By Robert Kett | MOG Writer
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has five criteria for induction: success, contribution, development, influence and sophistication. In more recent years, it has become painfully obvious that one of these has trumped all others… success. 2010 may serve the purpose of appeasing those who claim that the Hall has overlooked far too many. still, the remedy is a bit half-assed: soon-to-be inductees Genesis, the Hollies, and Jimmy Cliff have each been eligible for at least a decade and a half, but 2010 is the first time they’ve been nominated. ABBA, previously nominated in 2003, is only getting in on their second try. The Stooges, meanwhile, have been continuously nominated and rejected.
As the Hall inducts its twenty-fifth class next week, we think it’s important to take some time to look at those that the Hall of Fame has nominated, but only let in only after shutting them out time and time again. on closer inspection, one can’t help but wonder: what took so long?
ACT ONE: THE STOOGES (TO BE INDUCTED 2010)
Nominated in 1997, 1998, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009 without success.
It’s fashionable to believe that punk is a New York creation, driven by the dual impetuses of the dinosaur rocker indulging in excess and the progressive rocker taking rock ‘n roll into unfamiliar territory. Without groups like the Stooges, however, who’s to say how (or if) the genre would have developed? Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, Dave Alexander, and Jim Osterberg (who quickly dubbed himself “Iggy Pop”) formed the Psychedelic Stooges in 1967 with a determination to create an entirely new form of blues music. while early performances featured an avant-garde take on the blues, the group quickly became the first band to fully embrace a punk mentality.
As with the first rock ‘n roll song, the first punk song can be disputed, but the Stooges are surely among the first to have recorded one. Pop was also among the first to stage dive. The biggest obstacle to the group’s induction was obvious: the Stooges never had even the semblance of a chart hit, and their records were only appreciated by the masses after Pop gained fame in the late ’70s. but, based on influence and development, this band deserved induction before the start of the third millennium.
Of course, since their first time up, they’ve lost Ron Asheton, who died in January 2009. At least Ron was there when the Stooges performed in Madonna’s stead in 2008. looking at the list of performers this time around, it looks like Madonna won’t be performing in The Stooges’ place, but who knows?
ACT TWO: PATTI SMITH (INDUCTED 2007)
Nominated in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 without success.
“Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”
When it comes to opening lines on debut albums, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than the twenty-eight-year old Patti Smith had on her unorthodox reading of Van Morrison’s “Gloria”. Poet laureate of the punk-rock movement, the one-time performance artist emerged in a blaze of controversy, one that she kept up over her initial four-album run in the late ’70s and has continued since her return to recording.
Punk music is generally thought of as a very basic, primal movement where complexity is eschewed in favor of simplicity. Adding free-form poetry to a punk aesthetics, Smith single-handedly put that assumption into question. that said, it could be that meshing of the simple and complex that kept Smith out time and time again. though Smith’s hits have numbered relatively few, her influence on the development of rock ‘n roll in the ’80s and ’90s simply can’t be understated. Being hailed by acts ranging from R. E. M. and the Smiths to Sonic Youth and U2 should have garnered her an induction years before it actually happened. As it turned out, U2 would beat Patti Smith in by two years and R.E.M. would join her in the class of 2007.
ACT THREE: BLACK SABBATH (INDUCTED 2006)
Nominated in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 without success.
After losing the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident, Tony Iommi invested in banjo strings for his guitar and fashioned plastic and leather tips to fit over the nubs. Teaming up with John “Ozzy” Osbourne on vocals, Terry “Geezer” Butler on bass, and Bill Ward on skins, Iommi and Black Sabbath plowed through the ’70s like an advancing Mongol horde. Then, when Iommi and Butler tuned their instruments down between the group’s second and third albums, the real heaviness set in.
