1986 – 2013: Reprise

In 28 years of inducting acts into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a total of 186 acts have made it into Cleveland. The table below shows those 186 categorized as noted previously: Yes, Borderline Yes, and No. (Again, the six backing acts from 2012 are not included.)

Breakdown of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees, 1986 – 2013
Year	Yes	Borderline Yes	No	Total Inductees
1986	10			10
1987	7	5	3	15
1988	5			5
1989	4		1	5
1990	3	3	2	8
1991	3	3	1	7
1992	4	3		7
1993	6	1	1	8
1994	4	3	1	8
1995	6	1		7
1996	4	2	1	7
1997	2	4	1	7
1998	3	1	2	6
1999	1	4	2	7
2000	0	3	3	6
2001	3	3	2	8
2002	2	1	3	6
2003	3	0	2	5
2004	2	2	3	7
2005	2	1	2	5
2006	3	1	1	5
2007	2	3	0	5
2008	1	1	3	5
2009	2	0	3	5
2010	1	2	2	5
2011	0	2	3	5
2012	2	2	2	6
2013	3	1	2	6
Totals	88	52	46	186
Pct. of Total	47.3%	28.0%	24.7%	100%

If you are in a generous mood, meaning that the Borderline Yeses are indeed worthy of the Hall, then the Hall doesn't look too bad: A tad more than three-quarters of the 186 acts, or 75.3 percent, are justifiably inducted. So, for all the complaining fans have done bemoaning the Hall's selections, it has made the right call three out of every four times. That's a passing grade, and a pretty respectable one at that—that is as long as you accept that all those Borderline Yeses, 28 percent of the total, are justified.

Those Borderline Yeses are of course open to interpretation, and that interpretation is understandably broad, which means that the in exclusive scenario, in which none of the Borderline Yeses are justified, the number of legitimate artists drops to below 50 percent. That seems to correspond to the general dissatisfaction that many listeners have with the Hall of Fame, that it has snubbed so many deserving acts while granting entrance to undeserving ones.

And if you think that these conclusions, whether for each of the six periods examined separately or for all inductees in aggregate, are predicated on subjective supposition, you are absolutely right: These are my assessments and conclusions, and they will not align with yours. (I thought about qualifying that last statement, but the odds are so remotely slim that even one other person will agree exactly with my conclusions. In fact, I'm not sure that I agree with all my conclusions myself.)

In truth, the range of percentages will change with each individual's perception of which act is or is not a Hall of Fame-level artist. The Borderline Yeses will provide the greatest variance as so many of the artists truly are judgment calls, or are at least subject to much greater debate. In previous audits, I listed as Borderline Yeses Solomon Burke and Sam and Dave, both of whom could have been Nos, but listed as a No Wilson Pickett, who could have been a Borderline Yes; similarly, I said No to Buddy Guy when he may be a Borderline Yes.

It is to be expected that the Borderline Yeses should be contentious, and I've given the Borderline Yes nod to ABBA, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Brenda Lee, and Patti Smith, among others—some quarters will argue that they are at best on the periphery and at worst not "real" "rock and roll" in the first place.

But more significantly, my assessments of the inductees that are unequivocal to me—the Yeses and Nos—are sure to be disputed by listeners across the board. Among my Yeses, meaning that there should be no dispute about their legitimacy, are Michael Jackson, Elton John, Madonna, the Stooges, and the Velvet Underground, and all can be derided as being too pop or too punk, respectively.

Among the Nos are Ruth Brown, Eddie Cochran, and Carl Perkins—vintage Rock and Soul Era enthusiasts would argue that they are essential; Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, the Righteous Brothers, and Dusty Springfield—pop fans will protest; AC/DC, Queen, and ZZ Top—hard-rock diehards gnash their teeth and howl; and Eric Clapton, John Mellencamp, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers—surely they are the epitome of classic rock?

To all of that I say: Yes. When the bottom line in an assessment is subjectivity, then any conclusions, no matter how well-reasoned, are open to interpretation. I tried to give every artist a fair hearing—literally and figuratively—and in doing so I encountered a number of surprises.

