Posted on 12/15/2009 11:44:44 AM PST by a fool in paradise
The Stooges, Genesis, ABBA, the Hollies and Jimmy Cliff will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the shrine's 25th annual ceremony on March 15 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. They'll be joined by David Geffen and a cadre of songwriters -- Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry, Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman and Otis Blackwell -- who will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers.
The ceremony will be broadcast live on Fuse TV.
Surprisingly not making the cut were KISS and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were thought to be frontrunners when the short list of nominees was announced in September.
Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks tells Billboard.com that the induction is "nice to happen" and that it's an honor to be the second British progressive rock band, after Pink Floyd, to join the Hall. "I suppose it being American-based and all that it just concentrates slightly more on that type of music," he says. Which members of Genesis might perform at the ceremony is somewhat up in the air due to Phil Collins' recent surgery to repair dislocated vertebrae. "Phil's got a few physical problems at the moment which means I don't think he'd be able to play, so...I don't really know what that means," Banks says. "We'll face that particular hurdle when we get to it."
Hollies veteran Graham Nash calls the group's induction "well-deserved," noting that "they were a very large part of the British Invasion. They were a very large part of early, you know, English rock. They had a couple of dozen Top 10 hits (in the U.K.), and hits over here (in the U.S.), and why not?" His longtime colleague Stephen Stills was "so happy" for Nash and cracked that "now he can quit feeling inferior" because Stills and David Crosby have each been inducted into the Hall more than once. But, Stills adds, "I thought (the Hollies) was a great band, and we all wanted to sing like that. The fact I ended up with one of their singers is one of the luckiest things in my life."
ABBA is unlikely to regroup for a performance at the March ceremony, but the Stooges, in the wake of founding guitarist Ron Asheton's death in early January, have already been planning a 2010 tour with "Raw Power" era guitarist James Williamson. The group has been nominated for the Hall seven previous times.
Problem is it’s not supposed to be a backslapping party. It’s supposed to be The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Instead it’s the “Jann Wenner doesn’t like any band from before the Beatles, or prog-rock or heavy metal and therefore they can all %^&* up a rope” Hall of Fame. And that’s just plain annoying, and causes a deserved uproar every time a new induction class is announced.
I’m holding out for Weird Al.
And if grandma had balls she’d be grandpa.
I do what I can to point out that there is less “gravitas” in the Hall of the Fame inductions than there is in the albums that Grammys are awarded to or the movies that win Oscars.
He can call it his own personal favs but to call it THE canon of “THIS IS ROCK AND ROLL”? I don’t think so.
If you aren’t in the hall, you aren’t worthy of recognition. You don’t exist. You are written out of the history. How fair is that in a historical perspective?
I’m not talking about revenue for heirs or quotas for demographics. I’m talking about setting the historical record down.
If Madonna, Abba, and Dion are rock while Kiss and Rush are not, then what IS rock? It is completely arbtitrary who gets in and who doesn’t. Calling it a hall of fame is to laugh. Self-appointed arbitors of public taste. The same sort of suits who repeatedly passed on the Beatles because “The guitar group sound is out.”
That’s the best you got huh? Noted. Bye.
The Hall has been around 25 years now. So does this mean that no artists performing new styles today weren’t influenced by some non-rock artist from 35 years ago (like an Abba)?
If so, then rock is dead, seal the door. Nothing new will come down the pike.
You're right. The problem is the name. It should be called the "Popular Music Hall of Fame." It really has gotten to be a joke and I would find myself hard pressed to waste the time to check it out if I were in the Cleveland area. (I do feel Dion could legitimately be classified as RNR, however.)
Robin Trower Band - 1973 to current.
What a Joke
The Grammys didn't champion Joe Strummer until he was dead and then Bruuuuce Springsteen was there on tv singing one of his songs. The Clash’s final tour was opening for the Who.
PS here's the equally biased Grammy list for best spoken word album for the past 20 years:
Can you say LITMUS TEST?
Grammy Awards of 2009
Beau Bridges, Cynthia Nixon and Blair Underwood for An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by Al Gore
Grammy Awards of 2008
Barack Obama for The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Grammy Awards of 2007
Jimmy Carter for Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis; and
Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee for With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together (Tie)
Grammy Awards of 2006
Barack Obama for Dreams from My Father
Grammy Awards of 2005
Bill Clinton for My Life
Grammy Awards of 2004
Paul Ruben (producer) & Al Franken for Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right
Grammy Awards of 2003
Charles B. Potter (producer) & Maya Angelou for A Song Flung Up to Heaven
Grammy Awards of 2002
Jeffrey S. Thomas, Steven Strassman (engineers) & Elisa Shokoff (producer) & Quincy Jones for Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones
Grammy Awards of 2001
Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) & Sidney Poitier for The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography
Grammy Awards of 2000
LeVar Burton for The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Grammy Awards of 1999
Christopher Reeve for Still Me
Grammy Awards of 1998
Charles Kuralt for Charles Kuralt’s Spring
Grammy Awards of 1997
Hillary Rodham Clinton for It Takes a Village
Grammy Awards of 1996
Maya Angelou for Phenomenal Woman
Grammy Awards of 1995
Henry Rollins for Get in the Van
Grammy Awards of 1994
Maya Angelou for On the Pulse of Morning
Grammy Awards of 1993
Earvin “Magic” Johnson & Robert O’Keefe for What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS
Grammy Awards of 1992
Ken Burns for The Civil War
Grammy Awards of 1991
George Burns for Gracie - A Love Story
Grammy Awards of 1990
Gilda Radner for It's Always Something
Grammy Awards of 1989
Jesse Jackson for Speech by Rev. Jesse Jackson
Grammy Awards of 1988
Garrison Keillor for Lake Wobegon Days
Stan Freberg won the first award in 1959 (and he'd had a radio show). Not a bad competitor but I'd chalk up Poetry for the Beat Generation by Jack Kerouac with improvisational piano from Steve Allen as a better album.
nothing of the sort (comedy or original composition) has taken the award in the modern era. All books on tape almost exclusively from liberal Democrats. MAYBE Rollins’ recording wasn't him reading one of his books but I can't be bothered to search and find out.
LOL - Not at all; it's just all you deserved. Buh bye now!
If they were taking in 12 bands in a induction, there wouldn’t be such “controversy” but with so many overlooked performers, it is an insult to some of the artists who get shut out while non-rock gets in.
I’m not a Kiss fan, listened to some Rush but they aren’t my BIG band, and I can even see U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers and REM getting in (again, not a fan they’ve had staying power and helped drive the course or at least stayed contemporary). I would like to see Alice Cooper get in (and Screamin Jay Hawkins but then that is just my own bias). Foetus should get in before NIN. But then only the “name” artists will get in even if those who listened to industrial before 1990 (like 1985) know different about who is a “name”.
Then go loby for a new category - we covered this already...
Still no Chicago....go figure
I was introduced to Genesis when The Lamb Lies Down in Broadway. They have been my favorite group ever since. Glad they finally made it.
THAT’s where that phrase comes from.
I think Bing Crosby did pretty well in his day. Is he “in” yet?
I always looked at my favorite Genesis songs as “rock meet’s classical”.
I love “Supper’s Ready”.
Different styles, both are great though.
High holy hell is going to blow up over KISS being passed up here. The fact that Rush was skipped period even for nominations again is just jaw dropping.
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