Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Nominees 2024

“Some people wait a lifetime 25 years after the release of their first record / For a moment like this”

I’m happy we’ve finally found a venue brave enough to recognize Mariah Carey.

Always Be My Baby came on the other day and i sang along reflexively. I love 90s Mariah, didn't keep up as much in the 21st century though that's not an indictment, I just don't know the material.

I suspect "pop/r&b/gay circles" would have some pretty well-worn criticisms of those members of the Rock Hall that don't meet their standards

Yeah, but those criticisms are right

I bet there are also significant numbers of Aretha or Minnie Riperton fans who also aren't fond of Mariah.

I hated Mariah Carey when she emerged, with exceptions ("Someday," "Fantasy," "My All"), but then I came out and wisdom descended on me.

Always Be My Baby came on the other day and i sang along reflexively. I love 90s Mariah, didn't keep up as much in the 21st century though that's not an indictment, I just don't know the material.

This happened to me last week but with "Shake It Off."

condolences

I wish people talked more about minnie riperton as well! and talked better about aretha franklin! and the presence or both in mariah's music but especially minnie

not sure why I was so aggro earlier probably mostly about something else but for some reason mariah carey was the musical bogeywoman for all the indie nerds I used to know and I don't get it. kind of but not really. wouldn't be surprised if some of them got on board by the time caution came out and then realized how great the glitter soundtrack was and how it bridged older r&b and later mixtape culture and now stans

*are now stans

Mariah has received a lot of misogynist/rockist/stupid criticism, particularly after the New Year's debacle that wasn't her fault. So I get being defensive about her

I think she’s cool as an icon/cultural figure/etc., I’ve just never connected with her music… her voice doesn’t hit for me, for whatever reason (and I love pop/r&b vocals). I’m not an RRHOF voter, though.

I'll give the '90s hits another shot (or any deep cuts that might be overlooked) but her records haven't connected with me either. I listen to a LOT of R&B and soul, especially my favorite Aretha, and also a good deal of gospel like Mahalia Jackson. I won't deny that Carey has an extremely impressive vocal range, but so far her singing just leaves me cold and comes off as simply stentorian. I doubt doubt there are "rockists" who are prejudiced, but as Halfway mentioned, it's completely inaccurate to say anyone who isn't taken by her music is doing so out of an inclination for rock music. What I love most about Aretha, or Mavis, or Mahalia, or Nina Simone or Jill Scott or Erykah Badu and on and on aren't qualities I usually hear in the rock music I listen to - if anything, I'm much more likely to hear them to varying degrees in jazz, if at all.

i'm sure Mariah will get in, i liked her debut album well enough though i was never really in love with it enough to want to follow her career after that. it's hard to get too worked up about her, she's pretty likable and such a massive figure in pop music that it objectively makes sense for her to be inducted.

Ambient w/ Mariah vox, love this

https://midnightmoontapes.bandcamp.com/track/transparency

"Focusing more on your own voice rather than how to best serve the material you’re trying to interpret" is absolutely a criticism that could be levelled at Mahalia Jackson or Aretha Franklin too - I wouldn't, but their voices are often front and centre just as much as Mariah's ever been - and as a critique of melisma I think it's rockist regardless of whether the ppl making it like rock music or not.

it's a criticism that could be levelled at john coltrane

I wouldn't call it rockist but I would call it a misunderstanding of certain kinds of R&B. I suspect this thread has enough people who grew up in the '90s not knowing what to do with Whitney Houston either. Aaliyah was not in that Houston-Carey tradition. Mary J. Blige, Toni Braxton, Deborah Cox -- they belted or under-sang as the occasion demanded.

What I love most about Aretha, or Mavis, or Mahalia, or Nina Simone or Jill Scott or Erykah Badu and on and on aren't qualities I usually hear in the rock music I listen to - if anything, I'm much more likely to hear them to varying degrees in jazz, if at all.

Her biggest hit of the '00s has cool unexpected stresses.

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

i like Whitney Houston but never really got Mariah, I then Houston is a better singer by far

I love Mary J too, I dunno Mariah leaves me cold

Same here re: Whitney… her appeal, I totally get.

I think one of the arguments for Mariah in the HOF, apart from her massive sales and chart success, is her role in fusing pop/R&B with hip-hop starting in the mid-1990s. (You can make the same argument for Mary J. Blige, obv.)

What I love most about Aretha, or Mavis, or Mahalia, or Nina Simone or Jill Scott or Erykah Badu

by “rockist” i think everyone’s saying your argument is based on bullshit standards of authenticity

, is her role in fusing pop/R&B with hip-hop starting in the mid-1990s. (You can make the same argument for Mary J. Blige, obv.)

― jaymc, Wednesday, April 17, 2024 9:08 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean you can make a much better case for Mary and many others who got there when Mariah was still doing vision of love type stuff not to mention all the new jack swing stuff, jody watley, many others, if anything she was chasing a trend not setting it

Sure, but that's like saying Bowie and Madonna deserves less credit for chasing trends. It doesn't matter -- they popularized it, individualized them.

