HR of Bad Brains
Last week, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced 19 nominees for its class of 2017. Five of these nominees will be inducted into the Hall.
I am certain many of the Hall’s members and voters mean well, and I have heard nice things about their museum (which I have not visited). But the Hall, as it exists now, is so deeply flawed that it risks not only having a lack of credibility, but also a lack of validity. In other words, it doesn’t just make mistakes; the mistakes seem to be endemic, built into the fabric of the organization.
And you know what? Rock ’n roll deserves better.
Rock ’n roll (by which I mean any and all manifestations of music-based expression and art, from King Oliver to Tony Conrad) saves lives. It is a friend to the lonely. It finds the words for you when your tongue, childish or ancient, is tied in confusion. It makes you excited to wake up in the morning, and it pumps life into your Chuck Taylors on your way home from school. It paints rainbow swirls of dreams on the gray wall of your cubicle. It makes you shout, “That is me. I wish I said that. There’s my swagger, my swish, my wag, my wish, my future, my youth!”
Rock ’n roll brings back the sensation of an autumn day 39 years ago, and the smile cracked secretly at a traffic light this morning. It is the sound of your favorite city and the sound of a lovely farm-spotted road; it is the soundtrack to a pair of brown eyes you will never, ever forget.
Remember that moment in the flat yellow hallway of your suburban high school when it seemed like the future would never come, when it seemed that your lips would never find a kiss, when you would stare at your reflection in the giant window panes by the gym and you would see exactly the moon-shaped, un-kissable face you assumed everyone else saw?
Then you heard the Kinks, or you heard the Mumps, or you heard Mott the Hoople, or you heard the tube-heated tones of a late-night DJ playing “Dark Star”, and you knew that behind the gamelan clangs of the blue green lockers, outside of the tall red brick walls, past that row of shrieking buses, beyond the anonymous whirr of the Long Island Expressway, somewhere beyond Bayside and Little Neck and even Jamaica, there might be a place where misfits like you would find love.
Rock ’n roll loved me before anyone else did, didn’t it love you before anyone else did, too?
That’s why it’s important to tell its story in the right way.
The powers that be at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame simply don’t know nearly as much about their subject as someone running an organization with that mighty a title should. Most of the poobahs at the Hall know about as much about rock and pop as I know about, oh, baseball. See, I know a little bit about baseball, probably enough to fake my way through a conversation, and I know a lot about certain aspects of baseball, like the New York Mets or the career of catcher/spy Moe Berg; but I would never, ever claim to know enough about baseball to run a freaking Hall of Fame, or even act as a voter for one.
I suspect the Hall of Fame and their voters know a bit about rock ’n roll, and perhaps a lot about certain areas, but they simply don’t know enough to reasonably accomplish the rather significant task they have assumed control of. Otherwise, they would have inducted The Smiths, The Cure, Thin Lizzy, Kate Bush, Big Star, Judas Priest, Slayer, Husker Du, and many etceteras, a long time ago.
So, here are the new nominees, along with my handicapping of the likelihood of these artists getting voted into the Hall this time around. Please note: This is not based on who I think belongs in “a” Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; it’s based on who I think this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the deeply flawed and biased organization that presently exists, will vote in. (For those not familiar with gambling odds, it works out this way: 1/5 means a 5/6 shot that X will get into the Hall of Fame, meaning they’ve got a good chance.)
In order, and remember, there are only five slots:
● ELO 1/5
● Tupac Shakur 2/5
● Chic 2/5
● The Cars 2/5
● Pearl Jam 3/5
● Joan Baez 3/5
● Chaka Khan 6/5
● MC5 3/2
● Janet Jackson 3/2
● Kraftwerk 8/5
● Yes 2/1
● Journey 5/2
● Bad Brains 5/2
● The Zombies 6/1
● Depeche Mode 6/1
● Jane’s Addiction 7/1
● The J. Geils Band 8/1
● Steppenwolf 12/1
● Joe Tex 14/1
I want to say a few words about the nominees, but first, let’s take a moment to talk about who isn’t nominated.
I’m no Bon Jovi fan—at their best, they remind me of a cell phone photo of a screenshot of Thin Lizzy — but clearly they sneezed on Jann’s brie at some point, because I cannot for the life of me understand why they are not in the Hall of Fame (and even Green Day is in the Hall of Fame). They fit two of the HOF’s primary requirements: they’re American and they sold a lot of records.
Once again, there’s no heavy metal on the list. Zero.
This is profoundly insulting to the millions of people who have been excited, energized, entertained and inspired by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden (only one of the biggest bands in the world for the last 30 years!), not to mention hugely popular innovators like Slayer or Motörhead.
I want to repeat this slowly to let it sink in: there’s something out there calling itself the Rock and roll Hall of Fame, and Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and Motörhead aren’t in it. Jeezus, you’d think they would have at least thrown a bone to Def Leppard. (But, hey, British accents…)
With the exception of nominee Depeche Mode, the Hall of Fame carries on pretending that virtually no British music made in the 1980s is worthy, despite the profound influence many of these groups had on both sides of the Atlantic (and regardless of the fact that all of the artists I am about to cite were major chart acts in the U.K.).
So, once again, no Smiths, Kate Bush, New Order, Madness, the Jam, the Cure, Joy Division, the Specials, etcetera; and the anti-British bias of the Hall extends backwards from the “New Wave” era, too, and therefore we don’t see Thin Lizzy, T. Rex, or Roxy Music nominated, either, to name just three. I find the Hall’s rabid Anglophobia another major element that obstructs any occasional desire we might have to take the Hall seriously.
Now, on to this year’s nominees.
To read the full article, which also includes music & videos, go here:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/44b3b913-4a19-3718-8473-d67d11b04352/ss_the-2017-rock-and-roll-hall.html
The New York Observer | By Tim Sommer