Today we learned that the 2007 inductees will be announced in January and the induction ceremony will be held on March 12th at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Billboard.com states that there will be five inductees, but how can the Rock Hall be sure that five artists will receive the requisite 50 percent of the vote? It's possible that many of these repeat nominees received more than 50% of the vote in years past, but were still beaten out by other Hall of Famers, so the Rock Hall is confident they will be voted in this year. Or maybe there are new rules that came in with the new director. We can just add this new twist to all of the other changes at the Rock Hall Foundation this year.

There is a new chair of the shrunken Nominating Committee -- longtime Rock Hall insider and Bruce Springsteen manager -- Jon Landau. Based on the selections this year (which look a lot like last year), the rumors of the Nominating Committee getting younger were probably false. It's unlikely there are many new members who could bring a different perspective to the proceedings. Even if there are some fresh voices, the 'old guard' clearly still has the most influence over the nominations.