Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Nominees 2024

how u gonna indict someone that proclaimed Rock 'n Roll is dead ffs

wait no, fuck Oasis

Sinead O'Connor, Tribe Called Quest, Cher, and Mariah Carey. No one I feel really passionate about this year--the first three all have songs I love; Mariah Carey, not as much (maybe her Jackson 5 cover), but I can construct arguments for those four.

Missed Eric B & Rakim--them too.

why can't they just call it the pop hall it would make everything easier

Lol just imagine the rockist backlash to that.

Actually though that would be funny so I support this idea

I think of "rock and roll" in the name mostly as defining a time period: the rock era (1950s-present), which includes many types of popular music genres.

voted mariah who has major rockist credentials which she's never been given enough credit for but half of these are good choices if there are such a thing as good choices

I am worried the davehead contingent might get there way this time which would be a real drag. ditto oasis if there are too many middle aged british men among the voters

if we could synonymize rock and pop again I would be very happy

If I had to pick five out of this bunch i'd vote for Sade, Sinead, Kool and the Gang, A Tribe Called Quest, Eric B and Rakim. Least likely to vote for: Lenny Kravitz

No to DMB, Foreigner, Frampton, Jane’s Addiction, Oasis and Kravitz.

Yeah, I'm with you. Maybe a case can be made for Jane's, but those other acts should never be in (though a few of them seem inevitable). Also, Kool & the Gang is one of the most underrated bands of all time. So many great songs.

I'm only voting Frampton so they can prank him by giving him confusing instructions as to where to enter the building, and to have a surly doorman to ask him what the fuck he wants him to do about it, and only to let him in when Peter gives the only response that makes any sense and simultaneously aggravates him that he has to say it

I honestly don't understand the case for O'Connor canonically. Lion and the Cobra & I Do Not Want great records no doubt, no one denies that. a big figure in the 90s for a couple of years. I know she is beloved by many of us from that generation, I like her too. But that's two albums with four hits if we're being stingy and six if we're being generous, and I think assigning her icon status is the sort of Wenner-like "look, to MY generation she was big" thing that...idk. maybe I'm wrong and everybody really rides for all the stuff after I Do Not Want?

the Butterfield Blues Band is in I mean...

I voted for Tribe.

the Butterfield Blues Band is in I mean...

ha well yes, point taken, but I mean, if "this earlier one was on scant qualifications so I want another scant qualifications inductee" then I demand my place in the RRHOF

I wasn't even sure there were five I liked - just barely. The ones I'd vote for:

Mary J. Blige
Eric B. & Rakim
Sinéad O’Connor
Sade
A Tribe Called Quest

Tribe is my top vote though

millennials and zoomers love sinead, maybe more so than the generations who actually remember her pop era. I see no reason to exclude her considering some of the crap they've already let in this thing

Sinead had two classic albums and a few more excellent ones, some fantastic collaborations sprinkled in there, she had some actual rebel moments which probably cost her dearly versus the lukewarm overtures of so many others who have one eye on making sure their careers are safe, had one of the greatest voices ever, etc. considering there are a lot of artists in the Rock Hall via excellent politicking and networking, it would be nice to see someone get in who didn't seem to have much interest in playing the game the right way.

i'll rep for old pete. i saw him on the tour that became that album, though the exact show i saw at the calderone concert hall didn't wind up on 'comes alive.' i'm pretty sure a different long island gig on the same tour did. what's not to like though -- a charming performer, free-flowing lead guitar work that kept to its own melodic flights (not really blues-based like everyone else), and songs that stuck with you and didn't otherwise get in the way. you can do worse than provide a nice rocking night out.

I would never use a tally of songs that were "hits" 25+ years ago as a measure of greatness. Plenty of terrible artists sold a lot of crap that lose currency fast. You see this with all music, especially when the original core audience has pretty much died and passed on. The music that means the most to anyone today, that people learn from and that has a lasting, profound impact has nothing to do with the amount they sold. You don't even need to look at "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?," something like Bing Crosby's records have real merit, but they don't even approach the stature of Duke Ellington's, and Crosby sold a LOT more of them.

I honestly don't understand the case for O'Connor canonically. Lion and the Cobra & I Do Not Want great records no doubt, no one denies that. a big figure in the 90s for a couple of years. I know she is beloved by many of us from that generation, I like her too. But that's two albums with four hits if we're being stingy and six if we're being generous, and I think assigning her icon status is the sort of Wenner-like "look, to MY generation she was big" thing that...idk. maybe I'm wrong and everybody really rides for all the stuff after I Do Not Want?

