On Saturday, the Rock Hall issued a brief statement to the press: "Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation."

That announcement followed a wild 36 hours since a New York Times interview was posted where the Rock Hall co-founder and 2004 inductee made comments that were dismissive of Black and women artists.

Here is the exchange in the interview which led to the controversy:

There are seven subjects in the new book; seven white guys. In the introduction, you acknowledge that performers of color and women performers are just not in your zeitgeist. Which to my mind is not plausible for Jann Wenner. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, the list keeps going — not in your zeitgeist? What do you think is the deeper explanation for why you interviewed the subjects you interviewed and not other subjects?

Well, let me just. …

Carole King, Madonna. There are a million examples.

When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK? Just to get that accurate. The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.

Oh, stop it. You’re telling me Joni Mitchell is not articulate enough on an intellectual level?

Hold on a second.

I’ll let you rephrase that.

All right, thank you. It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock.

Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as “masters,” the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.

How do you know if you didn’t give them a chance?

Because I read interviews with them. I listen to their music. I mean, look at what Pete Townshend was writing about, or Jagger, or any of them. They were deep things about a particular generation, a particular spirit and a particular attitude about rock ’n’ roll. Not that the others weren’t, but these were the ones that could really articulate it.

Don’t you think it’s actually more to do with your own interests as a fan and a listener than anything particular to the artists? I think the problem is when you start saying things like “they” or “these artists can’t.” Really, it’s a reflection of what you’re interested in more than any ability or inability on the part of these artists, isn’t it?

That was my No. 1 thing. The selection was intuitive. It was what I was interested in. You know, just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism. Which, I get it. I had a chance to do that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a [expletive] or whatever. I wish in retrospect I could have interviewed Marvin Gaye. Maybe he’d have been the guy. Maybe Otis Redding, had he lived, would have been the guy.

Wenner may not have "given a fuck," but the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame clearly did. Since 2020, under chairman John Sykes, the Hall of Fame has been trying to repair their "all-boys club" reputation that was forged under Wenner, His comments were clearly incendiary enough for them to sever the last remaining ties to their founder. (The Board vote was reportedly unanimous with the exception of longtime Nominating Committee chairman Jon Landau.)

Wenner's other institution, Rolling Stone, also tried to distance themselves from his comments:

Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner has been ousted from his position on the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. The news was announced on Saturday, following an interview with The New York Times, where he made widely criticized comments about Black and female musicians, alongside revealing other questionable editorial decisions.

Wenner is promoting his book, The Masters, which features interviews with influential artists, such as Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, John Lennon, and Bruce Springsteen — none of the artists featured are female or non-white. In the Times interview with Wenner that published on Friday, he said that Black and also female musicians “didn’t articulate at the level” of the white male musicians in his tome.

…

Beyond the controversial comments about the artists that were and were not featured in The Masters, he also revealed during the interview that he allowed interview subjects to edit transcripts of their interviews prior to publication, which is not an accepted editorial practice and Rolling Stone does not allow interviewees to approve transcripts or final copy.

After being fired from the Rock Hall's Board of Directors, Wenner released an apology, “I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences."

Those "badly chosen words" now provide the necessary context for understanding Wenner's legacy at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and beyond.

The good, the bad and the ugly of the 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee announcement:

The Good:

