Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame seemed like a good idea back in the 1980's when it was founded.  Why not pay homage to the greats of Rock & Roll.  The problem soon became obvious.  Who belongs in the Hall?  For the purposes of this post, I'm referring to performers.I, personally, don't care about the other classifications.  As far as I'm concerned, they're bogus.  Inducting the fuckheads that water down a musician's message seems counterproductive to me.

Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and The Who were all no-brainers.  Of course they belong in the Hall.  But, what about Deep Purple, The Moody Blues and Iron Maiden?  Why are these bands any less worthy?  Why did it take so many years for Alice Cooper, KISS and Rush to be inducted, yet The Beastie Boys were inducted almost as soon as they became eligible?

I'm not saying that The Beastie Boys shouldn't have been inducted. What I am saying is that they shouldn't have been inducted before Deep Purple and The Moody Blues and Iron Maiden.  Yes, what they did with their music was certainly groundbreaking, but no more groundbreaking than the other bands I've mentioned.  Certainly no more groundbreaking than Alice Cooper and KISS.  Hell, shock rock wouldn't exist if not for Alice Cooper and, to a degree, KISS.  It's absolutely ridiculous that The Beastie Boys were inducted so quickly after becoming eligible while these other bands waited decades for their induction, or in the case of Deep Purple, continue to be overlooked.

The very fact that a band like Deep Purple has been overlooked for so long, and a band like The Beastie Boys was inducted so quickly doesn't bode well for fans of hard rock and heavy metal.  But, then, hard rock and heavy metal have long been the red-headed step-children of the music industry. 

One has to wonder what the criteria is for induction.  Sure, they have their official criteria:

Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria include the influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.

 So, do you mean to tell me that The Beastie Boys were more influential than Alice Cooper, the guy that spawned an entire sub-genre of music (this comment is based on the length of time it took Alice to get inducted as opposed to The Beastie Boys)?  You've got to be out of your mind if you believe that.

I'm not going to name any names, but I will say that there are a number of artists in the Hall that have no place there, as far as I'm concerned.  Artists that are as far away from Rock & Roll as I am from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

And where, exactly, does that leave a band like Montrose?  In many circles, Montrose's first album (Montrose 1973) is considered to be ground-breaking.  Their songs have been covered by bands ranging from Iron Maiden to Van Halen (before Sammy Hagar was in the band). They cast a huge shadow in the hard rock world.

I'll be honest, I doubt that Montrose will ever be inducted into the Hall of Fame.  And I can live with that. But it's fucking ridiculous that some artists are inducted as soon as they become eligible, while others are overlooked for decades, only to be half-heartedly inducted, but only because the fans voices have finally gotten loud enough that the Hall has to induct them.  I think that will eventually happen for Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.   It's just ridiculous that they have had to wait so long.