Heck Of A Guy

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland)

Leonard Cohen & 7 Others Nominated For 2008

Rolling Stone reports, in 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Announced,

From left to right, Top row: Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, Donna Summer; Middle row: Chic, Beastie Boys, Afrika Bambaataa; Bottom row: Ventures, Dave Clark Five, Madonna

Five members from this group of nominees will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.

Madonna, by virtue (smirk) of her 200 million albums sold, her fifty Top 40 singles, concert tours drawing millions of fans and hundreds of millions of dollars, a film career that includes flicks ranging from “Desperately Seeking Susan” to “Evita,” a series of children’s books, another volume titled “SEX,” and, as they say, much, much more, is surely the best known of the nominees.

And, DrHGuy has long nurtured all manner of positive feelings for The Material Girl and her bullet-point lingerie, harbors enthusiastic admiration for the Ventures, the Dave Clark Five, and John Mellencamp , and in fact, has enjoyed work by Afrika Bambaataa, the Beastie Boys, Donna Summer and, yes, even Chic.

Nonetheless, the hopes, prayers, Karmic vibrations, and psychic investments of the Heck of a Guy Blog are committed to Leonard Cohen, the class act in this group of nominees.

The Hall of Fame Game

The first group of inductees, inducted on January 23, 1986, included Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley.

Currently, groups or individuals are qualified for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Nominees should have “demonstrable influence and significance within the history of rock and roll.” Four categories are recognized: Performers, Non-Performers, Early Influences, and since 2000, Sidemen.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, based in New York City, oversees the induction process. Ballots are sent to an international pool of voters, including record company executives and previous inductees.

On The Flip Side

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has its detractors. Their case is outlined in this excerpt from Wikipedia:¹

Criticism

The main criticism is that the nomination process is controlled by a few individuals, such as founder Jann Wenner, former foundation director Suzan Evans, and writer Dave Marsh, reflecting their tastes rather than the views of the rock world as a whole. A former member of the nominations board once said:

At one point Suzan Evans lamented the choices being made because there weren’t enough big names that would sell tickets to the dinner. That was quickly remedied by dropping one of the doo-wop groups being considered in favor of a ‘name’ artist … I saw how certain pioneering artists of the 50s and early 60s were shunned because there needed to be more name power on the list, resulting in 70s superstars getting in before the people who made it possible for them. Some of those pioneers still aren’t in today — but Queen is.

Petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were also being ignored and some groups that were signed with certain labels or companies or were affiliated with various committee members have even been put up for nomination with no discussion at all.

Another criticism is that too many artists are inducted, allowing for several lesser acts to make it in. In fifteen years, 97 different artists have been inducted. A minimum of 50% of the vote is needed to be inducted, although the final percentages are not announced and a certain number of inductees (5 in 2007) is set before the ballots are shipped.

There are very few progressive rock bands in the hall, with Pink Floyd being the only true progressive rock group inducted. This has been noted by the columnist John Sinkevics, who notes the genre has more fan backing than any other.

The Sex Pistols, inducted in 2006, refused to attend the ceremony, calling the museum a “piss stain.”

2007 Voting Scandal Allegations

On March 14, two days after the 2007 induction ceremony, Roger Friedman of Fox News published an article claiming that The Dave Clark Five should have been the fifth inductee, as they had more votes than inductee Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. The article went on to say “[Jann Wenner] used a technicality about the day votes were due in. In reality, The Dave Clark Five got six more votes than Grandmaster Flash. But he felt we couldn’t go another year without a rap act.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame would later deny fixing the vote, although they didn’t deny that late votes were received, saying, “No. There is a format and rules and procedure. There is a specific time when the votes have to be in, and then they are counted. The bands with the top five votes got in.”

Credit Due Department: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame photograph taken by Jason Pratt

1. Formatting has stripped the citations that were within this excerpt from Wikipedia. Those references are, of course, available at the Wikipedia article itself.↩