Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Uses Side Doors to Honor Some Nominees

This year’s inductee class reveals some serious flaws in the system.

On Wednesday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its 2021 inductees, and the list illustrates why I largely bailed out on this annual debate. First, I’m not sure I buy the idea of a rock ’n’ roll hall of fame in the first place. I think of rock ’n’ roll as a force to confront hierarchies and institutions, so even one that embraces many of rock’s values misses a crucial one when it decides to enshrine its greats. If I believed in a Hall of Fame, it would focus on artists that were influential and not merely popular. 

Kraftwerk should have gone in when first nominated in 2015, but for the last five years they have lost while Green Day, Journey, The Cars, and The Doobie Brothers—perfectly good, likable bands that changed nothing—were inducted. This year, they Kraftwerk went in as an “Early Influence,” a recognition previously given to Louis Armstrong, Lead Belly, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Nat “King” Cole and Woody Guthrie, among others. Until this year, that designation honored “the artists that pre-date the birth of rock & roll, but have had a profound impact on music's evolution and its iconic artists.” This year, the Hall retrofitted the text to make Kraftwerk’s backdoor inclusion less embarrassing, and it now reads, “The Early Influence Award shall be given to a performing artist or group whose music and performance style have directly influenced and helped inspire and evolve rock & roll and music that has impacted youth culture.” 

Kraftwerk’s designation as an “Early Influence” feels like the product of internal negotiations and not a recognition of the band’s significance. If it shows any recognition, it’s that the German electronic band will never be voted in on their own merits, and that the Hall will look lame for their continued exclusion. Chic is similarly massively influential, but since there are still those who think of Chic only as disco and believe disco sucks, it’s clear that they’ll have to be Kraftwerk’ed in as well. As long as they and the New York Dolls remain on the outside looking in, I’m on the outside with them. 

Too often the list of inductees reads like the ones chosen for the Rock and Roll Hall of Popularity. In 2013, the Hall instituted a fan vote, and though you might think that this year that would be what got Foo Fighters in the door, that’s not what happened. They ran fifth behind the winner—Tina Turner—and Fela Kuti, The Go-Gos, and Iron Maiden. I’m not outraged by Turner’s inclusion since she helped bridge the rock/dance music divide that stranded Chic on one side, and she did it while in her 40s. She likely would have been voted in by the regular voting body sooner or later, but other fan vote winners—Rush, Kiss, Journey, and Bon Jovi—would more likely have been left out without them. 

The results of that fan vote show that at least this year, the fans voted for significant artists more than the official voters. Afrobeat pioneer Fela didn’t make the cut this year, nor did the heavy metal juggernaut Iron Maiden, which is revered in ways that those outside of metal find incomprehensible. The Go-Gos are part of the Class of 2021 as the first self-contained all-woman band to take an album to number one when their debut Beauty and the Beat topped Billboard’s Hot 100 album chart in 1982. But it was the voters, not the fans, who got Foo Fighters in the door. The band has gone a long way on “Everlong” and Dave Grohl’s legendary amiability, and for the being the last arena rock band that still looks and sounds like an arena rock band, including the extended blues-rock jams that bogged down side three of countless live albums in the ‘70s.

The Hall seems to want its choices to be popular and significant, but its voters don’t vote that way. LL Cool J will be inducted not as a Performer but with the “Musical Excellence Award,” which recognizes “artists, musicians, songwriters and producers whose originality and influence creating music have had a dramatic impact on music.” That phrase makes LL sound like a technician, which is not how I hear him, but I’ll let other emcees make that judgment. But more to the point, “musical excellence” should describe 80 or so percent of the artists that belong in a Hall of Fame, so it sounds like a consolation prize that comes with a side of CYA since Jay-Z was voted in as a Performer this year. LL Cool J’s part of the Musical Excellence crew with two artists best known for their contributions to other people’s records—Billy Preston and Randy Rhoads—while Jay-Z’s category is joined by Turner, Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, Carole King, and Todd Rundgren. King was inducted as a songwriter with Gerry Goffin in 1990, so presumably this is her Tapestry award. 

Mandy Smith, director of Education at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, pointed to this year’s inductees as evidence that “rock and roll is such a full, huge, diverse genre of music that there is something for everyone and it is just really exciting.” Since the Hall tends to favor guitar/bass/drums lineups and all of this year’s Performers come from that general lineage with the exception of Jay-Z, it doesn’t feel that inclusive. There are more women than usual and that’s good, but in the end, the Hall always feels like an extension of the Rolling Stone history of rock and roll, which is the story of great artists—usually white, usually guys—and the proof of their their greatness is that they made great albums. LL Cool J made the awesome “Rock the Bells,” “I Can’t Live without My Radio,” “Going Back to Cali” and “Mama Said Knock You Out,” while Jay-Z made the platinum sellers Reasonable Doubt, In My Lifetime, Hard Knock Life and The Blueprint. 

A Hall of Fame I could buy into would actually look like something Smith described because I define rock ’n’ roll by what it does and not the instruments that make it. For me, rock ’n’ roll is the sound of teenage rebellion. Rock ’n’ roll is the sound that draws the line for young people between who is in their tribe and who’s out, just as it draws the line between where mom and dad leave off and they begin. That sound has been Little Richard, The Shangri-Las, The Beatles, the Dead, Parliament Funkadelic, Aerosmith, The Clash, NWA, Fugazi, Indigo Girls, Alanis Morissette, Justin Bieber, Bassnectar, and a million other bands that don’t sound anything like each other. Rock ’n’ roll can be contradictory. At one point Bob Dylan was that voice of rebellion, but for another generation, he’s the institution they rebel against. 

If I’m going to sign on to a Hall of Fame, it needs to stand for something. It needs to celebrate the artists who took big chances and made marks on the world and not just the charts. It needs to be a place where entrance comes through bold statements, not quiet negotiations. It’s a place you earn your way into by being remarkable, not because it’s your turn.