Who's getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

(xpost) Not sure if you're familiar with this Rob Sheffield appropriation: "Thoreau is like Ralph Emerson/Ralph Emerson is what I read..."

there's so many b-list 60s artists that got in

― Joan Digimon (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, December 15, 2017 7:24 AM (yesterday)

Nah. Like who?

The GOAT status of inductees like The Band, The Animals, The Lovin' Spoonful, Dave Clark Five, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is pretty iffy.

Given that Guns N Roses are in, who were even later to the hair metal party, there's no real reason why Bon Jovi shouldn't be.

First of all, the Band are clearly one of the GOATs, in terms of music, impact and influence.

Second of all, GNR were hardly hair metal, and again, influence and impact much greater than Bon Jovi nerf rock.

First of all, the Band are clearly one of the GOATs, in terms of music, impact and influence.

Take them out of that statement and replace them with the fucking Turtles, then, whose primary achievements have been litigious, not musical.

Flo and Eddie sing backup on some classic I just recently heard for the first time. It’s killing me but I can’t remember what it was

The Turtles are not in the R&RHOF.

Not sure I'd want to make a case against any of the others mentioned but some are definitely ones where you think, "If they're in, band X should be in too."

Fuck the rock and roll hall of fame

flo & eddie sing backup on "Love my Way", a classic.

Also on Hungry Heart.

(xpost) Not sure if you're familiar with this Rob Sheffield appropriation: "Thoreau is like Ralph Emerson/Ralph Emerson is what I read..."

!
That now goes into the "lock the taskbar"/"Rock the Casbah" hall of fame.

I'm surprised so many artists care about the "hall of fame", so obviously a sham

calstars at 2:20 17 Dec 17

Flo and Eddie sing backup on some classic I just recently heard for the first time. It’s killing me but I can’t remember what it was

Nice one but that’s not it

I'm surprised so many artists care about the "hall of fame", so obviously a sham

― niels, Monday, December 18, 2017 5:44 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because it usually means a significant bump in album sales (people who pay attention to these sorts of news items still purchase music); can't find the source, but I'm pretty sure Fleetwood Mac received a 600% increase in albums sales due to their induction.

That being said, fuck Bon Jovi forever. Yes, I still find a few of their 80's songs to be catchy. If that's the goal line, Jesus. The floodgates are about to open.

And this is where I subject my subjective-ass opinion, but if any popular rock band from the past 20-odd years deserves to be a first-ballot band, it's Radiohead. I mean, really? Ask most under-40-something music critics working today, and I honestly believe a Radiohead album will appear in the top 50 albums of all time. Can we say that about Bon Fucking Jovi?

I'm guessing also that some of them care about it more in a "How can they put them in if we're not?" sense. Or bands that sold a lot of records without much critical support (the Kisses and Moody Blues, for example) who need some validation on that front.

Hey, Clemenza! I'm not sure I understand you. Are you stating that a hypothetical question among the voting members is, "Bon Jovi sold a shit-load more records than Radiohead; therefore they need to be inducted first"?

There is no question that Bon Jovi is more known than Radiohead [true story (anecdotal, but true): back in '12, I asked my then-36-year-old manager for a day off to attend the Radiohead King of Limbs tour. Her only response was, "who?"]

I don't want Bon Jovi in there, believe me--scroll back 20 posts or so. I'm not a big Radiohead fan (like a handful of songs, have two or three CDs), but objectively they make perfect sense. My comment before yours was strictly trying to look at the HOF from a band's perspective, why some of them seem to care so much.

Additionally: When bands like Kiss say they don't care at all about critics (often while waving their limousines and gold records around), I don't believe that. I think many of them care deeply, just like I think people who are constantly telling you they don't care about the Baseball HOF or the Academy Awards actually do. I really believe that how much people care about certain things can often be measured inversely by how often and how stridently they make a point of telling you they don't care. The stuff I actually don't care about, I rarely, if ever, talk about. Because I don't care.

Ha, agreed! It does signify something significant to the bands' themselves. I mean, I guess I can totally understand a band that's existed, in some form or another, for the past 25-some-odd years. What else is there to strive to?

Getting a cameo on The Simpsons, that's about it.

^LOL! Thanks for mentioning another pop-culture relic I've lost touch with. Seasons- 4-10 are the best ever! (I totally rewatch these seasons) I totally lost touch with the show after that.

