Two Rock Hall Voters Debate Their Dream Ballot for 2024

October 07, 2024

“The Rock Hall isn’t perfect, but it’s the best thing of its kind we’ve got.” (L-R: Micky Dolenz, Yoko Ono, and Bernard Sumner.)

This year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction class will be the first one crafted without Jann Wenner lurking from around the corner, after he was removed from the board of directors last September following an egregious interview to promote his book about so-called “masters” of the genre. (Sorry, Bob Dylan, it had to be done.) But Wenner’s worldview has long constructed the choices and decisions the Rock Hall — which Wenner co-founded — has made since its inaugural 1986 class, and various committees are still guided by that initial generation of industry-dwellers. “I don’t think one can lay all of the blame for all of the questionable inductions that the Rock Hall has made solely at the feet of Jann,” one voter tells me. “There’s plenty of responsibility to go around, but they’re better off without him at this point. We’ll have the temptation to look at whatever we’re seeing this year as a post-Wenner change, but that’s probably reductive.”

One way this evolution is being manifested is the Rock Hall’s new mission statement, which promises to celebrate and honor artists whose music “connects us all” — a vague objective that will allow just about every genre and logic, regardless of merit, to be under consideration. (Cue the John Philip Sousa was the original Skrillex contingent.) “It’s definitely moving into the modern era,” another voter says. “The definition of rock and roll keeps changing and the definition of popular music keeps changing.” It’s also a double-edged sword of parameters. The same voter looks at Sheryl Crow’s induction last year as setting a poor precedent: “It felt like they were honoring somebody who’s ‘Establishment’ and nothing else.”

Despite differences in philosophy, both voters continue to be hopeful about the Rock Hall’s future and are keen to share their shortlist of ideas for the 2024 ballot. Voter 1 stands at just over a decade; Voter 2 has been involved for over 20 years. They both accept the responsibility to seriously reflect on the way music is perceived and how people will perceive it in the future through the lens of the organization. “There’s a certain sector of people there who will tell you, ‘We’re making a TV show. If we induct Captain Beefheart or someone like that, nobody is gonna know who that is.’ I understand that argument but I find it dumb,” Voter 2 puts it. “It’s your job to tell them who Captain Beefheart is. This is where the Rock Hall tends to fall down on the job. It’s a problem.” The same voter takes a beat, sighs, and adds, “The Rock Hall isn’t perfect, but it’s the best thing of its kind we’ve got. We ought to try to preserve it and make it better if we can.”

Fiona Apple

This might be controversial, but whatever. She should be brought into the conversation. Her output, yes, has been sporadic compared to other artists, but it’s always very important and shape-shifting. She put out this experimental pop record during the pandemic that harnessed the emotions of so many people when they were first trapped in their houses. Her honesty paved the way for a lot of other young women to become more open and frank about their lives in their songwriting. —Voter 1

Yoko Ono

Contentious, for sure. But I think it’s well deserved. I hope in the post-Wenner universe this will get redressed. This is somebody whose work is meritorious in its own right. She’s been incredibly influential on all kinds of musicians over the last 50 years, and yet there’s almost nobody who’s been subjected to more scorn, derision, and condescension. If they’re going to vote in Ringo Starr? Listen, everybody loves Ringo, myself included. Did he need to be inducted as a solo artist? Meh. You want to stack up Ringo’s solo albums against Yoko’s? I’ll do that all day and I know who’s going to win. I realize there’s always going to be an ossified boomer contingency who thinks she’s the terrible person who broke up the Beatles, corrupted their sweet and beloved John Lennon, and turned him into a weird art junkie. The dumb stuff just keeps being dumb about her. I don’t understand why people can’t separate the fact she was a serious artist in her own right before she met John. His position, sure, enabled her to reach a lot more people than she might have otherwise. But her work is very strong and holds up. —Voter 2

The Replacements

Their legacy is still being built. They’re also one of those bands people might take for granted as far as their importance. They loom large, defining Minneapolis’s sound and a certain strain of hooky yet wildly modern rock. They’ve been name-checked by later alternative-rock acts and alt-country acts as well. —Voter 1

De La Soul

People complain about hip-hop not being rock and roll. To which I say, “Shut up and go away, you’re an idiot.” De La Soul were sensational in the way they used words. —Voter 2

Joy Division/New Order

There’s nobody who deserves to be inducted more. There are very few bands in the last 45 years who’ve had the definitional impact like they’ve had. It reverberates to this day, even if you’re just an 11-year-old who bought an Unknown Pleasures T-shirt. They are canonical for anybody who cares. The idea that you could induct people whose entire careers probably couldn’t have taken place without the influence of Joy Division and New Order — the Cure, Depeche Mode, and Nine Inch Nails? Really? If you ask Robert Smith, “Is it ridiculous you’re in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Joy Division isn’t?” I have no doubt he would think it’s silly. Their influence is far greater than whatever their record sales may have been. It’s embarrassing they’re not in and it’s a credibility killer for the Rock Hall. —Voter 2

