Rock & Roll Hall of Fame reveals nominees for 2019
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its latest round of nominees Tuesday.
Radiohead, Janet Jackson, Rage Against the Machine and Def Leppard are among the top names to make the list for possible induction into the hall in 2019.
The list of nominees includes: Def Leppard, Devo, Janet Jackson, John Prine, Kraftwerk, LL Cool J, MC5, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Roxy Music, Stevie Nicks, the Cure, Todd Rundgren, Rufus & Chaka Khan, the Zombies.
That list includes a number of artists who have been previously nominated and, for some reason, passed over. The biggest surprise of the bunch is Radiohead, long seen as a first-ballot hall-offame act but the band was passed over in 2017, in its first year of eligibility. The eligibility requirements include that “an individual artist or band must have released its first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination,” according to a news release.
Half a dozen acts are making their first appearance on the ballot — even though all six have been eligible for some time — including Def Leppard, Devo, John Prine, Roxy Music, Stevie Nicks and Todd Rundgren.
Arguably the biggest surprise in that batch is Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry’s highly influential act that was responsible for the most adventurous and influential music of the ’70s and early ’80s. Roxy Music hasn’t always gotten its due in the U.S. (although if the Hall of Fame was located in Roxy’s native U.K., the band would have been enshrined years ago).
The 2019 inductees will be announced in December, with the induction ceremony to follow at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on March 29.
“An international voting body of more than 1,000 artists, historians and members of the music industry” casts ballots, the Hall of Fame news release said.
Fans are also allowed to vote at visitrockhall. com, with the top five fan choices tallied along with the other ballots to determine the 2019 inductees.