Whitney Houston, Notorious B.I.G. and Dave Matthews Band Nominated for Rock Hall – The New York Times
At a moment of transition for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a new class of nominees for induction in 2020 puts generational and genre-based divides on full display: The Notorious B.I.G., Whitney Houston, the Dave Matthews Band and Motörhead are among the first-timers on the ballot, while returning acts getting another chance include Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Judas Priest, and Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.
The 16 nominees up for inclusion at next year’s ceremony — scheduled to take place May 2 in Cleveland — are rounded out by Kraftwerk (nominated five times previously), MC5 (four previous nominations) and Todd Rundgren (one), plus the shortlist newcomers Pat Benatar, Soundgarden, T-Rex, Thin Lizzy and the Doobie Brothers.
The wide swath of options may reflect what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s incoming chairman, John Sykes, called a need to evolve, amid years of criticism about the diversity of the inductees. Sykes, the president of entertainment enterprises for the radio conglomerate iHeartMedia and a former MTV executive, will take over for the Rolling Stone founder and long-running face of the Hall, Jann Wenner, on Jan. 1.
“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame could become irrelevant because rock as we knew it in the ’60s is beginning to age out,” Sykes told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in an interview earlier this month. “We have to evolve, and we have to change, because music is changing.” (Wenner has consistently brushed off concerns that the Hall admitted too few women and people of color, telling The New York Times last month, “Musical achievements have got to be race-neutral and gender-neutral.”)
In recent years, the Rock Hall, which was founded in 1983 and became a museum in Cleveland in 1995, has grappled with shifting cultural winds and the idea of a broader tent, welcoming acts like Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur and N.W.A, in addition to younger, still-active groups who broke through in the 1990s, like Green Day, Pearl Jam and Radiohead.
Musicians become eligible for nomination 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording. A private nominating committee then makes its picks, which are voted on by more than 1,000 insiders (artists, historians and industry experts), who are instructed to consider “an artist’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique.” (Fans can also vote at rockhall.com beginning Tuesday, with the Top 5 vote-getters making up one official ballot.)
Inductees, typically between five and seven, will be announced in January, with the 35th annual ceremony to follow in May. A version of the show will be aired on HBO and SiriusXM at a later date, though it has yet to be announced.
Eligible acts that were overlooked this year, some of whom have been previously nominated, include: Willie Nelson, Beck, Sonic Youth, Rage Against the Machine, Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Joy Division and the J. Geils Band.
The Notorious B.I.G., who was killed in 1997 at the age of 24 after completing only two albums, is eligible for the first time this year. He would be just the seventh hip-hop artist inducted, and the first since Shakur in 2017. (LL Cool J, a five-time nominee, failed to clear the final hurdle last year, and was not nominated this time.)
Others in the bunch have waited far longer: The Doobie Brothers, a more traditional classic rock choice from the 1970s, have been eligible since 1996, as has Thin Lizzy. Rundgren, eligible in 1995, and T-Rex, first up for inclusion in 1993, date back even further, while MC5, back for the fourth consecutive year as a nominee, could have made the cut starting in 1991.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
