What makes a RnR Hall of Famer?

The induction ceremonies for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were this week and some of us have been having a discussion about the institution itself. We thought that this would be a great topic to revive this moribund blog.

I have been put in the position of defending the institution against pbryon and jmons. First, I think that the idea of a rock and roll hall of fame can be workable and that it’s a fun way of having a centralized forum to discuss “rock” and debate the merits of various historical performers and groups. Note that I put "rock" in quotation marks; I did that because the very nature of rock itself is up for debate. Jmons is skeptical of what argument could be made to link Bill Haley and The Talking Heads as practitioners of the same sound. That is a very good point and relevant to the controversial decision to include hip hop groups in the hall. The only definition I can discern, based on past selection criteria, is that voters have deliberately adopted a very broad definition of rock as basically “post-WW2 popular music(minus country, jazz, and show tunes).”

Subtracting those entities does make some sense because country, jazz, and show tunes were popular before WW2. Still, as far as elected performers are concerned, the voters haven’t been entirely consistent in this matter. Johnny Cash recorded rockabilly tunes early in his career, but those don’t seem to be quite enough to merit induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by themselves. Alternatively, Cash could have been elected in the “early influence” category, but even that doesn’t make sense given that his career was contemporaneous with rock and roll. Thus, either Cash’s inclusion is a mistake or people like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Loretta Lynn are deserving inductees as well.

Pbryon’s complaint is largely about the fuzzy criteria that have been used to determine inductees. He is particularly troubled by the fact that a critical darling like Patti Smith made it despite selling relatively few albums. The very idea of giving awards based on artistic merit is indeed absurd. The same argument is made all the time about the Oscars and the Grammies (the less said about the Grammies, the better.) Still, the procedure described below seems to be pretty good:

A nominating committee composed of music historians selects names for the Performers category, which are then voted on by roughly 1000 experts, including academics, journalists, producers, and others with music industry experience. Performers receiving the highest number of votes greater than 50% of the votes received are selected for induction; each year, about five to seven nominees make the cut.

This committee tries (from the web site):

to recognize the contributions of those who have had a significant impact on the evolution, development and perpetuation of rock and roll by inducting them into the Hall of Fame.

This is quite vague. A broad sketch can be made from the nominees so far about the criteria used. Bear in mind that these categories overlap. For reference, see a list of inductees here

First, influence seems to bode very large in the minds of the voters. This probably explains the inductions of Smith and the Sex Pistols (who rejected their induction saying “Next to the SEX-PISTOLS, rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain.” [sic]).

Second, representativeness of a particular genre plays a role. The Eagles were inducted because they represent the popular culmination of country-rock in the 70s; James Taylor goes in because he represents 70s singer-songwriters. Certain genres have not yet received recognition (disco, prog rock, etc.) I expect that this will be rectified when performers like Donna Summer, Chic, Yes, and Genesis eventually get deservedly elected.

Third, I think that popularity occasionally seeps into the criteria. I see no other reason why Billy Joel was elected. This criteria becomes controversial; many have argued that the voters often will induct popular, yet undeserving acts merely to garner publicity for the institution. Jmons, in particular, is horrified about a potential Jimmy Buffet election.

The first two criteria that I've listed are in a sense "objective." What I mean by objective is that there could be broad, relatively non-controversial agreement about influence and genre-representativeness. (This leaves aside the argument that one could say that an entire genre, e.g. hair metal, deserves no representation, but that is for another post). The third criterion, popularity, opens up a whole can of worms. If popularity comes into play, then subjectivity has to be openly acknowledged. Why not elect popular acts like Buffett, Barry Manilow or Journey if popularity matters? What needs to be introduced to temper this is a "suckiness quotient." Barry Manilow and Journey should not be elected because their music sucked, i.e. their music lacked artistic merit. I'm going to address this further in another post to come which will be entitled "U2 Doesn't Suck (But I Still Don't Like Them)." The gist of that post will be that one can acknowledge artistic merit without necessarily liking the art.

One thing that I definitely don't like about the Hall of Fame procedure is the way that it separates solo careers from band careers. This is the Iggy Pop problem. The Stooges probably didn't do quite enough to get in, but, if you add in Iggy's solo work, Iggy's a no-brainer. The same thing is true of Roxy Music and Brian Eno. Brian Eno should make it by himself, I would think, but you could certainly make a strong argument for Roxy Music, too.

This situation also combines some of the main problems of the institution – undeserving solo artists get in by leeching off the popularity of their bands. For example, I don’t think that any of the solo Beatles deserve entry (outside of John Lennon possibly) and I certainly don’t think that Eric Clapton’s solo career merits entry. The only solo careers that I really see as meriting independent induction are those of Sam Cooke, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Michael Jackson, and Curtis Mayfield.

I have my own opinions about other undeserved inductees, and unjustly shunned nominees, but I’ve gone on long enough. Any comments?