Fugazi

The way that they laid the groundwork for so much of the DIY movement is so important. I don’t think we’d have the landscape that we have now without them. I know things have changed in the digital era, but they’re an act whose importance should be taken seriously. Ian MacKaye established Dischord Records as a pioneering DIY label where they sold everything for $5 because they wanted to make music accessible. It’s cool that they were a very punk band that put out hard-core songs, but they had enough appeal and muscle that “Waiting Room” gets played at NFL games and the biggest venues in America. It would be a musical and cultural induction. D.C. is defined by what they did. They’re in the shadow of American power, but they forged a path that a lot of people followed. —Voter 1

Wendy Carlos

She needs to be inducted as an “early influence.” If you look at people who are really important, she popularized the synthesizer. She invented a lot of what we think about how synthesizers are used. Before she made Switched-On Bach, the synthesizer was an academic tool. It was the province of university electronics labs or occasionally used for special effects. She was the first person to make a listenable album of non-academic popular music. Given the technology at the time, it was an unbelievable achievement that almost immediately reaped dividends in pop music. It gave people the idea you can use synthesizers for more than “bleep” or “bloop” effects. The lineage of all modern music and the way it’s made goes straight back to Wendy Carlos. —Voter 2

Sonic Youth

The Rock Hall doesn’t do well with what we think of as “alternative music.” Especially pre-Nirvana. There’s an entire generation of American independent bands that are ripe for consideration and need to be in. Sonic Youth isn’t quite a Joy Division level of “how could you ignore this,” but they’re one of the most important American bands of the last 40 years and their influence continues to be seen. —Voter 2

Chic

Chic laid down the template for so much of the music of the last 50 years. Nile Rodgers is still working with artists and he’s a vital life force in the musical realm. It’s absurd that they’re not in. —Voter 1

“Weird Al” Yankovic

His influence in music? Come on. Put the accordion aside, he’s somebody who opened a lot of ears to different types of music, and his original songs are really good. They might be facetious, but at the same time, Mark Mothersbaugh said Weird Al wrote the best Devo song of all time. I finally saw him perform for the first time years ago. It was during the tour where he was only doing his originals and it was amazing. You appreciate the care and musicianship that he and his bandmates put into every song, even the ones that are genre-outliers. The generation who grew up watching the “Eat It” music video is in power now. I think that the movie helped as well. If you get a Daniel Radcliffe co-sign, that’s pretty good these days. —Voter 1

Sleater-Kinney

One of the greatest rock-and-roll bands, ever. I can’t even begin to tell you when I saw them play in the mid ’90s. They’re among the most exciting live bands I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I wasn’t a 16-year-old girl standing in clubs and watching them play, but I watched the effect it was having on young women who were there. You could see the excitement. You could see people thinking, Holy shit, this is really important. We live in a world that they made safe for whole generations of women who wanted to make music. Their discography is fantastic. They were an unbelievably good band at the peak of their powers. They’re role models. You could probably make that argument about Bikini Kill, but Sleater-Kinney were the better band by far. Bikini Kill is more important sociologically than musically. —Voter 2

Carol Kaye

She’s the unbelievably great bass player who’s played on thousands of records as part of the Wrecking Crew. Most of the male members have been inducted. Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer have been in for over 20 years. Why is Carol Kaye not in the Rock Hall? They have a “side person” category, which she would be ideal for. She’s not an artist they would put on the general ballot, but she needs to get in through that category. —Voter 2

The Monkees

Famously, Jann Wenner was like, No freakin’ way are these guys ever getting in. Their discography, especially during the late ’60s, is fantastic. Great songs. They came into their own as players and as songwriters. It’s sad that three of them are now gone, but Micky Dolenz is still doing his thing and making interesting artistic choices. The Monkees are a band that always gets overlooked because of the normal rockist “manufactured band for television, blah blah” tendencies. They got together through television auditions as opposed to meeting in a club or answering an ad in The Recycler. But as Michael Nesmith sang, “Listen to the band.” You hear the roots of the country-rock hybrid that became more popular in the ’70s. You hear really fun songs that influenced a lot of people, even though where they came from might be looked on with disdain by some. But you’re seeing less of that now. Look at the reaction to, say, Olivia Rodrigo and how she originated at the Disney Channel. It’s much more open-armed, right? Even if she had come out ten years ago, people would’ve been like, What is this crap? People are more amenable to looking past the origins of artists and looking at the music for what it is. —Voter 1

We’ve outgrown our weird purity test with the Monkees. It’s dumb to exclude them at this point. I understand why the Wenner-ite version of the Rock Hall turned up their noses and said, “They’re not a real band.” It’s the same, dumb, dismissive arguments. The Monkees had huge pop hits and some of the best singles of that entire era. To get weird about the Monkees and argue, “They were on television and constructed by producers for TV,” yeah, that’s true. But like a lot of other people who worked in the ’60s in mainstream pop music, if they used outside writers or sometimes used outside musicians, so what? Nobody is going to say, “Well, the Wrecking Crew played on all the early Byrds records, so the Byrds sucked and couldn’t play.” Shut up already. Whatever the circumstances of their creation, the work stands the test of time and deserves recognition. Not everything happens organically, especially in pop music. Things come into clearer focus the more time passes. I think we can see now that the dismissal of the Monkees was unfair and that the work has genuine, lasting value. —Voter 2