• The inductees! With this ballot it was impossible to make an induction class that wasn't going to be fantastic, but there are some special things about this group: Missy Elliott being the only first ballot black woman and the first female hip hop inductee; The Spinners finally getting over the hump; Rage Against the Machine injecting some much-needed rebelliousness; rewriting George Michael's legacy; honoring Willie Nelson while he's still active; and Sheryl Crow's positivity towards the institution.
• Link Wray's induction! When the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame created the "Singles Category" in 2018 to honor significant songs from artists who weren't in the Hall of Fame, it felt like a consolation prize and a sign that those artists wouldn't be nominated as Performers eligible for induction. And up until now, that had held true. After nominations on the main ballot in 2014 and 2018, Link Wray was selected by the renamed "Musical Influence" committee to be a Hall of Famer this year. This opens up the potential for others who had previously been dismissed as candidates because of their Singles Category honor. It's also a direct consequence of the Hall of Fame's expanded use of the Special Categories to make up for oversights on the Performer ballot. The Hall of Fame had already thrown out the original definition of "Early Influence," which was intended to honor pre-rock 'n roll artists, so Link Wray is a natural fit for this category.
• No artists jumped from the Performer ballot to the Special Categories in the same year! This may seem like a minor point, but last year Judas Priest failed to be inducted on the regular ballot for the third time but were named in the Musical Excellence category anyway. That felt a lot like a consolation prize in the minds of fans, and even Rob Halford. LL Cool J's induction was done the same way in 2021. This year, the Rock Hall kept Chaka Khan off of the ballot clearly knowing they were going to induct her no matter what. This is a far better solution and makes the Hall of Fame seem like they aren't insulting artists while they're trying to honor them. Credit goes to new Nominating Committee chairman Rick Krim for the new discipline (assuming he's responsible).
• Another huge induction class! In each year under the direction of chairman John Sykes, the Rock Hall has had at least 13 inductees. In the years just prior to him taking over, classes were usually around seven, which made the backlog grow deeper every year. Whether the new standard of 13 is enough to make a dent in the snub list remains to be seen, but the larger classes have helped tremendously to honor artists who never would have had a chance in the old system.
• The Fan Vote's impact on the results. After last year's Fan Vote top five all got swept into the Hall of Fame, the significance of the results may have been overblown in the minds of fans. Yes, this year's winner got in again, but outside of that, the others in the top five were shut out. This was a similar result to 2020 when the only top five finisher to get in were the Doobie Brothers, and the runaway fan vote winner Dave Matthews Band did not. This year, Cyndi Lauper fans put up an admirable fight for first place, but ultimately finished in second. Similarly, in 2021, Fela Kuti's fans pushed his name to second in the poll. But after the disappointment of him missing out, they completely abandoned voting for him in 2022 so he finished last. If Cyndi Lauper or Warren Zevon return to the ballot next year, we'll see if their fans return with the same passion they had this year.
• Returning to Cleveland in 2024. The Rock Hall confirmed they are recommitting to hosting the induction ceremony in Cleveland every other year, beginning in 2024. Other cities in the rotation like New York and Los Angeles will have to share the "odd" years (L.A. in 2025? Brooklyn in 2027?), not to mention other cities like London and Nashville that John Sykes teased could get into the rotation.

The Bad:

• The inductee announcement. The Rock Hall tweeted on April 30th that the announcement would be made on May 3rd, but with no additional time or information. Since the SiriusXM deal apparently expired, they were silent as well. The Rock Hall finally tweeted a video of LL Cool J reading the names just after 8am Eastern, and directed people to Apple Music 1 to hear the "complete announcement." That show didn't seem to be live and have any of the energy or discussions that existed on SiriusXM.
• The length of the Fan Vote. There's no reason to encourage fans to vote daily for nearly three months for something with such little impact. That's not an argument in favor of increasing the importance of the Fan Vote, but just to decrease the time devoted to it all.

• The metal problem. Anyone who follows the Rock Hall closely knew that Iron Maiden had no shot at being inducted by way of the Performer ballot. The Voting Committee has proven time and time again that unless an artist has had multiple radio-friendly "hits," they're not interested. The Hall of Fame keeps using the Special Categories to address this deficiency in their system, but they may need to provide more guidance to the voters about what they should be rewarding if they want it to actually change. (Go back to explicitly saying it's not about sales and hit records. Remind voters that innovation and influence is critical. These were some of the guiding principles they used to promote, but have clearly strayed away from.)

The Ugly:

• Messy personal histories. Don Cornelius's career is unquestionably worth celebrating, it's just unfortunate his personal life puts a stain on his legacy.

Like any other year, there are plenty of other things to criticize about the induction process, but on the whole, this year has fewer issues than most and has lots of reasons to celebrate.

The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees were announced at 8am EDT on May 3rd. The Induction Ceremony will be held on November 3rd in Brooklyn, New York.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will officially announce the class of 2023 on Wednesday, May 3rd. Future Rock Legends predicts the inductees in the Performer category will be:

1. Willie Nelson: The only certainty in this year's hyper-competitive ballot is that Willie Nelson is getting inducted. Once you nominate a legend like Willie who has a resume longer than most Hall of Famers, you simply have to put him in.
2. Missy Elliott: Hosting the ceremony in New York in hip hop's 50th anniversary year provides a great opportunity to induct Missy Elliott, one of hip hop's true innovators.
3. George Michael: The Voting Committee historically marks their ballots in favor of artists who haven't previously been nominated. Roughly 2/3 of inductees get in the first time they appear on a ballot.
4. Warren Zevon: The catalyst for Zevon's appearance on the ballot was a letter from Billy Joel advocating for his induction. Joel likely didn't stop his lobbying once he was nominated, and he's been joined in the effort by David Letterman.
5. Sheryl Crow: After being the presenter at previous induction ceremonies, this year it will be Sheryl Crow's turn to be on the receiving end of the honor.
6. Cyndi Lauper: After the recent inductions of The Go-Go's and Duran Duran, the Rock Hall continues to dig deeper into the superstars of 1980s MTV. Cyndi Lauper's industry connections are a huge asset with their overlap with the Voting Committee.

