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IF I HAD A BALLOT FOR THE 2014 ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME NOMINATIONS

Index



Chic

Background: Blending rock and R&B influences into its bouncy disco strategy, Chic offered a grittier, funkier take on dance music, and in the process provided inspiration for hip-hop and rock artists—the hit "Good Times," and particularly Bernard Edwards's rubbery bass line, provided the bedrock for, among others, the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and for Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." Edwards also provided another signature low-register classic for the risqué smash "Le Freak" as he and guitarist Nile Rodgers, both veteran session men, crafted the earthy foundation of Edwards's thick bottom and Rodgers's chicken-scratch guitar—funk elements dating back to James Brown's JBs—that supported the washes of strings and the airy voices of the female singers whose words carried an undertone of social unease even as the overt message was to "Dance Dance Dance," another key hit for the collective.

Chic offered a durable approach for disco, but the genre was getting buffeted by the 1980s, and the band had often been unfairly cast as relics of that period, exemplified by the seeming vacuity of tracks such as "I Want Your Love" and "Everybody Dance." Yet Chic developed a hybrid sound that proved accessible not only to dance styles—Chic's contemporary Sister Sledge bore a literal relationship to Chic's sound—but also to urban, hip-hop, and rock styles, while the rich yet lean production work of Edwards and Rodgers, the hallmark of Chic's success, quickly became in-demand, thus perpetuating Chic's influence. As any number of the anonymous disco bands from that period fade into nostalgia, the impact and influence of Chic becomes more salient.

Will the artist be voted into the Hall? No. Despite its seventh nomination since 2003, and even with no other disco act on the ballot this year, Chic is at the margin for a genre, disco, that has only grudging acceptance among Hall voters. This could be the last hurrah for the band for some time to come.

Would I vote for the artist? Yes. Admittedly a borderline pick, Chic nevertheless transcends its primary genre, disco, while influencing various styles. Its impact on hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the Sugarhill Gang alone is an indication of Chic's impact on the development of music of the Rock and Soul Era, even crossing over into hard rock (cf. Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust").

Deep Purple

Background: Formed in England around the same time as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Deep Purple began with an eclecticism that seemed like a kid in a candy store, covering Neil Diamond ("Kentucky Woman") and essaying progressive-rock touches that highlighted the counterpoint between guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and keyboardist John Lord (the instrumental "Hard Road (Wring That Neck)") while, pretentiously, aiming even higher—Lord composed a Concerto for Group and Orchestra that was not exactly a classical gas. But when singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover signed aboard, Purple narrowed its concentration to hard rock and released a trio of early-1970s albums that exemplified the band's robust early metal. In Rock ("Speed King," "Child in Time") and Fireball ("Strange Kind of Woman," the title song) honed an approach that culminated with Machine Head, an essential hard-rock album that featured "Highway Star," "Never Before," the molten-metal "Space Truckin'," and the deathless anthem "Smoke on the Water." The terrific concert album Made in Japan managed to improve upon the studio versions; for instance, the extended version of "Space Truckin'," far from being indulgent showboating, still maintains an impressive cinematic air that is not outside the realm of progressive rock.

However, the glory period was short-lived, as Purple couldn't maintain the inspiration. Who Do We Think We Are? contained "Woman from Tokyo" and maybe one or two other memorable tracks ("Rat Bat Blue"), and then Gillan quit. His replacement David Coverdale (later of Whitesnake) gamely filled in for a few of albums before Blackmore departed; the live Made in Europe, featuring Blackmore and Coverdale, acutely demonstrated how the band did degenerate into onstage showboating. By the mid-1970s Deep Purple was done although the "Mark II" configuration, with Blackmore, Gillan, and Glover, did reform a decade later, to fans' delight but little else. At various times, high-powered American guitarists Tommy Bolin, Steve Morse, and Joe Satriani have stepped in (Satriani did not appear on any official recordings), lending the band a certain amount of cachet while suggesting Purple's stature, but except for Machine Head and Made in Japan, Deep Purple never delivered on the promise it suggested with demonstrable consistency, and it is hard not to see Purple as much more than a period relic.

Will the artist be voted into the Hall? Yes. If for no other reason than the only other classic-period commercial hard-rock band on the ballot this year is Kiss, and compared to Kiss, Deep Purple more closely approaches that "musical excellence" the Hall purports to cherish. Added to this is the constant clamor from the "real rock and roll" contingent that this band is a major snub, which I don't think Hall voters are immune to—witness the elections of Heart and Rush last year.

Would I vote for the artist? No. Deep Purple lacks sufficient quantities of the Defining Factors I have used to evaluate previously-elected artists to be worthy of the Hall itself. I was a teenage Deep Purple fanatic who snapped up every Purple album I could, but listening to those albums later, I realized that the average Deep Purple album (excluding best-of packages) hit on all cylinders at best three or four times. That does not count Machine Head or Made in Japan, but two outstanding albums are not enough on which to hang a Hall of Fame legacy.

Peter Gabriel

Background: When Peter Gabriel left Genesis, he didn't necessarily abandon the grandiosity and theatricality that gave that progressive-rock band its notoriety. Rather, Gabriel channeled those elements into his new direction of blending Western pop styles with international, primarily African, influences and a social conscience informed by evident compassion. Although Gabriel receded from the spotlight by the early 1990s, he had already established himself as a richly informed, committed, worldly pop-rock artist.

