We've said this before, but it bears repeating: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has the unique ability to simultaneously honor and insult an artist's career. Guns N' Roses, KISS, Steve Miller, and Dire Straits have all had inductions that somehow turned into a slap in the face. This year's inductee with that distinction is Foreigner.

Sidenote: In another recent example, Mariah Carey, after being nominated for "Music's Highest Honor™" this year, noted in an interview that "my lawyer got in before me," referring to Allen Grubman's 2022 induction, which spoke volumes about the credibility and priorities of the Rock Hall in just a few words.

Prior to 2024, Foreigner had been eligible for over 20 years without ever appearing on a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot. Band members were frequently asked about their snub, and they seemed resigned to it never happening. But buoyed by the ouster of their perceived blacklister, Jann Wenner, and an unprecedented publicity push from their management and Mick Jones's son-in-law, Mark Ronson, there was renewed hope to get them inducted. Ronson recruited a star-studded lineup (including Nominating Committee member Dave Grohl) to make the case for them in a video widely shared on social media.

Can you believe Foreigner is not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?? Vote here: https://t.co/MwTwEsSvXB pic.twitter.com/bnuXIivLXd

— Foreigner (@ForeignerMusic) February 20, 2024

The campaign worked, not only with the fans, who lifted Foreigner to third in the Fan Vote standings, but with actual voters with ballots. The outcome seemed inevitable enough that Lou Gramm was already talking about the performance at the ceremony a month before voting ended. But just a few days after the inductees were announced, Gramm revealed there were negotiations with Rock Hall producers about their induction ceremony segment length.

Foreigner's Lou Gramm says that Rock Hall producers have already cut down the time allotted for their induction segment and they may only be able to perform one song. https://t.co/jewrWOD5kH pic.twitter.com/ZH0rp7rl12

— Future Rock Legends (@futurerocklgnds) April 24, 2024

Gramm understood that "I Want to Know What Love Is" had to be one of the songs in the ceremony, but he clearly wanted "Juke Box Hero" played as well, as a rock song counterpoint to the ballad that would better mark the occasion of being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

About three weeks before the induction ceremony, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced many of the presenters and performers who would be at the ceremony (Foreigner was also listed as performing). They announced that Demi Lovato, Sammy Hagar, Slash, and Chad Smith would be performing a tribute to Foreigner. A week later, Kelly Clarkson was added to the list of artists in the Foreigner segment. Yes, that's three announced singers, and performances are usually only three songs, so how would Foreigner fit into that?

At this point, Foreigner (and their management), should have known what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame producers were doing, which is marginalizing the band in their own induction. Despite the fact that none of Foreigner's members who were getting inducted are currently touring with "Foreigner," Gramm was clearly interested in performing with a mix of original and new members.

Two days before the ceremony, in a sign that things were starting to unravel, Dennis Elliott, the band's original drummer, posted on Facebook that he was skipping the event.

Dear Foreigner Fans & Friends, Don't look too hard, we will not be there. We were finally given the schedule last night, and it is not to our satisfaction. So we are staying home. We have been asking for this for weeks, and they have waited until the very last minute to send it knowing we were all packed and going to bed.

Elliott was referring to himself and his wife, not the entire band, but it seemed clear that the issue with the "schedule" was likely due to his reduced involvement in the performance. A followup article from Billboard, included a pathetic attempt at damage control from "sources in Cleveland," that suggested Elliott wasn't coming because he was told his wife couldn't walk the red carpet. At the same time Elliott revealed he wasn't coming, it was confirmed that Mick Jones also wouldn't attend due to his health issues associated with Parkinson's. That left only Lou Gramm, Al Greenwood, and Rick Wills as inducted members to represent the band at the ceremony. (Ed Gagliardi and Ian McDonald were also posthumously inducted.)

At the ceremony, Sammy Hagar gave a 7 1/2 minute induction speech before introducing Demi Lovato to sing "Feels Like the First Time" with Slash, Chad Smith, and some of Foreigner's touring band backing her up. Hagar reemerged to lead the tribute performance of "Hot Blooded." For the last song, Kelly Clarkson came out to take the lead on "I Want To Know What Love Is," before Lou Gramm finally emerged for the second verse.

The total length of the Foreigner segment at the ceremony was 30 minutes, divided between speeches, a 5-minute video, and the three songs. Lou Gramm performed on stage for two of those minutes.

