Eight months after the Inductees were announced, and four months after the ceremony was to have taken place, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame added six names to the list of 2020 honorees. Initially, Nine Inch Nails sole inductee was Trent Reznor, but this week the Rock Hall added six current and former members of the band: Atticus Ross, Robin Finck, Chris Vrenna, Danny Lohner, Ilan Rubin, and Alessandro Cortini.

Ilan Rubin, born July 7th, 1988, becomes the youngest person ever inducted into the Rock Hall, beating the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Josh Klinghoffer, who was also 32 at the time of induction*. Notably, Rubin is also the first Hall of Famer that was born in the 1980s.

* (When should a person be considered "inducted" into the Rock Hall? When the inductees are announced? At the date of the ceremony? January 1st of their induction year to control for variable ceremony dates? Using any of these calculations, Rubin beats out Klinghoffer.)

The late additions to the inductees is nothing new for the Rock Hall these days. They have made slight adjustments to the inductee lists in each of the last few years (Reeves Gabrels in 2019, Hugh McDonald in 2018), but a major correction this far after the inductees were announced is unusual. After the inductees were announced, Reznor was asked by Rolling Stone about getting in alone:

They are just taking you and nobody else from the band. Was that the right call?

My preference would be that my band get inducted. I’m not the one deciding that, but there’s an effort on my part to acknowledge that.

Reznor collaborated with the Rock Hall's curatorial staff on the Nine Inch Nails special exhibit and was also eager to participate in the ceremony and surrounding festivities. It seems clear that his cooperative attitude greased the skids for getting his band members inducted.

For its part, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has not officially commented on the added inductees, other than to confirm that they are now included. As usual, they will offer no explanation, criteria, or reasoning for their decision. Trent Reznor once said of the Rock Hall, "I honestly couldn’t give less of a shit,” which pretty much sums up how the Rock Hall feels about its own credibility.