Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Hall of Fame Thoughts

Once again we have an announcement from the great city of Cleveland that a new class will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 2015.  Accompanied with that are my feelings of complete satisfaction with some of the choices and bewilderment at others.  I won't dissect each inductee, but I will touch briefly on them.

--Kudos to the Hall for finally recognizing Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble as worthy.  While definitely deeply rooted in blues, the rock element can't be denied.

--I'm not a huge fan of Lou Reed or Joan Jett, but many acts that followed them claimed them as major influences.  For that reason, I'm not going to dispute their induction.

--Though I'm not sure why the Hall started allowing R&B acts to be eligible, I'm glad to see the accomplishments of Bill Withers acknowledged.  I'm not familiar with the 5 Royales, but many of the early R&B acts that were the foundation of rock & roll before it was a phrase deserve a nod.

--I don't know who the Paul Butterfield Blues Band is.  I have heard of them but can honestly say I don't know anything by them.  This calls for a YouTube search.

--Ringo Starr gets the Award for Musical Excellence.  If I had to rank my favorite Beatles, Ringo would be a distant fourth.  Not sure what else he did to deserve this award, but I won't fight it.  Besides, I'd be lying if I said I haven't rocked out to "It Don't Come Easy".

-- My "What the hell??" moment goes to Green Day.  I'm only 34 and these guys were big when I was in high school.  How is it possible that they're eligible?  Shouldn't there be a longer time requirement?  I'm sure this will be the one that I get the most hate mail about, but I'm entitled to my opinion.  I just don't see their contribution to be as influential as Nirvana, who were inducted last year.  But wait... they were also big when I was in school.  Am I really getting old??

Overall, this class doesn't interest me as much as last year's did.  I was thrilled that Hall and Oates made it in 2014 after all these years and though I'm not a huge fan, it was great to see KISS become HoF'ers.  Something still sticks in my mind every year, though, that won't fully allow me to assign the HOF the legitimacy it should have.  No matter what grudge Jann Wenner has, the founder of Rolling Stone Magazine and influential higher-up of the HOF should agree with millions across the world and allow the Monkees to be inducted.  THEY ARE WORTHY.

Who would you like to see inducted in the next class?  Give me some of your choices.  As always, I look forward to your opinions.  \m/

1 comment:

C Bret Campbell said...

how the hell could you not know Paul Butterfield?! Yes, go youtube them! lol

Green Day - can't stand 'em... they really deserve the nod, though.