After the dust settled from the ceremony, Lou Gramm went on Eddie Trunk's radio show and discussed the event, and said he was told it was "time constraints" that the band didn't get to perform together (emphasis ours):

Eddie Trunk: "If someone else is singing it, the song's getting done either way, right?"

Gramm: "I don't think anybody else sang 'Juke Box Hero', but I know they did 'Hot Blooded' and 'Feels Like the First Time'. So I thought an edited version of 'I Wanna Know What Love Is' into an edited version of 'Juke Box Hero' would've been okay. You know, but he didn't explain to me. He just said, 'No, it's not gonna work.'"

Trunk: "Having worked on some of these award shows myself over the years, in various capacities, the managers, sometimes the artists themselves, the event, they always like younger different artists kind of showing that they loved an older band. So in your case, that's a little bit how I read that as well, with the manager maybe saying “no” in that, 'Well, it looks really cool to have Kelly Clarkson or Demi Lovato up there.' Because these are younger current people who are showing how much they loved Foreigner."

Gramm: "Yeah. You know, but the thing for me is I am first and foremost a rock singer, and it is the Rock Hall of Fame. And somehow I couldn't sing a rock song at the Rock Hall of Fame when I'm being inducted? It doesn't make any sense to me, and it sticks in my craw."

Trunk: "I give you credit and the whole Foreigner camp credit, because as much as this may have been difficult and sticky, you still did the best you could given what you had to work with."

Gramm: "Dennis didn't even come… The reason Dennis didn't come was because he found out from management a number of days before Rick, Al and I found out that we weren't gonna play. As soon as Dennis found out that we weren't performing on our night, he decided he wasn't gonna come. And we're just going, 'Dennis, come on. Come. We're gonna play. We're gonna play.' And Dennis goes, 'No, I'm not gonna come. I'm not gonna come.' And then we found out the afternoon of the show that we weren't performing. We thought we were gonna be performing, and Dennis was gonna be there, and we'd have the guitar player from the new Foreigner play mixed parts and play a couple songs. And then we found out at the last minute that it was the new Foreigner who was gonna be playing and Rick and Al would be standing there singing background vocals."

Trunk: "So Rick and Al did not play instruments at all?"

Gramm: "No. Dennis knew about it before anybody else. And he says, 'If we're not, if I'm not playing, I'm not coming.'"

Trunk: "If you would've known sooner, would you have shown?"

Gramm: "I don't know. I didn't know sooner. I didn't know sooner. And when I found out that that's why he didn't come, I even got more angrier, but not at him. It was almost like there was a fast one being played."

To quote Paul McCartney from his Foreigner campaign video, what the fuck?

Rock Hall producers simply decided, that despite being willing and able, they didn't want Foreigner to perform themselves, and then had the tenacity to not let the band know until day or two before the ceremony (Gramm says it was that afternoon!). Instead, they plugged in artists with no personal connection to the band simply to add more contemporary star power to the marquee, without regard to the artist they were supposedly trying to honor, or to the fans who went to Cleveland to see them perform.

The Hall of Fame's relatively recent obsession with collaborations reached a new low this year. Producers are chasing Grammys-style "moments" with unexpected duets and collaborations at the expense of honoring the artists who are receiving their lifetime achievement award. Why should half of Cher's time taken up with Dua Lipa? Why can't Chaka Khan perform a single song by herself instead of sharing the stage with H.E.R., Sia, and Common? What is Dave Grohl doing out there with Lionel Richie? You're now getting living, actively performing inductees, who are forced to share the stage with (in some cases) marginal artists who have no business being on a Hall of Fame stage.

And yes, of course this is because the TV networks want to make the show as big as possible, but the Rock Hall needs to keep in mind they are there to honor the inductees, not serve Disney shareholders. These people have waited a lifetime for this. Stop with the iHeart Music awards bullshit already, and do right by your inductees.

The 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is just over a month away but very little has been announced about who will be attending and performing. Unlike last year's New York event, this year's Cleveland ceremony sold out quickly so the Hall of Fame doesn't have soft ticket sales as an incentive to promote the show. Expect the Rock Hall or Disney+ to release some specifics in the next week or two. On to the speculation:

1. Which inductees will be attending the ceremony?

   Nothing has been confirmed but it's likely that all eight performer inductees will attend: Mary J. Blige, Cher, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Matthews Band, and A Tribe Called Quest.