Additional Notes:

• This year's ballot is stacked with deserving candidates and it's not hard to make a case how (almost) any of them could be inducted. It's painful to leave them off the list above.
• We incorrectly predicted Chaka Khan would be inducted in the Musical Excellence category last year, but it has to happen this year, right?
• Since 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop, we're predicting the Rock Hall will have a big segment of the ceremony devoted to the genre, including an Early Influence induction of DJ Kool Herc.
• If the induction class is at least 50% women, the Rock Hall will breathe a sigh of relief given the renewed criticism of the lack of women who have been honored.
• This is the second year of the public Ballot Tracker. The top five artists currently in the lead of known ballots are Kate Bush, Joy Division/New Order, Missy Elliott, The Spinners, and A Tribe Called Quest. Last year, the public ballots were not indicative of the actual results.
• The top five winners of the Fan Vote this year were George Michael, Cyndi Lauper, Warren Zevon, Iron Maiden, and Soundgarden. That's the second top-five finish for both Iron Maiden and Soundgarden, which bodes well for their future inductions, even if it will come in the form of Musical Excellence. Fela Kuti and Dave Matthews Band are the only other artists to finish in the top-five and haven't been inducted.
• There hasn't been an entire performer class of first year nominated artists (FYNs) since 2009.
• As mentioned above, the induction ceremony will be in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center, the site of the 2014, 2016, 2017, and 2019 events. The Rock Hall had previously promised Cleveland they could host every other year, but that deal seems to no longer exist. The upcoming construction at the museum will be enough of an excuse to quell any grumbling from the Cleveland contingent for a few years.

For sixteen years we have been conducting an unofficial poll on this site which requires voters to select five artists on their ballot. The results (after 1679 ballots):

1. Kate Bush 54% (they appeared on 54% of the ballots)
2. Willie Nelson 50%
3. Iron Maiden 49%
4. Soundgarden 48%
5. Joy Division/New Order 48%
6. Cyndi Lauper 42%
7. George Michael 36%
8. Warren Zevon 30%
9. Sheryl Crow 30%
10. The White Stripes 27%
11. The Spinners 24%
12. Rage Against the Machine 22%
13. Missy Elliott 19%
14. A Tribe Called Quest 19%

A bit early for any definitive predictions, but it's really difficult to imagine a scenario where a least six of these don't get into the Rock Hall this year:
-Willie Nelson
-Sheryl Crow
-Warren Zevon
-Missy Elliott
-The White Stripes
-George Michael
-Cyndi Lauper

— Future Rock Legends (@futurerocklgnds) February 24, 2023

The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Fan Vote wrapped up on Friday, after a nearly 3 month voting period. The top five were locked in after just two weeks, so the rest of the polling time was spent waiting to see if leader George Michael could pass the one million vote mark (he did). Michael, Cyndi Lauper, Warren Zevon, Iron Maiden, and Soundgarden will each receive one vote which will be tallied with the 1000+ others from the Voting Committee, whose ballots were also due on the 28th. Inductees should be announced this week.

Much of the history of the fan vote has been documented on this site, primarily revolving around the myriads of technical issues of the poll. There is now an exclusive page devoted to the final statistics of each year's Fan Vote, beginning in 2013. Reviewing the nominees' placements, it's easy to see there is a rough correlation between the fans' choices and the inductees, and how rare it is to finish low in the poll and be inducted (but it does happen occasionally).

View the Rock Hall Fan Vote History and Totals

In recent weeks there has been renewed public interest in the amount of women in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame after influential writer Jessica Hopper, annoyed about the Hall's posts celebrating Women's History Month, tweeted the sobering statistics.

Do they tho? 719 inductees to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, only 61 are women. That's 8.48%. C'mon @rockhall, it's FUCKING GRIM BRO when yr doing worse than women-artists-on-country radio numbers (10%) and women headliners at major music festivals (13%) https://t.co/YvpCvwZ72o

— Jessica Hopper (@jesshopp) March 10, 2023

Hole frontwoman Courtney Love noticed the tweets and wrote a scathing indictment of the institution in an op-ed in The Guardian.

