Yep. Blue Cheer and Sir Lord Baltimore comes to mind.
They are specifically not new.
Suppose when the HoF was created there were 100 truly deserving bands in existence. Five get inducted; and that year two new bands that will be become great release their first albums. Now the backlog of great bands is 97. Eventually they’re going to exhaust that well of great bands. Five are taken off the pile every year, and five more are not being added to it.
Of course, what they did instead was simply expand the definition of what “rock and roll” is, leading to the elections of Dolly Parton & Willie Nelson.
Exactly so. This is the list of this year’s inductees; to qualify, they had to have released their first commercial recording in 1999 (I believe).
- Ozzy Osbourne
- A Tribe Called Quest
- Bad Company
- Chubby Checker
- Joe Cocker
- Cyndi Lauper
- Outkast
- Soundgarden
- The White Stripes
Of those, Checker first started recording in the 1950s, Cocker in the late 1960s, Bad Company in the 1970s, Osbourne (as a solo artist), Lauper, and Soundgarden in the 1980s, A Tribe Called Quest and Outkast in the early 1990s, and The White Stripes in 1999. Only that last act could be considered to be “new,” from the standpoint of being elected immediately upon becoming eligible, or very soon thereafter.
If prog rock is out and Dolly Parton is in, I conclude it’s past time to rename it the “Commercial Music HoF”.
And there’s no shame in being that. But truth in labeling is a virtue.
Slight correction - Ozzy and A Tribe Called Quest were part of the 2024 inductees.
Ahh, thank you, I misread the Wikipedia article.
Yes, the dam sort of broke with regard to prog-rock bands with the induction of Rush in 2013. Don’t know why, but I would think that they were a sort of compromise between prog-rock and “rock as the HOF elite see it.”
I know I’m out of touch, but I never heard of A Tribe Called Quest.
I’ve heard of them, but I wouldn’t recognize one of their songs if you played it on the radio.
In my head-canon, they’re in the category of Hugely Influential Bands That Influenced Other Musicians But Didn’t Resonate As Much With The General Public.
Or something.
Mariah Carey? Cyndi Lauper? OK then… what ISN’T rock?
To quote myself from earlier in the thread:
and…
They were a hugely influential hip hop band from the early 90s. Depending how you define general public, they were either unknown or very popular. If you weren’t into hip hop, you probably never heard them because commercial radio didn’t play hip hop. But among hip hop fans, they were huge, not some underground act. Copied from Wikipedia:
Widely regarded as pioneers of alternative hip hop and jazz rap, John Bush of AllMusic called them “the most intelligent, artistic rap group during the 1990s”, and Kris Ex of Pitchfork regarded them as “one of the greatest acts that hip-hop has ever produced”.
“Can I Kick It” was probably their best-known song and was used in some commercials.
“Description of a Fool” is one of my favorites, but you can’t go wrong with any of their stuff if you like hip hop.
I used to see ads for one of those hot-girls-in-skimpy-clothes-want-to-talk-to-you phone lines called Quest. Whenever I saw one I thought “oh, so that’s who the tribe called”.
I never understood this. How is hip hop “rock” enough, but Jethro Tull isn’t? Metalica and Run DMC are “rock”, but Emmerson Lake & Palmer isn’t?
Yeah, it’s been pretty clear that once you pass a certain threshold of sales, you’re “in”. That being said, I do not understand leaving out such influential bands. OK, Jan, it’s not your cup of tea. You can’t dispute the influence of those groups
There is a pretty significant overlap in those two concepts.
Yup.
It’s also clear that at least some of the gatekeepers think it’s the “Hall of Artistic Significance (according to me)”. Groundbreaking bands get in. Bands that make a mint growing lots of music in that broken ground that millions of people dance to and know the words to and own the t-shirts for get ignored. After all, they’re not Significant. Sniff.
Elitist idjits.
I’d point out that they inducted Joan Jett, whose big hit was a note-for-note cover and who never did anything groundbreaking or, to be honest, terribly interesting. Supertramp, an original band who sold a baskillion albums, isn’t in. Precisely who constitutes “significant” is genuinely impossible to find a pattern to, but it’s true of music critics (as it is for movie critics) that they tend to build up their own internal myths that become self-perpetuating, so they end up convincing themselves that the Sex Pistols belong in the RRHOF and that The Searchers was one of the greatest movies ever made.
I don’t think Jan Wenner’s involved in it anymore, and don’t really grasp how the voters (a reasonably large group) pick who they do.
The MUSEUM itself is terrific.
As already noted, there was long (and still is, to an extent) an apparent undercurrent of dislike/disdain specifically for progressive rock among the voters for the HoF, which tended to be reflected in those bands not getting nominated, and not getting inducted.
I have lots of gripes about the R&RHOF, but they all pale in comparison to the crime against humanity perpetrated by Elton John during the tribute to Brian Wilson.
