Bad Company - A few hits; rest of discography is pretty shallow. Pass.
The Black Crowes - ditto.
Mariah Carey - Not my genre, but as Exapno_Mapcase shows, huge sales and influence. Yes
Chubby Checker - HUGE early influencer Remember - this was the era of someone else writes the song for you (not necessarily a cover). Yes.
Joe Cocker - I absolutely LOVE his music. Not sure if he’s ever written anything himself, but he takes a song and makes it his own. Were it my R&RHOF, he’d be in. Overall, I doubt he has enough influence. I’m betting not.
Billy Idol - See Bad Company.
Joy Division/New Order - I’m an ugly American, and the R&RHOF is here in 'Merika, so I’m commenting from the view this side of the pond. See Bad Company.
Cyndi Lauper - See Bad Company.
Maná - See Joy Division.
Oasis - See Joy Division.
Outkast - never a fan. Not my genre. Don’t care.
Phish - I like what I’ve heard; not a Phish-head. Probably not enough there to get in.
The White Stripes - see Outkast.
“The Twist” wasn’t written for him. As I noted above, Chubby Checker was not in the first wave of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I’m hard pressed to think of anybody or anything he influenced besides a short-lived fad for songs with dance instructions.
At a certain point you have to ask “If this guy was such a big deal, why wasn’t he inducted at some time in the last 30 years?”.
Because when Jann Wenner was calling the shots he simply refused to allow anyone from the pre-Beatle era to be considered, over and above the people who were already in the HOF.
One glaring omission is Connie Francis. While more a balladeer than a Rock & Roll singer, she had a lot of hits in the late 50s/early 60s and for many years beyond that she was the top selling female singer in the WORLD, because she recorded albums in other languages, including Spanish, Italian, Irish, even Hebrew. And no, I was never a fan of hers, but she is as deserving as female balladeers Brenda Lee and Dionne Warwick ever were, and certainly more than Cyndi Lauper. I’ll give you Mariah Carey, based on longevity and chart success.
Chubby wasn’t a musical influencer, but his records were fun and lively at a time when pop music was at a rather low point, and the Twist was astonishingly popular with adults too, not just kids. I don’t expect him to make the cut, but it’s nice to see them at least throwing a bone to the old guard for once.
The first three acts I’d induct are The Jam, Television, and The Fugs. But, no one asked me.
Go there, they do ask. You can vote.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was basically Acts That Jann Wenner Liked forever, which basically meant white men who were as similar as possible to the Beatles and Bob Dylan; anything before was irrelevant, and anything after was something Rolling Stone loved or who cares.
Clever-clogs-art-students is a very on point description of Devo. They were early pioneers in music video and everything was carefully staged, from the costumes, to the written lore/faux philosophy, to their precise stage choreography. Here (in two parts) is their little student art film (that won a local award a few years before MTV existed) Jocko Homo and Secret Agent Man, which is a pretty good intro to their early ascetic. That herky-jerky musical style is pretty pervasive in their work. Not for everyone 
.
I do like them in the right mood (they often drip with sarcasm, which I do appreciate), but not something I’d be willing to listen on repeat for an entire long car trip.
Not exactly. The first inductees were Ray Charles, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke and The Everly Brothers.
I’m pretty close to Tamerlane’s assessment although I land on different sides of some of the borderline cases. If it were up to me:
Definitely In
- Mariah Carey: not my favorite, but she influenced a bunch that I do like. She’s just too popular and influential to leave out.
- Joy Division/New Order: Hugely influential on electronica before people knew what it was. And while Joy Division were never huge, they were a little like the Velvet Underground in how many other bands they influenced.
- Phish: I’m not a fan and don’t like jam bands, but they’ve created (or inherited and nurtured) an entire culture.
- The White Stripes: massively influential on the garage band sound and guitar players
Borderline, in order from most deserving to least. None of them quite had the influence for being a shoe-in.
- Outkast
- Oasis
- Billy Idol
- Cyndi Lauper
Nope
- Bad Company
- The Black Crowes
- Chubby Checker
- Joe Cocker
- Maná
By coincidence, I just saw Mariah Carey last night at her Las Vegas residency. It was a packed house. A gift for my wife, who’s a big fan. Although her style of music isn’t my favorite, I have to say she has a great voice. And I knew quite a few of her songs.
They did!
Inductees were:
Bad Company
Chubby Checker
Joe Cocker
Cyndi Lauper
Outkast
Soundgarden
The White Stripes
And
Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon will be recognized with the Musical Influence Award. Thom Bell, Nicky Hopkins and Carol Kaye will be honored for Musical Excellence. Lenny Waronker, noted producer and DreamWorks/Warner Bros. Records executive, will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.