If so few women are being inducted into the Rock Hall, then the nominating committee is broken. If so few Black artists, so few women of colour, are being inducted, then the voting process needs to be overhauled. Music is a lifeforce that is constantly evolving – and they can’t keep up. Shame on HBO for propping up this farce.

If the Rock Hall is not willing to look at the ways it is replicating the violence of structural racism and sexism that artists face in the music industry, if it cannot properly honour what visionary women artists have created, innovated, revolutionised and contributed to popular music – well, then let it go to hell in a handbag.

The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde followed with a public post on Facebook dismissing the institution as "establishment backslapping" and saying she didn't want to be associated with it.

With all of that as context, here are updated graphs showing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's record of inducting women.

First, showing the split among all individuals who have been inducted (all categories):

Next, showing the split between all-male acts versus artists with at least one woman (Performer category only):

Finally, the numbers on the Rock Hall's Nominating Committee over the years:

As a point of reference, out of the 183 inducted members of the Country Music Hall of Fame, 25 are women (13.7%). Full list of the members of the Country Music Hall of Fame can be found at Future Country Legends.

The Country Music Hall of Fame inductees are selected by a secret committee run by the Country Music Association (CMA). It's unknown what the gender split is for those involved.

For more on the subject of Women in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, review our extensive archive on the subject dating back over a decade.

Nearly 16 years ago to the day, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five made history and became the first hip hop artists inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The question of whether hip hop belonged in the Rock Hall was one of hottest subjects surrounding the institution and debated on this website. Now in 2023, and after nine other hip hop artists have been included, the debate around hip hop is not a matter of if it should be represented, but why haven't foundational artists been inducted yet?

Because the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame now strives to include all popular music genres, it doesn't have the capacity under their current system to appropriately honor the diversity, richness, and depth of the half-century history of Hip Hop. This is why a dedicated Hip Hop Hall of Fame needs to exist.

But isn't there already a Hip Hop Hall of Fame?

Yes and no. You can read up on its complicated and messy history at Future Hip Hop Legends, but just know that at the first three "Hip Hop Hall of Fame" induction ceremonies (in 1991, 1996, and 2002), put on by three different organizations, Grandmaster Flash was honored at all of them. At best, it's woefully behind and incomplete.

Without the anchor of a true Hall of Fame (yet), Future Hip Hop Legends will serve as a platform to discuss and discover the most important hip hop artists of the past, present, and future, setting the stage for the inevitable institution that will immortalize them.

FutureHipHopLegends.com is home for the following:

• A ranking of the 50 greatest hip hop artists of all-time
• A history of the Hip Hop Hall of Fame and other competing institutions (there have been many!)
• The top artists who debuted in every year since 1979
• List of hip hop artists who have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
• Polls for every artist about their Hall of Fame worthiness
• Much more…

Like all of our sites, Future Hip Hop Legends will continue to evolve with feedback and suggestions from our readers.

This year makes the 50th anniversary of the birth of Hip Hop, and as we saw from the epic performance at the Grammys, there's a desperate need to celebrate and immortalize the legends in a museum for future generations. We'll be ready.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame had been hoping to hold the announcement until May, but Nominating Committee member Amy Linden disclosed on her podcast that the Induction Ceremony would be returning to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn this fall.

In Linden's conversation with Run-DMC's Darryl McDaniels, they discussed that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will be taking part in the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop celebrations happening this year, so it was fitting the ceremony will be in New York.

Just a few months ago, unnamed representatives from the Rock Hall continued to insist the induction ceremonies would still be returning to Cleveland every other year despite the indications from the Hall of Fame's chairman John Sykes that the events would be on a three city rotation (and potentially include other cities like Nashville and London).

Cleveland last hosted an induction ceremony in 2021, so after stops in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, it would theoretically be on deck for the 2024 event.

See our list of every induction ceremony location

The day the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot was officially announced, Nominating Committee member Amy Linden revealed on her podcast the ranking of the artists from the group's vote.

On her ImmaLetYouFinish podcast yesterday, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee member Amy Linden revealed the standings from the group’s vote, including that there was a three-way tie for the last ballot spot. More to come… #RockHall2023 pic.twitter.com/OpY99fojHg

— Future Rock Legends (@futurerocklgnds) February 3, 2023

This ranking may not correlate much with the 1100+ member Voting Committee's wishes, but it offers a glimpse into the Nominating Committee's levels of support for each artist. Only 5-7 of these names be inducted this year, but those at the top may have an easier time returning to the ballot to try again next year.

The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees were announced at 8am EST on February 1st. Inductees will be revealed in May, and will be honored at a ceremony in a location yet to be announced.

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