GNR were hardly hair metal, influence and impact much greater

They arrived on the tail end of it, when the overly glammy look was already over (see also: Extreme, Skid Row, Tesla) and cultivated the bad boy image/controversies/etc but musically they fit right in. Any song on the first two records could've been on a Motley Crue album. The blatant revisionism around these asshats (who still, admittedly, wrote a couple of excellent rock songs) irritates me to no end.

As far as influence/impact, as soon as a year after the Use Your Illusion that whole scene sunk like a stone and absolutely nobody wanted to look or sound like them (or Bon Jovi for that matter) anymore, at least not until Steel Panther came along. For actual influence and impact, you're looking at Aerosmith or Def Leppard.

Love the band or hate them, I absolutely disagree that any of those early GNR songs are interchangeable with any of the Motley Crue songs. Of course, not sure I consider Crue hair metal either. As for influence and impact, like a lot of bands GNR transcends its music. Again, like them or not.

if you can't instantly tell a GnR song from a Bon Jovi song from a Crue song in like 10 seeing you maybe should just not comment

also 80s hair metal had a huge influence on the next decades of super popular modern country

particularly bon jovi

jovi and poison, yeah.

I do think a case can be made that Bon Jovi has been a big influence on country music. They should put them in the Country Hall!

I have it on good authority that he is a cowboy.

Yeah, they even had a country #1 with "Who Says You Can't Go Home" about a decade ago.

Les Claypool: Bon Jovi was actually a big influence on Primus back in the day. Basically, the influence was that we wanted to make music that was the polar opposite of Bon Jovi.

listen i'm glad y'all grew up suckin on the tittie of the minutemen and mayhem bootleg cassettes and sun ra by age 14 for for a lot of kids in small rural towns that literally had to drive an hour to another town to go to a record store, this bullshit was all we had, and there's a generation of people who all the garish bullshit means a lot to, it does for me. and it was as big as any kind of rock music that ever existed, and i think there's a lot of great songs in the whole big spandex mess

YOU'RE ALL SO FUCKIN COOL AND HAVE EXCELLENT TASTE AND ALWAYS HAVE

burn down the rock n roll hall of fame

I think the trouble with having a HOF is that it needs to bow to so many different altars.

Fame, influence, popularity, belovedness, longevity, and critical acclaim are all assumed to be factors to varying degrees. One can argue that it's not called "Hall of People Who Deserve to be Famous." It's a hall of people who ARE famous.

On the other hand there is the corrective impulse: these acts have been ignored too long, acts like this have been ignored too long, people like this have been marginalized, these people suffered while others thrived, these people are skilled yet they have been sneered at, these people created the foundation that other acts stand upon, etc.

And there is the (related) balance impulse: you inducted Act A, so why not Acts B, C, D, etc.

So right now every discussion of who should be in the HOF takes on all these dimensions. It's both necessary (as a kind of karmic justice) and kind of boring (because it takes on an eat-your-vegetables cast).

So what mega selling rock acts have yet to get in?

Garth Brooks and Shania? Are Boston, Whitney or Alanis in? Bee Gees yet?

Country acts are pretty much left to the country music hall of fame - even Willie Nelson, a huge star with crossover appeal in the 70s and 80s, isn’t in the rock hall. Bee Gees have been in since the late 90s. The way things are going I can picture Boston getting in on the fan ballot in the next few years. Whitney may get in eventually, Alanis I can’t see happening.

So country acts can get into the rock hall, but not the opposite?

everyone complaining about bon jovi and tacitly approving dire straits is a cop or worse a boomer sympathizer

I do renounce them both, all their works and pomps

Yeah see this is the kind of thing you get into when you even countenance the idea of the HOF, and personally I refuse to be drawn.

If Kinks then why not Replacements; if Animals then why not Turtles, if REM then why not the Fall, etc.

Either admit every band ever? Admit it's just a hall of Wenner? No one can precisely locate the dividing line so take your pick and justify/defend as you see fit, but the conversation will never end because it's dangerously close to arbitrary.

Close to arbitrary?!

it’s exceedingly arbitrary

It exceeds arbitrary.

everyone complaining about bon jovi and tacitly approving dire straits is a cop or worse a boomer sympathizer

^^^this

What's wrong with Dire Straits?