an ELO superfan) that Jeff Lynne will be inducted in the Musical Excellence category. It’s also possible the Rock Hall will continue to correct past mistakes by inducting more backing groups to solo inductees as they did in 2012.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is expected to announce the 2013 inductees the week of December 10th.


After over 2250 votes, the top five vote-getters in the Future Rock Legends poll this year were: Rush (on 80% of ballots), Deep Purple (78%), Heart (68%), Public Enemy (43%) and Donna Summer (38%). The rest: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (34%), Kraftwerk (30%), Albert King (24%), Randy Newman (24%), Procol Harum (23%), N.W.A (17%), The Paul Butterfield Blues Band (15%), The Marvelettes (11%), Chic (10%) and The Meters (6%).

And here are the results from the official Rock Hall fan poll where the top five become an actual ballot: Rush (24.7% of total votes), Deep Purple (16.7%), Heart (12.5%), Joan Jett (8.1%), Albert King (5.6%), Kraftwerk (4.81%), Public Enemy (4.77%), Donna Summer (4.65%), Procol Harum (3.6%), N.W.A (3.4%), Randy Newman (3.36%), Butterfield (2.4%), The Meters (2.2%), The Marvelettes (1.8%) and Chic (1%).

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