The Rock Hall Was Never Just About Rock

And that's okay

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.

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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.

Listen to My Favorite Rock Star, Etta James

When writing about the Rock Hall a few weeks ago, I noted how the first few years of inductees were unimpeachable. Chuck Berry. James Brown. Aretha Franklin. Roy Orbison. Smokey Robinson. These artists are not only tremendous talents but foundational to 20th century American music. But are they all rock artists?

No. Even as I note in my book that our notions of genre are deeply connected to race and gender, many early inductees do not make rock music in any sense. The Supremes are a great example of this. Despite the fact that they made almost no rock music, I think the Motown trio was well deserving of their 1988 induction.

Musical credentials aside, their inclusion makes even more sense when you consider the Rock Hall’s mission statement:

Born from the collision of rhythm & blues, country and gospel, rock & roll is a spirit that is inclusive and ever-changing. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame celebrates the sound of youth culture and honors the artists whose music connects us all.

Even though you could argue that defining rock & roll as “a spirit that is inclusive and ever-changing” is a non-definition, a musical institution seeking to celebrate “the sound of youth culture” must include The Supremes. It also must include Elton John and 2Pac and Whitney Houston and many others. Because of that, the Rock Hall has been enshrining non-rockers since their founding.

Over the last week, I built out a list of all 327 performing artists inducted into the Rock Hall. I then went through and tagged each artist in one of 10 broad genres: Rock, Funk, Soul/R&B/Gospel, Blues, Folk/Singer-Songwriter, Country, Reggae, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Electronic/Dance, and Latin.

Do artists easily fit into single genre buckets? Nope. You could make the case that Bob Dylan should be in the Rock and Folk/Singer-Songwriter categories. But even if you label each artist “Rock” in the most generous way possible, only around 40% and 50% of inductees in any decade are rock artists.

I could see someone making the case that those earlier non-rock artists were part of genres that shaped rock. No one, for example, is claiming that B.B. King made rock music. But his blues were foundational for the rock that emerged in the 1960s.

You might argue that this isn’t the case with non-rock inductees anymore. There isn’t as direct a line between, say, rock and hip-hop as there is between blues and rock. But I think if we go back to the fact that the Rock Hall is preserving “the sound of youth culture,” then inducting Outkast is just as important as inducting The White Stripes.

Let the Ladies Rock

The early days of the Rock Hall were dominated by American men. This makes sense. Rock music is an American music, and most of the important figures from the early days were men. But as the years have marched on, the artists shaping popular music have become more diverse.

While the majority of inductees are still American—and the largest share of non-Americans hail from the United Kingdom—there has actually been a growing contingent of inductees from outside the Anglosphere.

Of note, 2026 saw the first Nigerian and Cuban artists inducted in the Hall. The former included afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. The latter included salsa legend Celia Cruz.

The late Celia Cruz is also a good reminder that women have made up a growing share of inductees. In the 1980s, only 9% of inductees were women. So far this decade, 35% of inductees have been women. That’s a massive increase.

As I was digging into this data, I was further convinced of my opinion that the Rock Hall should continue to nominate and induct artists from across the genre universe. The goal is to catalog our musical history and celebrate the greatest musical practitioners—the name of the institution aside. If you’re making great songs, I’ll tip my cap to you.

A New One
"Barbie Doll" by Hurricane Wisdom ft. Chance the Rapper
2026 - Melodic Rap

As someone who went to college during the peak of Chance the Rapper’s powers, listened to him rhyme “I made ‘Sunday Candy,’ I’m never going to hell / I met Kanye West, I’m never going to fail” on Kanye West’s 2016 masterpiece “Ultralight Beam,” and then proceed to release uninspired music for a decade, the top question I ask myself anytime I hear something remotely good involving the Chicagoan is naturally, “Is Chance the Rapper back?!” Listening to his feature on Hurricane Wisdom’s latest single “Barbie Doll” has me hopeful that he might be.

An Old One
"Groovin'" by Aretha Franklin
1968 - Soul

The first solo woman inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was Aretha Franklin in 1987. Though she never made rock music, I don’t think anybody would dispute Franklin’s induction. Her voice continues to shake the world almost a decade after her death. There are so many recordings you could use to illustrate Aretha Franklin’s generational talent. But I want to turn to a deep cut: “Groovin'.”

“Groovin'” originally topped the charts for The Rascals in 1967. Franklin’s rendition has much of the same laid-back feel of the original. But her voice gracefully weaves through the arrangement in a way that nobody else can. When she wails “Life could ecstasy / You and me endlessly” near the end of the song, you get a glimpse of her power before she slips back into the cool tone she’s been working throughout the track. Very few singers have the control to do that.

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