Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Announced

The Beach Boys, the Supremes, Simon & Garfunkel and the Mamas and Papas rock just as much as Abba did, and no one complains about them. If anything, Hey Hey Helen rocks more.

 

I believe one of the posters above cited Paul Simon as an example of Not Rock.

This place is like my middle-school playground in the 70s - god forbid that you enjoy "sissy music."

 

I always felt if you had a Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Records connection you could get in.

Iggy - Elektra for the Stooges classics, and several of his albums on Virgin were pressed and distributed by Atlantic in the USA before the sale of Virgin to EMI.

Jimmy Cliff - Recorded for Reprise and Warner Brothers in the 70's

Abba - Atlantic Records artists in the USA/Canada in the 70's-80's.

The Hollies - CSN's Graham Nash was a member, and they had one LP released on Atlantic in 1983 ("What Goes Around...")

Genesis - Atco and Atlantic artists in the USA for decades.

Still this was a great group to induct.. I never thought ABBA or the Hollies would ever get in.

 

Why do I have the sudden urge to play Denis Leary's No Cure For Cancer CD?

 

Yes, on another (non-music) forum I post at, people there were complaining that Abba was in before KISS.

 

THE HOLLIES!!! Great news about that one! Also thrilled about Jimmy Cliff...Toots & The Maytals in there yet?- 'cuz if Jimmy is, they should be as well by now...
I used to be a huge Stooges fan, and now I still dig some stuff, but I'm not as crazy about 'em as I used to be. Glad to hear it for them though, for many reasons. Abba too. And yeah I can probably think of lots of others I'd rather see than Abba or The Stooges, but both are certainly deserving. And at this point in my life I have to say I can probably stack up more Abba tracks that really get to me than I can Stooges tracks... And the Gabriel era Genesis is great stuff (though I tend to prefer his solo stuff personally), I even like some of the Collins era stuff too, but not as much, and not not as much of it.

 

I guess, if achieving absolutely nothing worthwile (in the Big Picture) is a criterion. Dan Fogelberg might have been somewhat popular, but he had no impact, made no stylistic progress, and if he had died in 1965 music today would be no different.

Halls of Fame are supposed to recognise extraordinary achievement, and while the RRHOF has frequently fallen down on this front (and also on this front, as far as I'm concerned, while they had some great songs The Hollies shouldn't be in there), no one who knows anything about rock and roll can argue that The Stooges are not important without exposing their lack of knowledge and/or blinders.

 

Don't mess with sissy music lovers. When we were ten, a guy denounced ABBA to my best friend, who was Japanese and practically spherical due to his enthusiastic adoption of the Australian diet, and he proceeded to inflict the first uwatenage I'd ever seen. It was very impressive.

 

Call it the "Pop *and* Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame" and I'd say bring on the ABBA (and numerous other non-rock bands)...

Meryl Streep can sing it? It's not rock. Call it "sissy" rock all ya want it's still just pop.

I'd guess the Hall intentionally ignores other Rock act veterans so they can have something in the well when interest is all but gone too.

 

"SOS" by Abba is a rock song.

 

I don't think it is so much "sissy music". I just think it's a different paradigm.

I think Paul Simon is borderline, but I would still consider him rock 'n' roll. This is not true of James Taylor and his induction has always confused me (not to mention the fact that I can't think of one of his songs that I don't find irritating).

Now, with the defense of ABBA and the suggestion that Dan Fogelberg should be inducted, I have come to realize that there are people that have a different view of what is rock 'n' roll is than I ever thought possible.

While I remember this music being on the radio as a child, I can't remember it really being considered rock 'n' roll. Even the Bay City Rollers were considered rock 'n' roll before ABBA and Dan Fogelberg.

They were kind of on a different tier of pop music like Barry Manilow, Bread, and Neil Diamond. Which reminds me, has Neil Diamond been inducted? If he hasn't, he should be. A better case could be made for Neil Diamond than ABBA or Dan Fogelberg.

I know that a cult of personality has grown around ABBA in the past couple of decades that I don't quite understand, but it is there and it is what it is.
That said, is anyone who is recommending that Dan Fogelberg be inducted into the RRHOF under 50?

Was all of this stuff really considered rock 'n' roll in the 70s and I was just too young to know that?

 

He couldn't be considered in a NON-performing category.

The guy stabbed was Meredith Hunter. The HA was Alan Passaro.

 

I agree. Let's be snotty critics and slam ABBA.

 

At least they didn't have a rap band/rapper this time.

