When the Rock Hall is Wrong
... and right
Welcome back to Can’t Get Much Higher, the internet’s favorite place for music and data. If you’re free at 6PM EST, I will chatting with the incredible Alan Paul about my book and all things music. I’ll send another email when it starts, but you should stop by.
And if you still haven’t gotten a chance, check out my book Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. It’s a data-driven history of popular music that I wrote as I spent years listening to every number one hit in history. Now, let’s talk about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.
When the Rock Hall is Wrong
By Chris Dalla Riva
Liam Gallagher, the outspoken singer of Oasis, has made it clear that he does not care for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2024, he declared, “Fuck the Rock n Roll hall” on Twitter. A year later, he noted with the similar succinctness, “RNR hall of fame is for WANKERS.”
Naturally, this all leads up to the fact that when Oasis was inducted into the Rock Hall this year, Liam was thrilled by the honor, going so far as to say it was something that he’d dreamt of from the time he “was a little kid singing in the shower.”
Should we take Liam Gallagher’s thoughts on the Rock Hall that seriously? Probably not. As he complained about the establishment in the past, he also joked that should he be inducted, he’d obviously go to the ceremony and say “it’s the best thing EVER.”
Still, I think the English singer’s attitude toward Rock Hall is similar to many other people’s attitudes. Because music awards are stupid, musical lifetime achievement awards are especially stupid. As an artist, it’s nice to be recognized for your life’s work, though. As a fan, it’s also nice to be able to go to a building with tons of memorabilia.
In short, the Rock Hall is controversial because while people like to complain about it, the fact that they are complaining means that it is important on some level. This brings me to an observation that Steven Hyden made in his newsletter a few weeks ago:
The annual ritual of inducting several people requires that you occasionally include names that are less worthy, merely for the sake of the yearly tradition. A truly elite institution, the argument goes, might skip a year (or more) if there are no truly qualified candidates. But the ritual’s requirements ultimately outweigh the possibility of higher standards.
A quick glance at the Rock Hall’s induction history appears to support this. The first class was honored in 1986, a full 40 years ago, and it’s all heavy hitters: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard … And so it went for the next several classes …
I would argue that the Rock Hall didn’t get really dicey with what they chose to include until the mid-2010s … This coincided with the waning influence of Jann Wenner, whose iron grip on the Rock Hall appeared to be slipping as bands like Kiss and Rush — which are outright reviled by critics, then and now — achieved immortality. And then, in the 2020s, this trend accelerated, as the Rock Hall welcomed the critically dubious likes of Foreigner, Bad Company, Chicago, The Moody Blues, Steve Miller, Peter Frampton, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews Band, and Pat Benatar.
Hyden’s observation got me wondering if we could measure this phenomenon. Are Rock Hall standards really slipping? And regardless of whether they were, could we find the worst induction class?
Where Have the Standards Gone?
A few years ago, I wrote about the 40-Year Test. I created this test after observing that Frank Sinatra’s “Theme from New York, New York” came out in 1980, 40 years after the release of his first important work. That’s a long time. I wanted to hunt for other artists that had released critically important recordings at least 40 years apart.
In writing that piece, I had to assemble a list of critically important musical works. To do that, I grabbed 10 lists of important musical works, totaling 3,000 celebrated works from 1860 to 2020. Using that list, we could gauge the caliber of artists being inducted into the Rock Hall.
My methodology here was pretty simple. Build a database of every performer inducted into the Rock Hall (e.g., The Kinks (1990), Prince (2004), Sheryl Crow (2023)). Look up how many songs each of those performers had on my critically-acclaimed song list (e.g., The Kinks (4), Prince (10), Sheryl Crow (1)). Plot the average by year.
It does indeed look like standards started to get worse around 2010. From 1986 through 2000, your average inductee had released between 4 and 8 critically acclaimed songs. Since 2010, it’s been closer to 2.
I will note that many of these lists are biased toward older music. But an artist’s first album must be at least 25 years old to be inducted into the Rock Hall. Because of that, the older bias of the songs on my list probably isn’t that important. The most contemporary group inducted this year, for example, was Oasis. Their debut came out in 1994.
So, what’s going on? Is the Rock Hall just inducting more popular acts rather than more critically acclaimed acts? Not exactly. I also plotted the average number of top 40 hits for each year of inductees. Beyond the first few years being packed with artists that were both critically acclaimed and popular (e.g., The Beatles), the number of hits per inductee has been pretty steady.
The change in inductee caliber seems to be driven by two things. First, fans have voted since 2012. Since all fan votes are compiled into a single ballot, it’s not that important, but it likely has some impact.
Second, the Rock Hall has started to induct more people. After a few big inductions to get things started, it looked like the number of inductees was settling around 5 per year. Over the last five years, the number has been creeping up closer to 8 or 9 per year. (Note: In 2012 a special committee decided to induct 6 backing bands (e.g., The Famous Flames, The Crickets), leading to a single-year increase).
WHO DID THEY INDUCT??
It won’t surprise you that the earliest years were undoubtedly the strongest induction years. Because nobody was in the Rock Hall yet, there were a lot of legends to choose from. By my methodology, the high-water mark was 1988, when The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Drifters, The Supremes, and Bob Dylan were all inducted. That’s a tough class to beat.
