Uncovering the Next Generation's Hall of Fame
Do online fan petitions help artists get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
With the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's backlog of snubbed artists growing bigger every year, frustrated fan groups often turn to online petitions like change.org or Facebook groups to show the strength of their campaigns. But do they have any impact on the process? Is the Nominating Committee, who puts together the ballot, even made aware of their existence?
Let's take a look at just a sampling of the thousands of petitions that are out there:
Artist | Petition Site | Year Started | Signatures | Nominations |
---|---|---|---|---|
Randy Rhoads | change.org | 2020 | 850+ | Inducted in 2021 |
Todd Rundgren | change.org | 2016 | 17 | Inducted in 2021 |
The Doobie Brothers | change.org | 2017 | 2,400+ | Inducted in 2020 |
T. Rex | change.org | 2016 | 21 | Inducted in 2020 |
Whitney Houston | change.org | 2015 | 1,100+ | Inducted in 2020 |
Janet Jackson | change.org | 2013 | 512 | Inducted in 2019 |
The Guess Who | change.org | 2021 | 25,000+ | 0 |
Styx | change.org | 2020 | 3,500+ | 0 |
Triumph | change.org | 2020 | 600+ | 0 |
Kansas | change.org | 2012 | 53 | 0 |
Redbone | change.org | 2019 | 4,700+ | 0 |
Mötley Crüe | change.org | 2019 | 2,500+ | 0 |
INXS | change.org | 2020 | 3,600+ | 0 |
Original 5 VJs | change.org | 2018 | 4,700+ | N/A |
Spirit | change.org | 2016 | 1,600+ | 0 |
matchbox twenty | change.org | 2021 | 3,500+ | N/A |
Foreigner | change.org | 2018 | 4,800+ | 0 |
The Swampers (Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section) | change.org | 2021 | 300+ | N/A |
Emerson, Lake & Palmer | change.org | 2018 | 1,300+ | 0 |
Three Dog Night | change.org | 2015 | 1,000+ | 0 |
Sha Na Na | change.org | 2018 | 750+ | 0 |
Backing Groups | change.org | 2018 | 2,900+ | N/A |
Blue Öyster Cult | change.org | 2019 | 900+ | 0 |
"Weird" Al Yankovic | change.org | 2019 | 500+ | 0 |
Melissa Etheridge | change.org | 2017 | 10,000+ | 0 |
Duran Duran | change.org | 2019 | 1,700+ | 0 |
George Michael | change.org | 2016 | 5,000+ | 0 |
Ted Nugent | change.org | 2017 | 3,600 | 0 |
Meat Loaf | change.org | 2018 | 2,700+ | 0 |
Salt-n-Pepa | change.org | 2016 | 1,300+ | 0 |
Cinderella | change.org | 2021 | 1,100+ | 0 |
Diana Ross | change.org | 2020 | 3,900+ | 0 |
Ween | change.org | 2017 | 1,600+ | 0 |
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony | change.org | 2019 | 1,500+ | 0 |
New Edition | change.org | 2020 | 1,000+ | 0 |
David Cassidy | change.org | 2017 | 1,200+ | 0 |
Suzi Quatro | change.org | 2018 | 900+ | 0 |
Toots Hibbert | ipetitions.com | 2020 | 8,700+ | 0 |
Rory Gallagher | ipetitions.com | 2010 | 19,000+ | 0 |
Little Feat | ipetitions.com | 2013 | 6,400+ | 0 |
Fanny | ipetitions.com | 2021 | 1,600+ | 0 |
Pat Boone | ipetitions.com | 2013 | 400+ | 0 |
Selena | ipetitions.com | 2021 | 1,600+ | 0 |
Kool & The Gang | ipetitions.com | 2014 | 70+ | 0 |
The fact that a handful of recent inductees had an online petition is likely just coincidental, since there are petitions for hundreds of artists. Each year, Nominating Committee members are allowed to put two names up for discussion, and given huge number or artists to choose from, they won't be nominating anyone they aren't already passionate about.
The best way for fan groups to get the Rock Hall's attention is currently through the Voice Your Choice kiosk at the museum, where visitors can vote for the one artist they want to see inducted in the future. (This does require a trip to Cleveland and a $30 ticket to the museum.)
On the Rock Hall's new 2019 Inductees page, they seem to imply that the Voice Your Choice voting at the Museum kiosks influences the ballot https://t.co/oNgNHcnn8Z #RockHall2019 pic.twitter.com/1RxQeyvMag
— Future Rock Legends (@futurerocklgnds) December 14, 2018
Greg Harris, the president of the Museum, has been known to use the standings of that poll as a reason to nominate artists. Def Leppard, Stevie Nicks and Dave Matthews Band have all jumped from the leaderboard to the ballot.
As for petitions? That energy would be better channeled into trying to encourage the Rock Hall to fix their induction system so more artists can be inducted each year.
Footnote: We first wrote about petitions 15 years ago (paper petitions didn't work either).