 

I view the RNRHOF as a "pop" music celebration more than anything, so I have no issues when groups like Abba, Run DMC, Madonna, etc. get in. And unlike sports halls of fame, this is entirely subjective. It's all based on the voting committee's taste. The only reason sales data is ever used is to backup the choices they've already made. If sales were any indicator of eligibility, the list every year would look a whole lot different. No hipster bands and chock full of groups that the "unwashed masses" like.

I own a few Stooges CDs and even I think that them getting in is marginal at best. This is so the hipster dorks that run the RNRHOF can give Ron Asheton a memorial of some sort. I would say the same for Guns N Roses, should their day come, and I'm a huge fan!

The fact that KI$$ did not get in is a damn embarassment. I've discussed this before, but writer Dave Marsh is on record as working to keep bands OUT, including KI$$.

Now that the RNRHOF opened the event up to the public last year I thought was the sign that the floodgates would open. That the "people's bands" would get in. I guess with KI$$ not passing muster this year, that's not the case.

I want to know what the RNRHOF will do when Def Leppard, Motley Crue (who are both already eligible), Bon Jovi, etc. can't be held back anymore. David Fricke is a big Def Leppard supporter, so that is probably their only hope in the short term. The rest of them, who knows. By the time they hit the mid-80s bands that they can't avoid, they'll keep digging into some more one-hit wonder 60s and 70s bands that didn't get a fair shake the first time and keep dropping the bar lower and lower.

 

As I stated in my previous post, I'm fine with all "pop" music. The only rap groups worthy of admission at this point are:

Run DMC
LL Cool J
Public Enemy (in a few years when they become eligible)

That's pretty much it.

These are the only three "heritage" artists that seem to get respect all these years later. After that, the genre is full of one-hit wonders until you get to the late 90s. The fact that Grandmaster Flash got in is ridiculous. One can not argue their influence, but they had like two hits. Same with Sugarhill Gang (I think they got in didn't they?).

 

Abba, Stooges, Hollies, Genesis...I own records by all of these guys and consider myself to be fairly "rock n roll"...it's all part of the continuum.

 

This post rules OK!

Here's ABBA with Alice Cooper in 1977 possibly not discussing who would get in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th9xHVgHFUA

 

ouch

 

Like Simon i think James Taylor falls under the category of ''rock'' troubador as opposed to rock & roller, for the sheer size of their catalogues and the many classic albums and songs they've given us they both deserve their place in the HOF.

There are many fine songs amongst both men's early work that definitely rock ''Steamroller'' ''Suite For 20G'' ''Fire And Rain'' ''Country Road'' ''Mother And Child Reunion'' ''Kodachrome'' ''Loves Me Like A Rock'' ''Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard'' these are all classic songs that most people would consider rock.

 

More like a cult of these guys were brilliant songwriters and vocalists.

 

Really? I'd say let Iggy Pop in for the totality of his career, but The Stooges weren't a significant enough (or talented enough) force to be there on their own. I can see an argument being made in their favor, but I don't see evidence of why they would be a "no brainer."

The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Zeppelin . . . those are no brainers.

 

I disagree with you about Guns 'N Roses. "Welcome To The Jungle" alone earns them a place in the Hall.

I wish someone could make Dave Marsh just go away. Considering his overwhelming bias against metal and prog, it's a miracle that Sabbath, Metallica, and Genesis were ever considered. I'm not sure he even liked Aerosmith. We now have writers that actually like rock music like DeCurtis, Wild, and Fricke, and, yet, this hemorrhoid still walks the Earth. I don't know who's worse, him or Christgau.

It will be comical if Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Bon Jovi get in before Kiss, but it's probably unavoidable. I KNOW Marsh will be working hard to keep Motley Crue out.

 

They'll skip over those and go with what was considered "college rock" in the days before grunge took over. I would imagine Def Leppard might get in as Rolling Stone was always pretty favorable toward them. DL's three album cycle of High 'n Dry through Hysteria is classic stuff anyway.

Have REM or The Cure gotten in yet?

Neil Finn would be an inspired choice for the totality of his work across Spit Enz, Crowded House, Finn Bros. and solo.

 

I agree. If you let in punk pioneers like the Sex Pistols or the Stooges on the basis of one or two albums of influential work, then GNR would be in a similar boat. GNR was an echo of 70's Aerosmith/Stones rock in the same way that punk was an echo of early garage rock. The only reason some critics might decide the punks were more important would be because they like their politics more than that of GNR.