I see what you're saying but I disagree, if only because we (the collective R&RHOF "we" and the sliver of the public that cares about it) have long since rocketed into "LOL nothing matters" territory as far as who "deserves" to be in. Number of hits doesn't really matter. I doubt anyone who nominated her has heard anything she did after I Do Not Want... I certainly haven't, and I'd still vote for her because "Mandinka" blew my head off in 1988. What matters with O'Connor is that she was an amazing singer, and had a great deal of impact on the politics of the pop music world, both at the time and possibly even more later as the world decided she'd been right all along. I mean, how many actual chart hits did Joan Baez have, for example?

I never know what to think about these nominee lists. How would you even choose, on what basis?

In this case, I think I'd go Jane's Addiction solely on the literal basis of "which of these is the most rock 'n' roll?" Even more than G'n'R, I think Jane's is the last great "rock band" in the way I grew up understanding that phrase, very much encompassing sex and drugs. In discussions about Jane's on Bandsplain and 60 Songs, there were a lot of references to how scary Jane's seemed to teen listeners at the time. To the degree that the phrase "rock 'n' roll" means anything, I think it needs an edge of menace and vice.

(by which standard obviously Ozzy also qualifies, but I'm OK with him being in already with Sabbath)

I’d also go with Jane’s, I guess (and I’m not even much of a fan). I’m sure some of the other artists listed are deserving… but of those whose work I’m familiar with enough to have an informed opinion, I would be lukewarm on.

(I clearly don’t belong in the Grammar Hall of Fame, based on that post…)

Man, the dubbing on Frampton on this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_yZouoe6Q

I honestly don't understand the case for O'Connor canonically. Lion and the Cobra & I Do Not Want great records no doubt...but that's two albums with four hits if we're being stingy and six if we're being generous.

As I have with the Baseball HOF, my thinking has moved more in the direction of peak value than career value--I'd almost put O'Connor in for album #2 (and its two incredible singles) alone.

Nobody’s perfect but anyone who fought the church like Sinead did has my vote.

Was just going to say, if you also subscribe to the "character counts" drift that the baseball HOF is undergoing--a much dicier proposition with pop music, I'd say--then O'Connor also gets major credit for that whole ordeal, both for what she initially did and how she handled the fallout.

xp otm - refusing to play the game in order to stand up for your principles, especially to speak up for people who needed the help when the rest of the world refused to listen, that alone is more than deserving. (Definitely can't say that about a few of the other nominees.)

Totally agree with that. But also lol at the idea of "character counts" in the RRHOF, I don't know how many past inductees would make that cut.

Doesn't quite work, does it? "Goodbye, Jerry Lee Lewis; hello, England Dan & John Ford Coley." (About whom I know nothing--they seemed like nice people.)

England Dan ate a guy once

I listened to a whole England Dan/John Ford Coley album earlier this week, it rocked harder than I expected/wanted it to

You'd really love to induct them tonight.

England Dan & JFC first played together in the '60s Texas Garage/Psych bands Theze Few and Southwest F.O.B.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkEtNydb-RA

Peter Frampton, I'm sorry. This is supposed to be your shining moment.

tipsy mothra totally otm re jane’s - super hard band to rep for in 2024, maybe one of the most ‘you had to be there’ acts ever? (‘There’ being 1988-1991 precisely)

also they have done their legacy no favours - although i would never begrudge career musicians paying the mortgage however they gotta - i think there is a stated intention to try and claw back their rep a bit and the most recent shows have been pretty strong

anyway i still kinda love them despite everything

Eric B & Rakim don't have a large catalog and honestly most of their reputation is based on some amazing singles, however Rakim is one of the handful of rappers who really affected a fundamental change in the musical approach and structure of how people rapped, they absolutely must be in the HoF if it intends to take hip hop seriously.

As someone who missed that window, Jane's Addiction seemed like a somehow even lamer RHCP.

xpost Janes are to alt rock as the Doors were to classic rock, and maybe unfashionable for the same reasons now

I wrote a long thing about Jane's a few years ago that sums up why they're an instant vote for me. And why they're very fucked up and I can understand why a lot of people might hate them, especially Perry.

For the “fame” element it’s Mariah and Oasis.