Besides, Carey was outselling Blige by 10 to 1, not that Mary was a sales slouch.

i mean en vogue fer chrissakes, "hold on" was out in 1990

well, okay so one minute she's setting a trend according to the mariah hive, i point out that it is incorrect, then she's david bowie reimagining these trends

also all the stuff i mentioned was super popular! not just mary j

i like mary j more than mariah but i can't imagine a mary j fan not liking the emancipation of mimi. as alfred shared above, that album really does play against a lot of the things that seem to bother mariah's haters in this thread

i don't hate mariah i just don't really see what the big deal is

also people keep inventing things that are ahistorical and it's annoying

I respect and admire what Carey does, from writing to production (including choice of collaborators) to performance. That doesn't mean I want to listen to the results. Does she belong in the Hall of Fame, according to the standard-of-having-no-standards that it has established for itself over four decades now? Absolutely.

smh @ mariah still being blamed for the crimes of tommy mottola

(making her look late to the party)

I guess this is how people feel when I shit on madonna

i don't hate mariah, she has some good songs, she's a good pop artist. i personally don't love her stuff though and -- caveats about what unperson says like at this point why shouldn't she be in given who else has gotten in -- i don't think she's a great artist overall

Sure you have to do some artistic gatekeeping to keep Crazy Frog and the Macarena out, but it just seems absurd to have a Hall of Fame without your best selling female artist.

keep Crazy Frog and the Macarena out

Whoa, not so fast, the important thing is to avoid bullshit standards of authenticity

Crazy Frog

hey, that's not a nice thing to say about inductee Gene Simmons

"Focusing more on your own voice rather than how to best serve the material you’re trying to interpret" is absolutely a criticism that could be levelled at Mahalia Jackson or Aretha Franklin too - I wouldn't, but their voices are often front and centre just as much as Mariah's ever been - and as a critique of melisma I think it's rockist regardless of whether the ppl making it like rock music or not.

I have nothing against melisma in general and didn't say anything against it. It doesn't make sense to argue against a standard vocal trick or really any musical trick, it's ridiculous why that assumption was shoved in there upthread. I should rephrase by what I mean by focus: when I say focus more on your own voice, I don't mean simply making your instruments the center of attention - if anything most music is arranged that way where some instrument becomes THE center, especially when they have to solo. I think we're mostly disagreeing with the choices being made when the singer has the spotlight on them, and ultimate it's more about taste and not some other overall agenda. It definitely isn't about "authenticity" as someone else tried to argue upthread - that's not even remotely what I'm trying to say at all. If me, you or anyone simply doesn't connect with the way a singer phrases a song or puts a lyric across, what else is there to say? A lot of singers may pick out similar tricks from the same arsenal, but they're not all clones of each other - they choose to use them in different ways. They all have a different sense of musical taste or a different way of processing what they're doing to the material they're interpreting.

One of my favorite singers, Annie Lennox, sometimes annoys me by adding vocal runs where I think none are required; but it isn't what Mariah Carey does at her best.

If me, you or anyone simply doesn't connect with the way a singer phrases a song or puts a lyric across, what else is there to say?

Nothing much, which is why I think it's misguided to try to theorize this preference as being about the artist focusing on their voice as opposed to the material. :) I'll admit this puts me dangerously close to "it's like dancing about architecture" territory, but introducing this kind of intentionality suggests there's something specific about the approach beyond individual connection.

To be fair, it does get into a common trap when someone criticizes something they don't particularly like. (Ex: "I hate this group because they all sound like they're trying to impress each other." I say this with confidence because I know exactly what they're all thinking.) We're ultimately reacting to the singer's musical taste - I don't mean musical in a broad sense like style or genre, but musical as in "I want to draw this verse out" or "let's slow this down" or "I'm going to belt the chorus out because it needs it." Not that any of that's necessarily articulated, it's probably mostly instinctual and the singer just does it.

"Always Be My Baby" was playing in Vons earlier... Do do doop do doop da dum

The 2024 inductees:

Mary J. Blige
Cher
Foreigner
Peter Frampton
Kool & the Gang
Dave Matthews Band
Ozzy Osbourne
A Tribe Called Quest

Musical Excellence category:

Jimmy Buffett
MC5
Dionne Warwick
Norman Whitfield

Musical Influence Award:

Alexis Korner
John Mayall
Big Mama Thornton

good for tribe, no need to watch this year!

Dionne!

MC5!

Happy Dionne Warwick's been recognized (never mind a couple of those names on the induction list--ugh), but it still feels like the side door. With the baseball HOF, I think that after enough time passes, the distinction between election by the writers and election by the veteran's committee starts to fade. I know Chick Hafey's a HOF'er, but I'd have to check to see how he got in there. I don't know if the same dynamic is true for the Rock and Roll HOF. I hope so.

i'll take dionne in the hall any way she can get in, and "musical excellence" actually makes sense for her. one of the all-time great voices. (but, um, jimmy buffett, wut.)

total number of women who have been honored for musical excellence in the 24 years the category has existed: three.

dionne. chaka khan. patti scialfa. they, collectively, are the only musically excellent women in the history of rock (and hip-hop, r&b, pop, etc) according to the rock and roll hall of fame.

total number of men honored for musical excellence *this year*: seven.