Huh?: The RnR HOF Class of 2008


It’s a world turned upside down where Roger Clemens is likely never to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but Leonard Cohen has been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The two Halls, of course, reflect very different cultural streams in American life, particularly when it come to the electorates. The sports writers who elect baseball’s members are a notoriously hypocritical lot of skirt chasers and heavy drinkers whose voting record epitomizes a kind of bourgeois, middle-brow moralism. For many of these scolds, being implicated in any drug scandal is enough to disqualify candidates. But at least these voters have developed as de facto system of objective criteria to separate Hall of Famers from the rest. Home run totals, 100 RBI seasons, 200 hit seasons, .300 seasons, 20 win seasons–these are the scale by which greatness in baseball is measured.

The Rock Hall’s electorate–600 record company execs and prior inductees–have no similar moral compunctions (Ike Turner’s in): drug scandals are almost mandatory in a candidate’s CV. But this electorate also has no objective scale by which to measure potential inductees. “The subjective criteria [include], was this person instrumental in the perpetuation and development of rock’n'roll?” Suzan Evans, executive director of the Hall Foundation told Billboard in 2004.

So we get the annual ritual of new inductees announced followed by a round of grousing among fans.

This year’s class of inductees is a particularly sad sack group: Madonna, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, the Dave Clark Five, and the Ventures.

I won’t engage Tony Alva in a debate over Madonna and the nature of rock and roll–I’m a big tent guy when it comes to the definition of rock and roll, and a Madonna fan. Rock and roll, like the Mississippi, is a great American continental river into which musical tributaries from blackface to hip hop have flowed and continue to empty greatly invigorating the whole enterprise.

But there’s something rotten in Cleveland when acts with slender, minor careers (DC5, Ventures) win election over Donna Summer or the Beastie Boys (nominated but snubbed this year) or when an artist like Leonard Cohen is even nominated (great songwriter, minor performer at best) never mind winning election over a titanic innovator like Afrika Baambata. (John Mellencamp, is arguable, to extend the MLB comparison, Mellencamp is a complier–a guy who broke no new ground, had one great season w/ Uh Oh, but hung around a long time cranking out solid hits.)

The idea of honoring and cataloging rock’s history is a noble and necessary one as rock’s founding generation disappears from this world. In fact, the Rock Hall would do well to begin releasing anthologies that could have the impact of something like Smithsonian’s old jazz box set–providing curated entry points into the music for succeeding generations. (The Hall already has a list of 500 songs that shaped rock and roll. The list forms the backbone of the Hall’s central curated exhibit, but is only accessible online in an alphabetical, not chronological list, naturally without audio.)

But the Rock Hall’s election process seems less about cataloging and preserving rock history and more about record industry politics (Madonna made a lot of money for Hall co-founder and board member Seymour Stein) and selling back catalog. Nostalgia for boomer pop and the personal tastes of influential board members (Jann Wenner, Jon Landau) reign supreme (the Dave Clark Five? you gotta be kidding).

“We’ve had some pretty lively debates. We really try to do justice to our history. In some cases, it has helped when a few people on the committee really believe in a particular artist. Some of us can be quite persistent,” Landau told Billboard in 2004.

Every rock fan has a personal cherished list of artists still unrepresented and artists whose induction raises eyebrows. My list of of should bes would include some cherished acts with slender but supremely influential careers like the MC5 or the Stooges. My list of yougottabekiddings would include Del Shannon and Bonnie Raitt (and not just because they both had hits with Runaway).

What are yours?

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December 14th, 2007
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Viewing 12 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    You make a good case that he doesn't belong in the R&R HOF, but were there a Popular Music Hall of Fame, Leonard Cohen should be in. Just think how many times and in how many places we've heard "Hallelujah" in recent years?
    • ^
    • v
    Great songwriter. Great song. Rock and roll HOF career? Makes you wonder about the criteria.
    • ^
    • v
    Cohen's a guy I don't get. Maybe it's because I was forced to review his god-awful book, Book of Mercy as an undergraduate. He's never showed me a new idea, made me feel something in a novel way or just entertained me in an old-fashioned way, except for one song: Dance Me To The End of Love. That one alone would get him in the OOC Hall of Fame.
    • ^
    • v
    The Stooges, MC5, the NY Dolls - all of them more important to rock than any of this year's inductees.

    Leonard Cohen? Geez, Axl Rose was a bigger influence....

    I guess Mellencamp has earned it, and if you stretch the definition, Madonna is ok.
    • ^
    • v
    A little ducation on the Ventures.

    Approaching 100,000,000 units sold.

    14 chart singles (6 top 40, 3 gold top ten) in the 1960s.

    Walk Don't Run - Grammy Hall of Fame. Gold / Walk Dont Run '64 - First act to go Top 10 with two different versions of the same song. Gold / Hawaii-5-0 - Surf anthem and biggest TV theme hit of the 1960s. Gold

    1962's 2,000 Pound Bee - first single ever to chart using the fuzz tone on the electric guitar. The Ventures had a customized fuzz box created as Maestro was designing a commercial model.

    6th BEST ALBUM PERFORMER AMONG 1960s ACTS (Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Albums) with 33 charted in the decade, 16 of them Top 40.

    4th BEST 1960s ALBUM PERFORMER AMONG ROCK-RELATED ARTISTS after Elvis, the Beatles, and Ray Charles. Among the first rock acts to sell albums on a style and sound, not needing hit singles on the albums.

    1965's Play Guitar with The Ventures - first musical instrument instruction album to chart. Thousands, including future rock stars, learned to play from this.