2. Which of those artists will perform?

   Mary J. Blige, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang, and Dave Matthews Band all seem like safe bets to perform short sets at the ceremony. Rock Hall antagonist Cher softened her stance against the institution after she was inducted, so she will probably perform as well. Ozzy Osbourne has been public about his desire to perform at the ceremony, but his significant health issues may be too much to overcome. A Tribe Called Quest played their last show in 2017, a year after losing founding member Phife Dawg. Combined with the Rock Hall's mixed history of getting hip hop artists to perform at the ceremony, a Tribe performance seems unlikely.

3. Can we expect any performances for the side category inductees?

   The Rock Hall has a wide range of ways to honor inductees in the Musical Excellence and Musical Influence categories. The segment can be anywhere from only short video tribute (e.g. Elizabeth Cotten in 2022) to a full-blown induction segment with a video, speech, and performance (e.g. LL Cool J in 2021). This year, of the seven inductees in these categories, only Dionne Warwick is still alive. As a former nominee in the performer category, she should receive a complete inductee segment. For Jimmy Buffett, an all-star tribute performance of "Margaritaville" seems all but guaranteed along with the requisite video package. The MC5 will likely get an induction speech and video but no tribute performance. Big Mama Thornton, on the other hand, seems like a perfect candidate to receive a tribute performance including "Hound Dog" and "Ball and Chain." In the interest of time, the Rock Hall will likely combine the Alexis Korner and John Mayall segments and punctuate them with a guitar god performance, like last year's Jimmy Page appearance for Link Wray. Non-Performer inductee Suzanne de Passe will get the standard video and speech.

4. Who will be giving the induction speeches?

   Nothing has been announced, but expect the usual mix of celebrities, past inductees, and future Hall of Famers. After the inductees were announced on American Idol earlier this year, the potential for more ABC/Disney crossover increased exponentially.

5. Who will get the closing slot?

   It's unfair to call any inductee the headliner, but there's little doubt that the majority of the audience in Cleveland will be there primarily for Dave Matthews Band. The induction ceremonies are five-hour marathons that test the stamina of even the most die hard music fans. Last year's final performance by Missy Elliott was one of the best in the Rock Hall's history but was played to a half-full arena. Holding Dave Matthews Band until the end will guarantee the night ends with a full house.

6. Will Cher trash the Hall of Fame in her speech?

   Before she was nominated, Cher had said she would never attend even if the Hall "gave me a million dollars… I’m never going to change my mind. They can just you-know-what themselves." After she was inducted, Cher backtracked and confirmed she would attend but cryptically said, "I’m going to have some words to say. I’m going to accept it as me." Cher has publicly discussed her absence from the Rock Hall for over 14 years, so it will be interesting to see how far she will go criticizing the institution in her speech as she's on stage holding the trophy.

7. Will Boyd Tinsley show up at the ceremony?

   Violinist Boyd Tinsley left the Dave Matthews Band in 2018 amid sexual misconduct accusations and hasn't been actively performing since then. Following a DWI arrest this summer, it seems doubtful that he will attend the ceremony with his former bandmates, but he is an inductee nonetheless.

8. When is the induction ceremony again?

   Saturday, October 19th at 6:30pm. The event is sold out, but tickets are available on the secondary market starting at $400. If you aren't in the building, the show can be viewed live on Disney+.

Comments

The 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees were announced live during American Idol on Sunday, April 21st. The induction ceremony will be held in Cleveland on Saturday, October 19th.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voting ends on April 15th and they will officially announce the class of 2024 by the end of the month. Future Rock Legends predicts the inductees in the Performer category will be:

