Although Gabrels has been an official member of The Cure since 2012, he hasn’t appeared on any of their albums (The Cure’s last studio album was 2008, although a new one is due this year). It’s hard to justify his induction when weighing it against the many, many artists over the years who had more significant contributions to their bands’ successes, but were snubbed by the Rock Hall.

This issue reached a fever pitch in 2014, when Paul Stanley was vocal about the Rock Hall only inducting the original KISS lineup. Stanley correctly noted, “The only consistencies are inconsistencies and the rules clearly are there are no rules because the criteria for how and who gets in is purely based upon a personal like or dislike.”

Future inductees can now cite the “Reeves Gabrels Precedent” when negotiating with the Rock Hall over details of their induction.

h/t Chain of Flowers

Performers:

• The Cure
  
• Def Leppard
  
• Janet Jackson
  
• Radiohead
  
• Roxy Music
  
• Stevie Nicks
  
• The Zombies
  

Inductees will be honored at the Induction Ceremony in Brooklyn on March 29, 2019. An edited broadcast of the induction ceremony will again air on HBO.

Why do certain Rock Hall nominees get inducted and others don’t? These annual prediction posts try to make sense of the Rock Hall Voting Committee’s tendencies. Over the years we’ve justified our predictions by discussing:

• The need for an exciting HBO broadcast
• The propensity of the voters to induct their peers over younger artists
• The correlation between the fan vote and the inductees
• The voters’ preferences for fresh names on the ballot

One thing that doesn’t really get discussed is who is actually most worthy of induction. It really doesn’t matter as much as it should.

Future Rock Legends predicts the five inductees of the Rock Hall class of 2019 will be:

• Def Leppard: No surprise here. The winner of the Rock Hall’s fan poll has been inducted every year so far, and this year will be no exception. Def Leppard are first-time nominees and unquestionably “rock,” which matters to a not-insignificant portion of the voting pool (many voters dismiss half the ballot each year because the artists don’t fit their narrow definition of “rock and roll”). Their performance will be a major highlight of the induction ceremony.
• Stevie Nicks: The Rock Hall is certainly aware of its issues of women being underrepresented in Cleveland. A Stevie Nicks induction would give them a positive story to tell this year, as she would become the first woman to be a multiple inductee.
• Todd Rundgren: For Rundgren’s fans, this nomination has been a long time coming, and his strong showing in the fan poll is proof that he has a lot of passionate support. We’re betting that includes enough members of the Voting Committee and they will be eager to induct him now that he has finally made the ballot.
• The Zombies: After three previous turns on the ballot, the Nominating Committee has given The Zombies a clear lane for induction this year. Paul Shaffer has made it his mission to get them in, so even if they strike out, they will keep coming back again.
• Radiohead: Perhaps last year’s ridiculous snub woke up the voters enough to realize they shouldn’t assume anyone is getting in, no matter how obvious it seems.
• (If there are six inductees) John Prine: This year’s most surprising nominee could waltz right into the Hall on his first try. Prine’s lengthy career has touched multiple generations of voters, giving him an edge over those who had a briefer impact.

Inductees will be officially announced next week, a day or two after voting closes on December 10th.

For twelve years we have been conducting an unofficial poll which requires voters to select five artists on their ballot. The results (after 1163 ballots):

1. The Cure 50% (half of our voters had them on their ballot of five)
2. Radiohead 48%
3. Janet Jackson 45%
4. Kraftwerk 39%
5. Def Leppard 39%
6. The Zombies 39%
7. Roxy Music 38%
8. Stevie Nicks 37%
9. Todd Rundgren 35%
10. MC5 29%
11. LL Cool J 25%
12. Devo 23%
13. Rage Against the Machine 22%
14. Rufus with Chaka Khan 16%
15. John Prine 14%

• Alan Light personally used his two picks to advocate for Janet Jackson and The Cure, and got both on the ballot.
• Light felt that Janet Jackson deserved one more chance on the ballot this year because of increased exposure as a result of her tour and other awards.
• The Nominating Committee has been rotating through The Cure, The Smiths and Depeche Mode on recent ballots, but Light felt the time was right to give The Cure another chance because of their 40th anniversary shows and other publicity.
• When asked why Judas Priest wasn’t nominated again after doing well in the fan poll last year, Light revealed that they had done “horrendously” in the actual Voting Committee tally, so they decided to shift the focus to Def Leppard.
• Majewski mentioned that the Nominating Committee now has 30 members -- 23 men and seven women (up from six last year). Light said there were 28 people in the room this year (Seymour Stein was calling in from L.A., as revealed on the Who Cares About the Rock Hall? podcast.)
• Light stressed that the Nominating Committee crafts the ballot in a way where they try not to nominate artists who are in a similar lane, so as not to split the vote.
• Alan Light regarding the Stevie Nicks nomination: ”In the Nominating room, Pat Benatar came up, Cyndi Lauper came up, The Go-Go's came up and the Eurythmics were in this conversation, and not that it comes down to this, but the women in the room really did start to coalesce around Stevie and push things that way out of the mix that was there. That was the one that --and it's silly to say that women are one piece of what's here-- when it's women of the 80s, I don't think you put Pat, Cyndi and Stevie on a ballot together in the same way that you don't put The Cure, The Smiths and Depeche on the ballot together. It was actually the women in the committee who sort of led the focus to Stevie out of that list.”
• Alan Light said that Dave Grohl was responsible for getting Devo nominated this year and Paul Shaffer is behind The Zombies appearances on the ballot.
• Light admitted that the Nominating Committee did in fact take the Rock Hall Museum’s Voice Your Choice visitor poll into account when considering the nominees. Stevie Nicks and Def Leppard were the top two leaders all summer and both were nominated. Rock Hall Foundation President Joel Peresman for some reason tried to deny the poll’s influence to the Plain Dealer, "The new in-museum voting system does not factor into the nomination process as the members of the nominating committee aren't made aware of that. And we rely on their independent thinking, which in this case happened to match up.”
• Light mentioned that David Fricke has previously advocated for The Guess Who and that Stevie Van Zandt tries to nominate Procol Harum every year.
• Rock Hall Museum President Greg Harris and Rock Hall VP of Education and Visitor Engagement Jason Hanley both joined the show to discuss the nominees. Each separately mentioned how cool it was that Stevie Nicks would become the first woman to be a multiple inductee.
• Despite having written a book about him, Light didn’t think Jeff Buckley should be inducted into the Rock Hall.

• The Cure
  
• Def Leppard
  
• Devo
  
• Janet Jackson
  
• John Prine
  
• Kraftwerk
  
• LL Cool J
  
• MC5
  
• Radiohead
  
• Rage Against the Machine
  
• Roxy Music
  
• Rufus featuring Chaka Khan
  
• Stevie Nicks
  
• Todd Rundgren
  
• The Zombies
  

Please vote in our fan poll!

Follow us on Twitter for the latest Rock Hall news.