2011 Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Inductees

Another year, another misstep that points to the Hall's growing irrelevance as they stubbornly cling to the belief that Rock 'n' Roll's cultural domain is a bygone era made for and celebrated exclusively by a white male demographic. While the ballot itself this year was thankfully diverse and held promise that the inductees might finally reflect rock's long varied history, the final selections were shamefully one-sided and all too predictable when studying recent voting history. It grows tiresome to write, and certainly repetitive to read year after year, but a Hall Of Fame celebrating a black invention that almost completely ignores black artists and styles of rock, notably disco and rap, can not be said to reflect an accurate portrayal of the genre's history. This year's two most deserving candidates in objective terms, LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys, who helped to popularize and shape rap, the most successful and culturally impactful form of rock music over the past thirty years, were again denied entry and the number of rap performers inducted after nearly a decade of eligibility remain at just two. In their place is offered an icon to aging women whose career rested largely in the adult contemporary pop field, which would be the equivilant in 1986 of leaving out Little Richard and Fats Domino so that Perry Como could get inducted. Harsh maybe, but closer to the truth than the Hall would like you to believe.

One of the ongoing issues that demands attention is why the Hall continues to show its age with its reluctance to look beyond the mid-70's, even though artists who've debuted in the mid 80's are now eligible. Of the five Main Performer Inductees all were recording before Richard Nixon resigned from the fallout over the Watergate scandal in 1974. While the Hall's role is to acknowledge history, they've remained stuck in a time frame that not coincidentally is the era the majority of their voters most closely identify with. As a result in the last decade the Hall's selections have been little more than referendum on their own stylistic preferences and personal favorites. Their ongoing rejection of disco, a style that defined an entire era, brought dancing back into rock after a long absence from the spotlight, and was massively influential on production of all types of rock 'n' roll in subsequent years, exemplifies this bias, as both Chic and Donna Summer failed to gain entry yet again, despite credentials that should make both near automatic selections. The voting body seems oblivious to anything that falls outside their own cultural experience and thus they're in the process of making themselves and the institution irrelevent by ignoring the revolutionary changes of the rock scene since their own coming of age. By dismissing dance-themed music, scoffing at synthesizers and beat-boxes, cringing at hair metal excess and disregarding sampling and rapping, the Hall's voters are effectively trying to wipe out entire chapters of rock history based on their own personal preferences which clearly ran counter to the dominant rock market that existed during this period.
v Even when focusing on rock's distant past they almost always miss out on the most deserving and overlooked nominees from long ago, as this year they had the chance to rectify past injustices by inducting legendary 50's singer/songwriter Chuck Willis, and 60's soul star Joe Tex and whiffed on both. All of these omissions once again regrettably bring up the racial issue as virtually of those artists are black, and the Beastie Boys performed in an overwhelmingly black cultural style, and thus are seemingly not on the radar of the predominantly white voting body, something the Hall is reluctant to address, but which becomes all the more alarming with each passing year. Perhaps equally distressing is the growing attention paid to artists with rather thin objective credentials, as evidenced by three fifths of this year's class having almost no commercial success and in some cases only moderate influence, which speaks volumes about the electorate's egotism regarding their subjective evaluation of an artist's merits. It's admirable that there is more than one route into the Hall Of Fame and that artists with less quantifiable achievements are being considered, so the likes of Dr. John, Darlene Love and Tom Waits have a legitimate chance, yet when the objective measurements of other nominees far surpass those more vague credentials and are still left out year after year, then to quote Buffalo Springfield - "There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear".

The Hall Of Fame needs to make it clear. It is obvious that the Hall's nominating committee and voting body have become stagnant and is in desperate need of major overhauling. The same small group of figures can not be responsible for putting forth the names each year for official consideration without it becoming simply a role call of their own tastes, and the larger voting body itself entrusted to elect those candidates must equally represent the full scope of rock history from a cultural and demographic perspective. Diversity is essential, as are younger voters, but most important is simply having knowledgeable and unbiased members who can objectively look at each prospective candidate and vote for those with the best credentials, regardless of their own interest or appreciation of their music. When it becomes far too easy to guess who is going to make it based not on the artists achievements, but rather their era, style, gender and skin color, then the Hall ceases to be the legitimate institution it craves to be.

The 2011 Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame class contains some excellent choices along with some that are downright curious, but when the means in which they are selected becomes the bigger story and overwhelms the focus put on the inductees, then the Hall has once again failed in properly celebrating the artists, musicians and executives careers of those enshrined, and that is probably the greatest sin of all.