The worst year is a bit more interesting. If we look at the years where the average inductee has the fewest critically acclaimed song, then the worst induction class is somewhere between 2009 and 2011.
The point here is not that, say, Steve Miller stinks. I love me some Steve Miller. But does Mr. Miller deserve to be enshrined among people like John Lennon and Ray Charles and Eminem? I don’t think so. These are people that reshaped not just popular music but popular culture.
And, yes, I mention Eminem to make it clear that I don’t take offense at the Hall inducting non-rockers. Should the name of the institution be different? Probably. But it effectively functions as a popular music hall of fame. And if it is a popular music hall of fame, then it has still made some serious oversights.
I’m Still Waiting
Looking for Rock Hall snubs, I took my list of critically-celebrated songs, counted up the number of songs each artist had, and then looked for the artists with the most songs that were not currently enshrined.
When you first run this analysis, all of the artists that come up on top are jazz artists. John Coltrane. Frank Sinatra. Duke Ellington. Beyond a few artists, like Miles Davis, the Rock Hall doesn’t do too much to celebrate jazz. I know I just said the institution functions more as a popular music hall of fame—and jazz is one of the most important forms of popular music—but because of the institution’s lack of interest in the genre thus far, I didn’t include any jazz artists on my snubs list.
Though he was inducted as a member of N.W.A, Dr. Dre still has not been enshrined for his solo career. Neither have The Replacements, one of my favorite bands of all-time. Frankly, it seems like the Rock Hall has some issues with alternative rockers of the 1980s. Along with The Replacements, The Smiths and the Pixies have not been enshrined.
The only people that I was surprised to see on this list were Coldplay and Alicia Keys. While both have had long, successful careers, they don’t jump to mind when I think of critically acclaimed artists. That said, even if you don’t love either of them, you likely do appreciate works from their respective discographies: “Viva La Vida,” “Yellow,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” etc.
So, where does all of this land us? Is the Rock Hall a stupid institution that must be torn down? Should acclaimed artists that have not been enshrined show up with pitchforks and torches? In both cases, I’d say, “NO!”
Like many institutions, the Rock Hall is filled with flaws and contradictions. But it is one of the few places trying to preserve our musical history. While I will always take issue with an institution that declares Bon Jovi one of the greatest artists of all time before The Replacements, I salute them for their efforts.
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Well. Others may disagree (and I might even agree with some of their points), but overall - to me - the rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame franchise is a nothing short of a complete farce.
Why? Because at the center of everything this franchise is a fully self contained financially generated cottage industry unto itself, and besides the valid points Chris made about given artists or groups either being snubbed or questionably included, (meaning acts or performers who really didn’t merit inclusion as ground breaking artists) it needs to continually induct people in order to just stay alive, like the shark that needs to be in perpetual motion in order to not die, or similar to you and I needing oxygen in order to live. Otherwise, why not just deduct EVERYBODY worthy right now? Why not add new inductees - say - every 5 yrs? Why drag it out on a yearly basis?
If you were to make a straight line projection based upon the current parameters of inclusion and the R&R HOF working to stay alive, they will out of necessity eventually get around to including everybody, and that probably means lame acts like the late Tim Tim. I wouldn’t doubt that for a second. And when they’ve run out of nominees to induct under the current rules and regulations it carries, you can safely bet they will change the requirement Chris mentioned of needing to have created your first album over 25 yrs ago, that’s kind of a no-brainer.
Beyond the glitz and glamour it would seem to me that financial aspect is apparently the basic calculus of this entire organization, and if (God forbid) they nominate the Go-go’s over some other far more deserving and thus far overlooked act or acts), any resulting public uproar and controversy this generates (along the lines of Go go’s defenders arguing against Go go’s detractors) will only serve as a distraction to our understanding how we’re all being played, and to strengthen their dubious existence.
And, let’s not overlook the following information I found on Google in a quick New York minute:
“While inductees get tickets for themselves, they must pay for additional guests or entourage members, sometimes costing up to $10,000 per extra ticket, to help manage venue capacity at the ceremony. Some artists, such as Steve Miller, have famously complained about these high guest ticket costs.”
“$10,000 per extra ticket, to help manage the venue capacity at the ceremony” ?!? In what universe do you need an extra $10,000 per ticket “to help manage the venue capacity?”
I rest my case. Like all of you reading this, I have a fairly good clue as to who merits a hall of fame status and it’s good enough for me, I don’t need this self serving bullshit cash cow of an organization telling me who’s who. I have complete contempt and utter disgust for this most transparent turd of a franchise. (In case that wasn’t obvious!) Said the one.
PS: Chris just informed me that the Go go’s WERE in fact inducted. In view of so many other deserving artists who were overlooked I’m no completely gob smacked. As Scrooge famously said in Dickens A Christmas Carol, “I’ll retire to Bedlam.”
Speaking of dumb awards shows, I lost my innocence in February 1979 when A Taste of Honey beat Elvis Costello for the Best New Artist Grammy.
I was only 16, but I knew it was wrong.