Meet Rock Hall’s Class of 2019
Def Leppard, Stevie Nicks lead nominees.
Next year’s Rock Hall could have a sweet new classmate.
Def Leppard is up for induction into the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The “Pour Some Sugar on Me” hitmakers join other first-time nominees including prog-rock icon Todd Rundgren, folk singer John Prine, New Wave pioneers Devo and British band Roxy Music.
Stevie Nicks also is nominated for induction for the first time as a solo artist, having been welcomed into the Rock Hall in 1998 as a member of Fleetwood Mac. If she makes the cut when the 2019 class is announced in December, Nicks will become the first female artist to join the Hall a second time.
Voters have cast “a very broad net” with this year’s ballot, says Rock Hall CEO and president Greg Harris: “It represents the diversity of rock and roll.”
After the recent inductions of classic-rock acts Lou Reed and Deep Purple, the Rock Hall is moving into a new wave of metal with Def Leppard and protest band Rage Against the Machine (back in the mix with their second nod since 2017).
“Def Leppard really started in the late ’70s and ignited the whole genre,” Harris says of the ’80s rockers, who became eligible for inclusion in 2004. “When you look back at them, they were selling multiplatinum records year after year” and scored multiple top-10 singles such as “Love Bites,” “Armageddon It” and “Hysteria.”
Returning nominees include Janet Jackson and Radiohead, the latter of whom are vying for induction for the second year in a row. Other notable contenders are rapper LL Cool J and Rufus with Chaka Khan – each earning their fifth nominations this year – as well as ’60s bands The Zombies and MC5, both in the running for a fourth time.
The ceremony is March 29 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in New York. Inductees will be voted on by a group of more than 1,000 artists, historians and music-industry professionals.
To be eligible, artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before the year of nomination (1993 for 2019 nominees).
Starting Oct. 9, the public can visit rockhall.com to cast their votes for the Class of 2019. Voting ends Dec. 9, and the top five artists will make up a fan’s ballot, which counts as a single vote.