For the “rock ‘n roll” attitude of disturbing the neighbours and kicking ass element it’s Sinead, Oasis, Jane’s Addiction, Eric B & Rakim and Ozzy I guess.

For career longevity (that’s probably a factor?) I guess it’s Cher, Mariah and Ozzy that that continued to stay in the limelight the longest?

I assume Sade is for the whole band not just Sade Adu…right?

Ozzy solo is fucking ridiculous, and the two non-Eric Avery Jane’s Addiction albums are so wretched that they should disqualify them

fwiw this is the radio concert that convinced teenaged me to go see the frampton band. (which turned out to be a different band than the one on this tape, but whatever.) i bet this gives that england dan / john ford coley lp a run for its money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4E1bGBvTns

damn that's a really smokin set

Mats aren't believe me this state would have shut down for a week

I would love husker du to get in and I hope the window doesn't close for them because younger folks seem less aware of them (I think they could definitely attract new fans if folks got a little less squeamish talking about how very queer their music is instead of just downplaying it as music by people who happen to be queer)

replacements sure they're important or whatever I don't get it maybe you had to be there but throw em on the pile

Mats aren't believe me this state would have shut down for a week

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 25, 2024 3:02 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Jim Walsh immolated himself in front of the HOF in protest of the snub

I doubt the breeders will beat pixies in there but I would love that

has the gen x takeover happened yet or is it still in progress? there is a surprising lack of alt grunge indie stuff aside from the big basic boomer approved highlights and there is such deep bench to pull from even if you want to stick to rockist principles

Gen X will get skipped cuz the boomers won't die off, just like everything else

I guess the RS-approved rap classics is the gen x coming through but it's such a slog and millennials will be ancient by the time we make our voices heard by finally inducting britney or taylor or whoever

Dionne Warwick's in now, and for the time being, I'm giving up on Husker Du/Replacements/Shangri-Las/(and, quirkier, Tommy James). My new #1 HOF project: the Pet Shop Boys.

(What I mean by "project," by the way, is that I'll be travelling the continent and visiting voters one-by-one with a slide show presentation on why the PSB should be elected.)

"In my many, many years as a writer and editor, nobody — nobody — has ever mentioned Osbourne’s solo work to me. No one’s wanted to review an album or cover a show. No one’s ever said, “Hey, you should hear this track on the new Ozzy album.” I don’t even remember ever reading a review of one of his albums or hearing one of his solo songs played on the radio, and of course none of his albums has ever turned up in the Pazz & Jop poll."

So here in the annual update to his Vulture ranking of the most to least worthy RRHoF inductees, Chicago's very own Bill Wyman is eager to let you know that he's savvy, he's been around the block, and so forth. But it would appear that he's not so savvy, or indeed at all self-aware, that he can't stand back and notice that the above passage, which appears in the 254th spot, only besting his placing for Stevie Nicks at 255, echoes Pauline Kael's infamously blinkered "Nixon couldn't have won, no one I know voted for him" remark. Surely the unassailably urbane Mr. Wyman knows of the chink in Kael's cognitive armor! Is it so challenging to update this list that he doesn't have time to examine his own assumptions? Or is he kinda dim, as Steve Albini suggested 30 years ago?

Wyman also doesn't like music that strays very far from rockist verities. Going through his ranking, he sneers dismissively w/r/t hard rock, metal, pop metal, post Clash english popular music nominally associated with rock, music chiefly made with synthesizers, pop soul, dance music, and only gives credit to hip-hop because he knows its a bad look to dislike the great step forward in popular music initiated and still controlled in 2024 by black people. So he seems to be on the younger end of the Dave Marsh wing of rock critics, who saw Springsteen, Petty, Coug and 80s roots rock as the course correction back to the stones, dylan, Motown/Stax values that had been compromised in the 1970s, and almost literally saw any deviation as such as a corrupt fraud.

But I will give him credit, quite a lot, for his suggestion in his now updated intro, that the nominating committee should dispense with the backdoor "award for musical excellence" boondoggle. If they don't get the desired results because the electorate is too dumb (and the RRHoF electorate is really really dumb, a bunch of bizzers and proud members of the Dave Marsh wing of rockcrit mentioned above) to recognize Kraftwerk and MC5 as such, then they should say "we are the nominating committee, these two or three artists are going in alongside the very popular nominees voted in by the shitheads, Why? because we say so, suck my dick if you don't like it. we're not breaking any laws, this is not a matter of grave global import, this is fucking show business."