With Osbourne writing vocal melodies, Butler as primary lyricist, and Iommi as musical arranger, the group hit pay dirt with their first five albums, all of which were huge successes in spite of limited radio play. The group even recorded the first power ballad, “Changes” on Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Among the most influential of heavy metal acts, the band has inspired generations of aspiring musicians and laid the foundation for any number of metal subgenres.
Whereas others may have been too arty or outsider, it makes no sense that this group would sit out for so long, especially considering the sales. I can understand leaving a sales giant like Neil Diamond out (I’m personally thankful that he’s never been nominated), but Sabbath?
ACT FOUR: LYNYRD SKYNYRD (INDUCTED 2006)
Nominated in 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 without success.
Clad in a Tonight’s The Night-era Neil Young t-shirt, Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant often sang “a Southern man didn’t need him (Young) around anyhow”. few got the joke. In only five years, Van Zant’s often clever, poignant, and hard-hitting lyrics coupled with an onslaught of southern-fried rock ‘n roll (with nearly every player getting a credit for the music) helped Lynyrd Skynyrd grow from a band playing the worst of dive bars to chartering planes to tour.
With “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Free Bird” and “Saturday Night Special”, the band racked up three back-to-back hit singles in 1974 and 1975 (a fourth, “What’s your name?”, would chart in 1978), and the group’s five studio albums released between 1973 and 1977 were all top thirty albums. If there could be a reason for their belated induction, it would probably be the controversial Confederate imagery that MCA dreamed up to promote mid-70s albums. The fact that the group had retired this imagery by 1977 was unfortunately negated when the reunited group (with Johnny Van Zant in place of his brother) has resumed unfurling the rebel flag night after night.
I get it. They’re from the South. but how many acts are there that previously dragged out Confederate imagery and have given it up? more than a few…
ACT FIVE: SOLOMON BURKE (INDUCTED 2001)
Nominated in 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 without success.
An archbishop in The House of God For all People, mortician, and gospel radio host, Solomon Burke had one of the stranger curriculum vitae for a Rock Hall inductee. though his sales were good in the ’60s, the self-styled “King of Rock ‘n Soul” plugged away for decades in obscurity thereafter, as at home with country as he was with soul or gospel. He often blurred the lines between the genres, developing his own unique style of music, a one-man template for sweet southern soul. Influencing acts like Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Bonnie Raitt, he was a critical favorite lost among the bigger names time and time again.
Others may have had to wait longer (the Hollies, little Anthony and the Imperials, the Dave Clark five, the Ventures), but with nine unsuccessful nominations, Burke has the distinction of being the artist with the most rejections. still, on occasion, good things come to those who wait, and for Burke, his belated induction was the first of many late-period successes. 2002’s Don’t give Up on Me was widely heralded as a comeback to trump all comebacks, and the albums that have followed have all been critical successes that have introduced Burke to an entirely new audience. At 70, he’s still riding high, though he sings perched on his throne. 30 stone worth of weight will do that.
SPECIAL MENTION: BO DIDDLEY (INDUCTED 1987)
Sure, Bo Diddley got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s second class (for whatever reason, he didn’t make the cut for nominees in 1986), but I’ve always felt that Bo was the first real rocker, as opposed to a white man singing with blues inflections or a African-American man singing with country inflections. Bo’s contribution to rock and roll cannot be understated. The “Bo Diddley beat” is among the most copied in the genre.
Bo should have been the first artist in. Then again, it always seemed that he was a day late and a dollar short when it came to recognition.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS
There are numerous problems with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The US-centered institution frequently shunts international acts, often failing to consider them at all. its archaic rules currently dictate that no more than five acts get in as performers. Harp giant little Walter got in as a sideman and rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson as an early influence. Tom Dowd, the father of the multi-track and producer to a who’s who of giants, isn’t in at all. Regardless of how you feel about the four groups and one solo artist to be inducted as performers, the class of 2010 remedies a lot of wrongs of the last ten years worth of nominees. Hey, at the very least, they occasionally get it right.