1. Kool & the Gang: The overwhelming support for Kool & the Gang from voters who have made their ballots public is unprecedented. The Rock Hall is probably kicking itself for waiting so long to nominate such a wildly successful band that crossed multiple genres and decades, and is clearly beloved.
2. Cher: Despite her suspicious public protestations about the Hall of Fame before she was nominated, Cher will likely cooperate and walk in after finally making her first ballot.
3. Foreigner: There's never been a public campaign like the one organized by Mark Ronson in support of his stepfather (Mick Jones). The band was eager to embrace the endorsements of Hall of Famers like Paul McCartney, Slash, Dave Grohl, and Chad Smith, and also heavily promoted the Fan Vote.
4. Peter Frampton: There was an outpouring of love when Frampton performed with Sheryl Crow at the 2023 induction ceremony, which vaulted him onto this year's ballot. Frampton's career peak in the 1970s was in the sweet spot for a significant chunk of voters who were coming of age during that time.
5. A Tribe Called Quest: The Rock Hall seems to want Tribe to get inducted before they can move on to other equally deserving hip hop artists such as Wu Tang and OutKast. Expect ATCQ to make the cut this year to open up future ballots for others.
6. Sinead O'Connor: As unfortunate as it was that it took her death to get the Nominating Committee's attention, the career reflection that followed gives Hall of Fame voters a unique opportunity to cement that legacy.
7. Lenny Kravitz: Like Sheryl Crow last year, Kravitz has countless friends in the industry that he can count on for votes. As a musical chameleon, he appeals to multiple demographics.

Additional Notes and Open Questions:

• The Rock Hall's rule change to allow voters to select seven artists instead of just five has been a massive improvement. Listening to voters work through their ballots on the Who Cares About the Rock Hall? podcast has shown that much of the pretzel logic voting of past years is gone. We're glad the Rock Hall finally took our suggestion ;)
• It's going to be fascinating to see how the increase to seven picks will impact the voting. The expansion could lead to some unexpected results.
• Allowing voters choose seven artists implies they will induct seven names from the ballot, but they haven't explicitly said they will do that. After inducting seven in 2022 and 2023, anything less than that will be a disappointment given the giant backlog.
• What about Ozzy? Despite his icon status, voters may look another way because 1) he's already an inductee with Black Sabbath, and 2) metal doesn't get much respect from the Rock Hall's voters.
• Dave Matthews Band dominated the official Fan Vote, and if they get passed over again, they'll cement their position as the number one populist snub.
• Is Mariah Carey too big to fail? It will be a tough pill to swallow for a star of her magnitude to miss out on a career achievement like this, but for whatever reason, voter support appears to be soft.
• Lenny Kravitz has had a quiet a year. He's already performed two career-spanning medleys at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Festival and the 2023 People's Choice Awards, where he picked up a Music Icon Award. Just last month he was honored by his daughter and Denzel Washington when getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After all of that, a Rock Hall induction may seem redundant.
• The public health issues of Ozzy, Peter Frampton, and key members of Foreigner, could certainly motivate voters to cast their votes for them this year.
• What do our readers think is going to happen? The results from our own prediction poll:





• The 2024 induction ceremony will be back in Cleveland this fall and will likely sell out quickly, no matter who gets inducted. Last year the Rock Hall was forced to lower their exorbitant ticket prices after demand was soft for the Brooklyn ceremony.
• Paul McCartney has appeared at two of the last three Cleveland ceremonies. Maybe he'll be back again this year?

Foreigner's a lock. https://t.co/TcTupbD4Dp

— Future Rock Legends (@futurerocklgnds) February 27, 2024

• The Rock Hall's "Fans Ballot" winners were Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Ozzy Osbourne, Cher, Lenny Kravitz, and Kool & the Gang. Historically fan vote winners have been inducted slightly more than 50% of the time, so it's no guarantee of induction (last year only one artist from the top five made it in).
• Lastly, a quick plug for our other websites which, like this site, focus on the greatest of all-time in their respective categories: Future Country Legends, Future Hip Hop Legends, and Future Football Legends. If you're into best-of lists and Halls of Fame, you'll find a lot to like over there.


Comments

• You have to go back to 2014 to find the last ballot that had 10 brand new names on it. Roughly 62% of Hall of Famers in the past 20 years were inducted on their first nomination, so look for voters to gravitate to the artists they haven't seen on a ballot before.
• The "Fans Ballot" is back for its 11th year, but this time there's an important change. Fans can vote for up to SEVEN names each day, which implies that's what the actual voters will be faced with as well. Up until this year, Voting Committee members have been forced to narrow their choices to a maximum of five names, even when the number of performers chosen grew to 6 or 7. It didn't make any sense before, so this is a vast improvement and one we've been arguing for.