I guess Wyman probably knows a higher percentage of Rock Hall voters than Kael knew voters in the presidential election, so his surprise (as an “industry guy”) doesn’t seem totally blinkered to me…

like who really knows Ozzy Ozbourne, other than that Gravy Train song which only saw life due to its use in dog food commercials, he was always known as the guy who replaced Dio in Black Sabbath and recorded Load.

I guess Wyman probably knows a higher percentage of Rock Hall voters than Kael knew voters in the presidential election, so his surprise (as an “industry guy”) doesn’t seem totally blinkered to me…

Nah, this is complete idiocy on Wyman's part. The industry loves the Osbournes. Even beyond the sheer numbers Ozzy's put on the board for five decades-plus, Sharon is royalty: her father was Don Arden, a high-powered London music biz guy.

Ozzy is practically his own economy in the metal scene

Where does he rank Dave Matthews Band? (I found the article but there's a paywall...)

yeah, what would he say?

"In my many, many years as a writer and editor, nobody — nobody — has ever mentioned Osbourne’s solo work to me. No one’s wanted to review an album or cover a show. No one’s ever said, “Hey, you should hear this track on the new Ozzy album.” I don’t even remember ever reading a review of one of his albums or hearing one of his solo songs played on the radio, and of course none of his albums has ever turned up in the Pazz & Jop poll."

imagine being an alleged radio listener and never hearing any Ozzy solo

was Ozzy the guy that used to put on those DIY Ozzfest house shows?

tbh the whole project of being a "rock critic" just seems embarrassing and pointless

as does the idea of the RnR HOF. idk

imagine being an alleged radio listener and never hearing any Ozzy solo

Ozzy is the only guy that was there when the Rock Radio chart started in 1980-81 who's still charting there today.

be easy on the guy, his mental wounds are still screaming and its driving him insane

xps That was a really weird take on Ozzy. Long before I knew anything about Black Sabbath (including who they were), I knew who Ozzy Osbourne was, and this was even before reality TV happened. He was that ubiquitous in the culture and no one in my household listened to metal or hard rock.

also lol at:

nwa at #239:

I know that Dre is one of music’s most important producers; he’s also a guy who beats up women.

chuck berry at #1:

As a person, he was less than ideal. But still: One of the most consequential American cultural figures of the 20th century.

Long before I knew anything about Black Sabbath (including who they were), I knew who Ozzy Osbourne was, and this was even before reality TV happened.

same, I know "of" Black Sabbath but they were Ozzy's old band to me, I didn't hear them until much later

I didn't even know Ozzy was in Black Sabbath until I was a teen, as I was a late bloomer to all forms of heavy rock.

embarrassed to say I found out when I borrowed one of dad's old Sabbath records (who, btw, he didn't even like, so I never gave them back), and saw his name on it and said...what, the "Perry Mason" singer guy?

weird that was the first song I thought of, but it was in fact the first one of his I heard knowingly.

every time people talked about "Crazy Train" I couldn't figure out what song they were talking about, and kept mistakenly thinking it was "Have a Cigar" because the way Roger Waters sings 'gravy train' sounded like 'crazy train' to my terrible ears.

nobody would have believed 13-year old me and 43-year old me are related

This might've been my first real exposure to Ozzy - like I didn't know his music or what he even sounded like when he just talked until they did this post-9/11 bit on Conan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9QoZgW-Qa0

the making breakfast scene on Decline of Western Civilization was definitely the origin of his transformation into America's loveably addled rock dad

I think the first time I heard Crazy Train was when erstwhile ilxor hstencil performed it karaoke in like 2002.

I was a kid at the time, but I remember when No More Tears came out and it was about as big on Rock Radio as contemporary releases like the Use Your Illusions, The Black Album, Nevermind, and Ten.

"Crazy Train," "No More Tears," and that Lita Ford duet were the only Ozzy songs I knew for a long time.

yeah, "No More Tears" earned massive MTV airplay during the Year of Nirvana.

pretty legendary performance of No More Tears on the Live and Loud video too that I think got play on MTV

It's funny to hear people a little younger than me talk about Ozzy or Sabbath. I became aware of Sabbath not long before "Neon Knights" came out, definitely knew of Ozzy and mistakenly assumed it was him singing on that. Vividly remember when Randy Rhoads died because it happened in Florida where I lived and iirc Ozzy's next show was supposed to be in Miami.