For example, when I did my initial sort of the inductees into the three buckets (Yes, Borderline Yes, and No), I had ABBA, Leonard Cohen, and Brenda Lee marked as Nos. But while listening to their songs and reviewing their historical record, I realized that their contributions were significant enough to be included in the Hall of Fame. Listening closer to Dusty Springfield, I fell in love with her voice, but I still felt that her contributions were ultimately not substantial enough to merit inclusion.

The Dusty Springfield example underscores a key point: Liking or not liking an artist should be independent from an impartial assessment. I've had AC/DC and ZZ Top records for ages because I like their music, but I do not think either band is significant enough to be in the Hall. And historical impact is another vital consideration. I had both Alice Cooper and the Red Hot Chili Peppers initially pegged as Nos, but in examining their contributions and the impact they had on the development of the music, I had to reconsider that assessment and recognize their importance to the Rock and Soul Era.

In that respect, one laudatory aspect to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that it does require that 25 years elapse from the release of an artist's first recording before an act can be considered eligible for induction. That allows sufficient time for a considered examination of the artist's legacy.

Not that the Hall's processes and rationale for which artists are to be included cannot be faulted. At the end of the day, I find that one-quarter of the 186 artists it has inducted into the Hall should not be there, and this is just an examination of the artists who have been inducted. The artists who have not yet been inducted is a separate issue . . . or you could check out a website such as this one . . .

Fade Out: Does It Matter?

All through the course of preparing these six audits, I regularly asked myself, Does it really matter who should or should not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? This was particularly true in the year between the last audit, Part 5, and this one as I worked on this most recent audit in fits and starts, pushing it onto the back burner as other articles—other subjects of interest—came and went.

But even as I procrastinated, the question still ambled through my head. Leaving aside the larger philosophical and existential considerations, I have decided that it does matter which artists are inducted into the Hall of Fame.

First, the Hall of Fame is a museum, a repository of the history of the music, and the induction of each artist into the Hall of Fame announces that that artist is an example of the most significant artists in the history of the music. A qualified inductee answers questions such as, Is this artist one of the best examples of a style, genre, or period? Did this artist make a significant impact or have a lasting influence?

Second, music is an intensely emotional experience; it has the power to move us with more immediacy than perhaps any other art form. It is also an intensely personal experience, but that experience can be easily shared with others. As a result, music becomes a part of who we are, a reflection of who we are, which may be why the inclusion or exclusion of an artist from the Hall of Fame can provoke such heated reactions—it can seem like a personal affront. And for the last six decades, that music that moves us so much has been predominantly rock and roll. Or rock and soul. Or primarily Western popular music since the mid-1950s. And we're back to how to define it, but you know what I mean.

Finally, it is that collective experience of the music that has the most important impact because that music has had a pronounced influence on our society and indeed on our civilization. That is not an overstatement. Music of the Rock and Soul Era has become woven into the fabric of our personal and public lives. One of the prevailing clichés of the 1960s was that rock music could change the world; that generation is alternately known as the Woodstock Generation, named for the landmark rock festival that epitomized the zenith of the age—while the Rolling Stones' infamous free concert at Altamont six months later represented the nadir of that age. Later, punk and hip-hop became vehicles for social and political expression.

And it wasn't just in the West that music of the Rock and Soul Era had an impact. Recently, I watched a documentary about the impact of rock music behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. It was not especially good—I can't even recall its title—but it reinforced previous observations about how rock music represented hope and freedom of expression to those in authoritarian and repressive societies. Following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Czech playwright and politician Vaclav Havel related to the West how he had been inspired by the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention during the decades that then-Czechoslovakia was under communist rule. (Zappa later became an unofficial cultural attaché to Havel's government.)

More recently, the Russian punk-rock group Pussy Riot enacted protests against Vladimir Putin's government, with three of its members eventually imprisoned. Meanwhile, regimes from Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini to Afghanistan under the Taliban have expressly banned rock music as examples of Western "decadence."

These are just a few quick examples to demonstrate the impact that music of the Rock and Soul Era has had around the world. The bottom line is that the music does matter, and what else matters is how it is presented and celebrated in what is currently the only central repository of that musical record, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Kinks once said it was "only jukebox music." The Rolling Stones once said that "it's only rock and roll." But I like it because it is a reflection of who we are and who we can be. It does indeed matter.

Now if only we could define it.