Gabriel might have bade farewell to Genesis in "Solsbury Hill," his first solo success, but shaking off prog-rock pretense ("Moribund the Burgermeister") would take an album or two, although "Here Comes the Flood" had the same apocalyptic grandeur as Jackson Browne's "Before the Deluge." Those three songs appeared on the first of four consecutive, identically titled Peter Gabriel albums—Gabriel's intent was to present albums as successive issues of a musical magazine—and while the second album found him in intriguing transition ("D.I.Y.," "Exposure," and "On the Air"), the third hit its mark. Gabriel effectively rendered themes of individual paranoia (the unnerving "Intruder"), oppression (the brash "I Don't Remember"), and delusion (the compelling "Family Snapshot") with collective expressions of struggle, conflict, and resilience, humorously in "Games without Frontiers" and hauntingly in "Biko," a meditation on activist Steve Biko, who was murdered by South African police in 1976.

The fourth Gabriel album, titled Security in the US, continued his personal ("I Have the Touch") and social ("San Jacinto") yearnings while giving him his first American hit single, "Shock the Monkey," its video providing Gabriel with an outlet for his visual dramatics. It set the stage for his international breakthrough So, which saw Gabriel solidify his funky world-pop strategy into commercial success: "Big Time," "Red Rain," and especially "Sledgehammer" were huge hits; so was "In Your Eyes," which gained additional legacy from its use in the John Cusack film Say Anything; it also gave Western exposure to Senegalese mbalax singing superstar Youssou N'Dour, one of several high-profile artists (including Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush) on So as that album and its music videos became 1980s touchstones. And if So might have seemed too fluffy for prog-rock adherents, it also featured "Milgram's 37 (We Do What We're Told)," based on Stanley Milgram's famous social-psychology experiments.

Subsequently, Gabriel concentrated on movie soundtracks (for the critically acclaimed films Birdy, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Rabbit-Proof Fence) and his championing of world-music artists with his World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) movement rather than pursuing the pop spotlight. But Peter Gabriel's solo career has been a significant one in the Rock and Soul Era.

Will the artist be voted into the Hall? Yes. Peter Gabriel's association with Genesis combined with the critical and commercial success of his solo career should satisfy many Hall voters with respect to Gabriel's credentials as a major artist. In fact, it is surprising that Gabriel has not been considered for the Hall already. The only concern is that a Gabriel induction could make a Phil Collins induction more likely.

Would I vote for the artist? Yes. Not only did Peter Gabriel reinvent himself following his tenure in Genesis, he did so in an approach that proved to be both innovative and popular. Gabriel brought world music into Western pop in a more integrated and less exploitative manner than, say, Paul Simon. Furthermore, Gabriel's reinvention and its distancing from his previous association, Genesis, was more effective and successful than was Don Henley's from the Eagles, which was still a fairly impressive break from Henley's previous style.

Hall and Oates

Background: Best known for their impressive string of dance-pop hits in the first half of the 1980s, Daryl Hall and John Oates walked a long and winding trail to get to that point. The duo did quite a bit of woodshedding in the 1970s, pursing folk, rock, and soul paths in search of a definitive style. With their harmony vocals and Hall's agile, expressive voice to the fore, it was inevitable that they would tagged as "blue-eyed soul," with the just-as-inevitable cover of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" lurking in the wings. But wedding that slinky approach to the bright bounce of New Wave and dance-pop by the end of the decade ushered in an extended singles-chart residency for Hall & Oates that has defined their legacy.

It took a number of tries to get to that status, though. The duo's second album, 1973's Abandoned Luncheonette, contained "She's Gone," which underscored the Philly Soul sound although the electric piano introduction prefigures 10cc's "I'm Not in Love," and although it became a hit, that didn't occur until 1976, after Low Rawls had scored with it first. Hall and Oates's supple balladic style produced their first hit "Sara Smile," but only after the hard-rock misfire of War Babies, produced by Todd Rundgren with his progressive-rock band Utopia backing them. Philly strings underpin the rock kick of the duo's first Number One hit, 1977's "Rich Girl" and its blithely tossed-off attitude (from Bigger Than Both of Us), but despite another hard-rock-oriented album, Beauty on a Back Street, which Hall and Oates have effectively disowned, stylistic changes were in the offing.

Although their cover of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" was a hit, it was a rote, strident rendition. However, its album, Voices, spawned a pair of monster hits, "You Make My Dreams" and especially the chart-topper "Kiss on My List," that set the stage for Hall and Oates's dominance in the early 1980s. Supple R&B infused "Out of Touch" and particularly "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" while sprightly pop powered "Private Eyes" and especially the notorious "Maneater"—all four singles went to Number One—and established the duo as undoubted hit-makers, with Hall's voice becoming the duo's trademark. "Say It Isn't So" and "One on One" were only slightly less successful, although "Adult Education," "Family Man," and "Method of Modern Love," all three still Top Ten hits, contained hints of intriguing record-making ambition, the result of a decade-plus of musical exploration.

Indeed, "Everything Your Heart Desires," their last Top Ten hit, displayed continuing maturity, but by the time it arrived in 1988, the duo's audience had moved on. By the mid-2000s, Hall and Oates were recording covers albums (2004's Our Kind of Soul) and even holiday albums (2006's Home for Christmas, although they had taken a shot at Bobby Helms's "Jingle Bell Rock" as far back as 1983). Despite a fair bit of musical exploration, Daryl Hall and John Oates are best remembered for their '80s-pop superstardom.

Will the artist be voted into the Hall? No. Hall and Oates were certainly a significant part of the pop landscape of the first half of the 1980s, but that and a smattering of chart successes in the 1970s will not convince voters that this duo is a major talent worthy of Hall enshrinement.

Would I vote for the artist? No. This duo with its surprising flexibility and eventual honing of its approach produced some enduring hit-radio classics, but while their smooth delivery spelled mainstream appeal, it did not spell artistic significance: There is a lot of surface excitement in Hall and Oates's music, but it is not supported by much substance.

Last modified on Monday, 23 March 2015 17:57

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