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Rock and Roll (591)

Music.  It has the ability to bring people together.  It can stir up hidden emotions.  It can cause you to get up and physically move.  It can help you through your work day.  It separates generations.  We could describe it for page after page in terms both specific and vague but music simply means different things to different people.  Likely, many of these things were on the mind of the builders of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, a tribute to those who built up the genre of Rock and Roll.

Their intentions certainly seemed clear enough.  Their website states that “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honors the legendary performers, producers, songwriters, disc jockeys and others who have made rock and roll the force that it is in our culture”.  For our purposes, we are going to focus on the performer section of the Hall.  That being said, the first rule of eligibility is very simple.  Once an artist has gone twenty five years after the release of their first record, they become eligible.  After that it becomes a little murky.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame states that “criteria include the influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll”.  Influence and significance is certainly open to interpretation.  For that matter, so is Rock and Roll.  When Bill Haley sang Rock around the Clock over sixty years ago was he describing a sound, a look or maybe just an attitude?  Did the songwriters just like the word “rock”?  The origin of Rock music is so difficult to pinpoint its subsequent evolution is just as equally hard to chart.

With these vague parameters we at Not in Hall of Fame put our own committee together and came up with the top 250 artists whom we feel deserve consideration for enshrinement in Cleveland.  Are we right?  Are we wrong?   We know two things for sure; the first is that while compiling this list we felt we could make a viable case for multiple artists to be in our number one slot, the second was that it was a blast coming up with it.  Let us know what you think and based on who gets inducted, who becomes newly eligible, your opinions and how our own perceptions change, we will see how we rank them in the following year.    

Until then, Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World!

Sincerely,

 

The Not in Hall of Fame Rock and Roll Committee.

Sometimes, you can’t associate music to a region. Coming from the American South, The B-52’s redefined what music was supposed to be from there. Then again, nothing was ever typical with the B-52’s.
The next choice generated more debate from us in terms of their genre and not so much in terms of the band itself. Mötley Crüe was one of the many Metal bands to come out of L.A., but they were likely the band most closely associated with Hair Metal, and the debate we had is just how worthy that genre…
We have to admit that we were all shocked that Leonard Cohen got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It isn’t that we did not feel that he deserved it on some level; it is just that we did not think that this was an artist that the Hall would ever nominate let alone induct. With Cohen’s…
You didn’t think we were done with the Germans did you? We return to the “Fatherland” where we have a band (unlike our number one choice, Kraftwerk) that had true international success and is considered one of the top acts to come out of Continental Europe. We wonder if we are going to hear from some of their fans that…
You would think that a band that numerous hits and constant radio airplay in the mid and late 60’s and early 70’s would be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. However, as we go through this list we find that this is not necessary the rule. In the case of Paul Revere & the Raiders, one has to…
An earlier entry discusses the importance of the Go-Go’s who were able to make history by being the first all female band who performed all their own instruments and wrote their own songs who went to number one. As important as that feat was, there have been many who have pointed to the Runaways as being the more important all…
If you were to ask many music fans in 1990 or 1991 which band truly defined “Alternative” many would point to Jane’s Addiction. With a funky hybrid of Metal, Punk and Folk the provocative band took the music world by storm in the late 80’s.
In terms of pop culture and music we think it is safe to say that Bjork is the most famous and internationally person ever to come from Iceland.  Perhaps she will also become the first Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee from that country too.
With all due respect to Metallica, it has been often stated that Pantera was the most important Metal band of the 1990’s. Looking back to that decade, it is easy to see why Pantera has that distinction as if any band broke Metal into new boundaries in the 90’s it surely was Pantera.
How much chance does a band have to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if they are best known for wearing funny hats? To many, Devo was just a one hit wonder who looked like they wore garbage bags and had flower pots on their heads. Of course, their fans knew they were much more.
For a country with such a small population, the rich musical history of Ireland is an extensive one. Our first representative from the Emerald Isle is the Hard Rock band, Thin Lizzy; though it may surprise some casual fans that Thin Lizzy was even Irish.
If “Don’t Fear the Reaper” comes on the radio, can you hear that song without thinking “More Cowbell”? Many in the current generation can’t, which is a bit of a shame as The Blue Oyster Cult deserves to be remembered for more than that Saturday Night Live skit.
As the leaders of the Lo-Fi movement in the 1990’s, Pavement developed a sizable cult following and were consistently among the top of critic’s “best of” lists during that decade. They have been called the definition of Independent Rock in the 90’s and it is easy to understand why when listening to their music. Their cryptic lyrics, penchant for feedback…
It seems that every musical genre has a representative that is dubbed the “thinking man’s” band. Some have bestowed that label for the Post Punk/New Wave set to XTC. In retrospect, that may be an accurate description for this English group.
Somehow in the late ’60s, if you were not making a political stance or experimenting in the studio, you ran the risk of not being taken seriously. Sure, you could still be successful, but respect was hard to come by. In the case of Tommy James & the Shondells, their respect would come much later.
Here we have another very interesting Rock and Roll Hall of Fame candidate where you can argue style over substance. 
The United States of America has often touted itself as the “Melting Pot” of the world. We will let some other website debate the validity of that statement. For now, we will simply slot the ironically named band, War as the band on our list that we think best serves the Melting Pot analogy.
A common thread on this list is musicians who are ahead of their time. We can’t help but think there may be no other band on this list that defines that opening sentence better than the New York Dolls, who not only helped define a sound but a look as well.
During the early 60s many music fans were divided musically into either the Beatles camp or the Rolling Stones camp and they despised the other fans. Nowadays, that seems a little silly, but it wasn’t that long ago that a couple of us at NIHOF remembered that the Metal community had fans divided into the Metallica and Megadeth camps as…