Welcome back to Can’t Get Much Higher, the internet’s favorite place for music and data. Each summer since 2018, I’ve made a playlist of (mostly) upbeat songs from across the decades that I could shuffle while I’m enjoying the weather. Some people seem to like it, so I figured I’d share this year’s edition below. You can listen while we talk about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The Rock Hall is Changing
By Chris Dalla Riva
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame recently started a newsletter. (Full disclosure: I might be collaborating on a project with them in the future.) The beginnings of that newsletter have gotten me thinking about the 40 year project that is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the most persistent question/accusation levied at the institution: “Why are you inducting non-rock acts?!”
To be clear, I am pro-Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Is the name confusing? Yes. Do I think they get some things wrong? Also, yes. (If I were musical dictator, you would not be enshrining Foreigner in the same halls as The Beatles, “Urgent” notwithstanding.)
That said, I think any institution seeking to preserve our musical history is worth celebrating. There aren’t many places that have the time, money, and wherewithal to keep the respective memories of Professor Longhair, The Rolling Stones, and Mary J. Blige, among others, alive.
The Rock Hall is undoubtedly changing, though. We’re about to look at a ton of data that proves that. But I want to start by looking into how people oversell both (a) that the institution has lost interest in rock music and (b) that the institution was ever just interested in rock music.