• Let your voters check off more than five names on the ballot, especially if you're going to induct more than that. Give them a chance to vote for the most *deserving* artists and not force them to twist themselves into knots with strategic decisions about who "needs the votes"

  — Future Rock Legends (@futurerocklgnds) January 20, 2022

• There is only one repeat nominee from last year's ballot, A Tribe Called Quest. That hasn't happened since 2010, when The Stooges were the lone holdover from the previous year. The other four multi-nominated artists on this year's ballot each have only one other nomination, so even these artists still feel fresh and not like "ballot-filler."
• Cher bringing up her exclusion from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame out of the blue on the Kelly Clarkson Show a few months ago sure feels like a big set up now (as discussed on the Rock In Retrospect podcast, and with our nominee prediction). This has probably been a done deal for a long time. We'll see how serious she was when she promised to "never change her mind" about accepting the honor.
• Say what you want about the Hall of Fame worthiness of Foreigner and Peter Frampton, but there's really no excuse that artists of their stature had to wait over 20 years just to be nominated. Voters may ultimately turn them down, but if it weren't for the Rock Hall's broken nomination and induction system, they should have had this opportunity decades ago.
• The Country Music Hall of Fame has a wise rule that you are ineligible to be nominated for at least a year after you die. The Rock Hall's nomination of Sinead O'Connor so soon after she passed away feels exploitative and gross. Their justification that an artist's true legacy can become clear with the tributes when they die is insulting and just indicts them as followers of culture instead of leaders. A Hall of Fame induction should be the triggering event for a public career reevaluation, not a death. (This also applies to Kool & the Gang, who have lost many original members since becoming eligible in 1995.)
• Look, Lenny Kravitz has been a rock star for 35 years, but his Hall of Fame credentials are very thin. Zero albums or singles on Rolling Stone's top 500 lists and he's hasn't even been able to crack our readers' Snub List, which has over 130 deserving artists still waiting for the call. The 1990s was absolutely an incredible era for music, so it's hard to fathom why Lenny Kravitz won the nomination lottery other than his status as an industry darling.
• Oasis, on the other hand, have everything you'd want in a Hall of Fame career, including the "f**k you" attitude of not wanting it at all.
• Nominating Committee - try to listen to the people in your group who are nominating artists like Jane's Addiction, Sade, and Eric B. & Rakim, and minimize the input from industry executives who have other motives.
• Alan Light talked on his podcast about how great it was to have "new blood" on the Nominating Committee this year. "The idea is not to freeze all of [the NomCom and Voting members] in one place, and have everything move around it, but continue to move with the changes and try to keep up with the world as time marches on." Light has now been on the Nominating Committee for 18 years.
• In an interview with NPR, museum president Greg Harris touted the Hall of Fame's recent gains with inducting women and people of color. Evelyn McDonnell still finds their actions lacking given their well-documented track record.
• Others have pointed out the clumsiness of this year's ballot announcement, so we won't rehash the whole thing here, but the Rock Hall needs to learn from other Halls of Fame about how to handle the basic principles of these things. They have never been good at announcements, but this was a new level of bad.
• The Fan Vote ends April 26th. (But where can one find this information? It's nowhere to be found on the Rock Hall's website or social media. No, you just have to go to Lenny Kravitz's Instagram for the exclusive ballot details.)
• ABC and Disney+ will be the Rock Hall's broadcast partners for the second year in a row. Turns out streaming the ceremony live and then airing it later on traditional broadcast TV gets it in front of a lot more people than locked down on HBO.
• It's tough to say if the live stream on Disney+ is what suppressed ticket demand for the 2023 induction ceremony in Brooklyn, but tickets were available for well below face value. This year's ceremony will be in Cleveland, which always turns out big for these hometown events, so if ticket demand is soft again, the live stream may be the culprit. (If they induct Dave Matthews Band, they won't have a ticket problem.)
• This is getting a bit ridiculous:

• Is the Rock Hall just trading nominations for guest appearances at ceremonies and in tribute videos at this point? LOL. Participate and you’re nominated the next year or two.

  — Troy Smith (@troylsmith) February 10, 2024

• No country artists are on the performer ballot this year. We'll have to wait and see if any make it into the special categories, or if the Rock Hall has lost interest in the genre again (there's no shortage of qualified artists, that's for sure).

The 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees were announced at 11:30am EST on February 10th. Inductees will be revealed in April, and will be honored at a ceremony in Cleveland in the fall.