    Credited by the All Music Guide To Rock as among the first to create thematically oriented or concept albums, rather than just collections of songs.

    Guitar Player magazine (20 Who Mattered) - 'The Ventures influenced not only styles, but also a generation's choice of instruments'.

    Encyclopedia Brittanica on-line - 'The Ventures were a prototype for the guitar bands which followed'.

    Among artists listing them as a favorite/influence; George Harrison (Beatles), Joe Walsh (James Gang, Eagles), Keith Moon (The Who), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Carl Wilson (Beach Boys), Stephen Stills, Peter Frampton, Roger Fisher (Heart), Roger Glover (Deep Purple), Jeff Baxter (Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan), Gene Simmons (Kiss), Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton (Aerosmith).

    Opened the Orient to electric guitar rock (40 million units in Japan).

    Minor career? Do your homework.
    • ^
    • v
    Well done, Greg. I just liked the way they sound.

    (PS. The word "units" in your Japanese point gave me a creepy 80's A&R Man vibe.)
    • ^
    • v
    Greg, I'm hip to the Ventures career, and it's certainly more influential than, say, the careers of my cherished minor groups (the MC5), so you're not telling me anything I don't know. And certainly the Ventures have HOF credentials compared with some of the prior inductees. I still don't understand how Del Shannon and Bonnie Raitt are HOFers, whatever the charms of their music.

    If pressed, I'd bend on the Ventures. Nevertheless I'd compare them to a borderline case in baseball, a guy like Don Mattingly. (And I won't give an inch on the Dave Clark Five--who were minor in their own time, less than minor now--or Leonard Cohen.)

    One point in your history that I dispute: I dont' know what AMG is talking about when it claims that the Ventures were the first band to organize records thematically. The first credit for that kind of stuff usually is given to Sinatra, for records w/ themes like Come Fly w/ Me, which was 1958. Ray Charles also did a record of travel/place name songs in 1960.

    Also, let's not oversell the Ventures impact. Like Mickey & Sylvia's "Love is Strange," their records popularized and introduced certain guitar sounds. But they didn't exactly touch off the kind of band formation that the Beatles did. The Encyclopedia Britannica quote is a gross overstatement. They weren't exactly the Beatles. (BTW, speaking of guitar sounds, Duane Eddy, who is also in the Hall, is another case, like the Ventures, that I'm not sure about.)

    Finally, I have to admit a personal bias against rock instrumentals--a genre of music I generally find dull as dishwater, so it's music I tend to devalue (they make great beds for live reads on radio ads, a format which I think is the one in which the Ventures are most widely heard today). Also, when it comes to surf guitar, I'm partial to Dick Dale.
    • ^
    • v
    Jason, you coulda conjoined your grammy post to this one and saved alot of time. I hate the R&R HOF because its another tired industry showcase for the wealthy. Remember Robert Plante's Zep acceptance speech, how "We thought we'd always be rebels" and such to a thou-a-plate crowd? Any Hall with Joel, the Eagles, Mellencamp, James Taylor, etc, ain't my kinda place.
    • ^
    • v
    Sean, if only I were that together...

    actually, I don't that the RNR HOF and in fact I really like the idea of an institution dedicated to the preservation of rock history. But I do have skepticism about the criteria for inductee election.
    • ^
    • v
    I'm surprised by your view of Del Shannon. For me, he created an archetypal rock and roll character. He was the outast on the run, chased by nameless, faceless powers. Doomed, he kept running, sometimes with his girl, sometimes alone. That's a character we've seen ever since, but Del's the guy who created it in rock and roll terms.

    Musically, his songwriting was a clear bridge between the first generation of rock and roll writers and the Beatles (it's no accident that he was the first American artist to record a Lennon/McCartney song, nor that his recording makes you understand exactly how much his writing influenced John and Paul's).

    Commercially, he had a steady string of self-written hits from 1961 through 1965, making him one of the few artists of his era to write his own hits, as well as one of the few pre-Beatles acts to continue having hits after the British Invasion hit.

    There are a small number of artists who managed to create their own unique worlds through their music. Chuck Berry's America is an obvious example, as is Brian Wilson's Southern California. I think Shannon did the same, on a smaller scale. Somewhere in the night, on some old state road, Del's driving fast through the rain, with the faint sound of a siren in the distance. If the guy who invented rock and roll's version of haunted, doomed romance isn't in the Hall of Fame, then there's an awfully big hole in the music's history.

    To answer your question about what the Hall's criteria are, here are mine: quality, influence, and popularity. Any act elected to the Hall should meet at least one of these criteria, preferably more, with the caveat that popularity alone isn't enough. In my view, Del meets all three.
    • ^
    • v
    Here's the rub... NOTHING Madonna has recorded or performed is rock and roll. It crap noise candy. If she wasn't hot would anybody give a crap? I'm ready to vote.

    Here's some solid criteria for RRHOF... Have fucking guitar or real piano in the artists' music for STARTERS.

    Here's why the RRHOF is bullshit... Madonna is nominated and Kiss and Alice Cooper remain on the sidelines.
    Influence on the art form: can't be denied. Popularity: goes without saying. Quality: with catalogs as big as theirs there is some dreck, but LOTS of impacting stuff.

    Rock is dead, long live rock!

    Fuck rock, long rock!
    • ^
    • v
    The R&R HOF is the very worst corporate exploitation of popular culture in the last 20 years.

    Madonna clearly belongs in.

    Those are NOT unrelated propositions.

    But Madonna has provided some modest entertainment along with tons of self-important crap. The R&R HOF is nothing but the tons of self-important crap.
 

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