Yep!

"Close My Eyes Forever" is Ozzy's only AT40 hit in America btw

"Close My Eyes Forever" is Ozzy's only AT40 hit in America btw

Not true! "Mama, I'm Coming Home" hit #28. (Lemmy was probably exaggerating, but he said he made more money from writing the lyrics to that song than he did from anything Motörhead-related.)

Oh, missed it.

9-year-old me obsessively listening to pop radio was a huge “Mama, I’m Coming Home” fan and never heard “No More Tears” that I can recall until listening to it right now. Doesn’t sound familiar though it certainly would fit right in with Use Your Illusion’s songs

was very hard to divest that song from Johnson and Johnson products

No More Tears was definitely everywhere for a really long time after it was released, it was one of the inner circle staples of hard rock radio. And unlike a lot of tracks which received considerable airplay in that genre at the time, it's still does really sound good.

I did scan through Wyman's list, and the guy is a pretty lousy writer based on that. Even when I agree with the most superficial points he's making, he offers nothing of interest to back any of it up.

"In my many, many years as a writer and editor, nobody — nobody — has ever mentioned Osbourne’s solo work to me.

because you are a herb and people do not wanna hang with you and know they'd be wasting their breath

no use for this guy

There's no getting around the dubious concept of a rank listicle, but to Wyman's credit, he does make something out of it - forget the inductee assessments, the meat of that thing is really the ridiculous history behind the Hall of Fame that's detailed in piecemeal. Just an excerpt drawn from a handful of entries:

Joe Hagan says the hall of fame was first conceived by a cable entrepreneur, Bruce Brandwen, who outlined the basic structure of the hall, proposed an annual TV show, and enlisted Ahmet Ertegun...Ertegun and Jann Wenner conspired together to wait out the five-year contract Brandwen had, and then took the organization over. Wenner later dismissed Brandwen as part of “a bunch of hucksters.” The inevitable lawsuit was settled out of court. Bruce Conforth, the hall’s first curator, told me that an early benefit concert featuring the Who and billed as a benefit for the hall actually raised money to pay off that settlement...

From the start, Conforth says, said, his work was hampered by a division between the Cleveland folks, who’d put up the money and had the best interests of Cleveland and the hall’s success in mind, and the New York people, most of whom didn’t want the hall in Cleveland in the first place. “The people from New York thought their shit didn’t stink,” Conforth says. “They were rich New York elite artsy-fartsy hip people who knew what was going on. They figured the Cleveland people were a bunch of rubes who couldn’t tell the time of day. The Cleveland people hated the New York people because they didn’t give the Cleveland people any respect and were always telling Cleveland people what to do, even though the Cleveland folks came up with all the money. The two boards really, really hated each other.”

I asked Conforth for an example of how the Cleveland–New York division manifested itself. He said that one day shortly after he started work he was abruptly summoned to meet with Wenner, so he dutifully boarded a plane to New York. “It was an official audience,” Conforth says drily. “It was at the new Rolling Stone’s offices [on Sixth Avenue]. Jann’s office was in the corner; it has glass windows on two sides; quite large, but sparsely decorated, with a huge desk in the corner. I was allowed to enter the inner sanctum. There’s Jann, barefoot. He sits down behind this huge desk, puts his bare feet upon the desk, looks at me, pulls out a cigarette, lights it, and says, ‘Now do you see where the real power lies?’”

Conforth, the curator, is a highly entertaining interview. He was a scholar who’d done his dissertation at Indiana on the San Francisco scene. He turned out not to be a good fit for the hall. One mistake he made, he allows, is requesting to work in Cleveland, which he thought made sense at the time but led to many of his decisions being overruled from New York. Even two decades later he remains amused at his tenure. It was plain from the start, he says, what the hall of fame’s mission was: “Here’s another way we get to masturbate in public and show the world how great we are.” The difficulties he had working for Wenner & Co. were such an open secret by the time he left that he received a call from the producers of the Oprah Winfrey Show. They wanted him to appear for a segment on “When Dream Jobs Become a Nightmare.”

only besting his placing for Stevie Nicks at 255, echoes Pauline Kael's infamously blinkered "Nixon couldn't have won, no one I know voted for him" remark.

Point of order: she never said that. Neither did Susan Sontag, whom that quote is also sometimes attributed to.