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Rock and Roll (600)

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.

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…
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.
A true alternative to the Gangsta and Hardcore Rap sounds, A Tribe Called Quest was a breath of fresh air compared to the posturing of their Hip Hop peers.  Their music was a blend of Jazz and Rap combined with some of the best philosophical lyrics of the 90’s.  A true Alternative star, they held their own at Lollapalooza and…
Here we have another very interesting Rock and Roll Hall of Fame candidate where you can argue style over substance. 
Previous entries discussed the maligned genre of “Arena Rock” which although produced many successful acts has become synonymous with soulless music devoid of any true Rock and Roll spirit. That description always seemed harsh as any band who could sell out an arena has some merit to them. Anyways, we will let some other website debate that. One of the…
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.
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.
Generally, when you look at the career of a musician you find a steady progression. In the case of Herbie Hancock, we find a career that did not seem to follow any discernable pattern though it did produce a brilliant career of musical experimentation matched by few.
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…
When people first heard Alanis it was as a teeny-bop pop princess in the early 1990’s, though that was predominantly only in Canada.When the rest of the world heard Alanis, she brought back her last name (Morissette) and delivered one of the most successful albums of all-time and became the voice of millions of women.
If you are a baseball fan you might remember the sad tale of Bill Buckner whose solid career was completely overshadowed by the ground ball that dribbled through his legs that cost the Boston Red Sox the World Series in 1986. It is a very melodramatic analogy but a couple of us at NIHOF wondered aloud if Mr. Roboto may…
If you had more hits than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined you would think that you may be a lock for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. However, in the muddled case of Cliff Richard & the Shadows, this was a chart distinction held in Great Britain and not Stateside.
There are many people who first heard of Kool & the Gang from the monster hit, Celebration in 1980. After that, the band churned out multiple hits of the softer R&B vibe that generated much success. However, like a few other artists on this list we can’t help but feel that we are discussing two different careers as the Kool…
Drawing from diverse Alternative influences, yet morphing it all into their own beautiful arrangements, Austin, Texas’ Spoon is a great story of an Indie band that persevered and made it without having to sacrifice their core roots. The only thing that would keep them out of the Rock Hall is that the number of eligible indie-nfluenced rock bands continues to…
A lot of people have criticized the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for its perceived bias towards Punk Rock. There may be something to that, but at present, the wave of West Coast Punk Rockers has no inductee. X would be our best guess, but if Black Flag were to be that representative, it would not be a surprise.
There have been many who have fans and critics who have felt that Rancid was the second coming of the Clash.  That is high praise and big shoes to fill but it is easy to see how there were parallels between the two bands.
Although the J. Geils Band appeared as an overnight success in the early 80’s, they were anything but. After delivering a series of albums throughout the 1970’s that delivered a few minor hits, the J. Geils band found a good following in the North East but could not translate the energy of their live act to studio recordings or to…