Rock Hall welcomes Nicks and 6 others
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is filling in the blanks.
Several acts that the annual honors list has shut out for years will finally make the cut as part of the class of 2019. Radiohead, Janet Jackson, the Cure, Roxy Music, the Zombies and Stevie Nicks, who is already in as a member of Fleetwood Mac, will join the ranks of the coveted Hall of Fame, the organization announced on Thursday, Dec. 13.
And once again proving that middle-aged hair metal fans want their voices to be heard, the British rock outfit Def Leppard — like Bon Jovi before it — won the Rock Hall’s fan poll granting it induction through the back door. (Why not? The group’s hits like “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” “Hysteria” and “Photograph” have contributed to more than 100 million album sales worldwide.)
The 34th induction ceremony will take place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on March 29. Excerpts from the show will be broadcast later by HBO and SiriusXM radio.
Each year an expansive nominating committee of 1,000 musicians, journalists and industry figures cast votes for the inductees — artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording — weighing “an artist’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique,” according to the rules.
Many of the acts chosen for induction into the hall, which is based in Cleveland, have long been eligible, even though Def Leppard, Roxy Music and Nicks appeared on the ballot for the first time this year. The others just kept getting snubbed.
Jackson’s inclusion, in particular, was a long time coming. Since it began annual inductions in 1986, the Rock Hall has gained a reputation for its lack of diversity, often overlooking female performers and artists of color — especially those who are still living.
The youngest sibling of the Jackson clan, who headlined the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival this year, has sold 26 million albums in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. That makes Jackson one of the bestselling female artists of all time since making her debut in 1982.
Nicks, who was inducted in 1988 with Fleetwood Mac (whom the former Bay Area resident performed with during a string of shows in Northern California last month), has also carved out a robust solo career starting with her 1981 release, “Bella Donna,” which sold 4 million copies, through 2011’s “In Your Dreams.”
The Zombies — who this year celebrated the 50th anniversary of the release of their psychedelic pop classic, “Odessey and Oracle,” with a tour — gave the world ’60s psychedelic classics such as “Time of the Season,” “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No,” while the British glam-rock band Roxy Music influenced countless artists, including fellow inductees the Cure and Radiohead.
Some of the artists who didn’t make the cut for the class of 2019 include Devo, MC5, Chaka Khan, Kraftwerk, LL Cool J, John Prine, Rage Against the Machine and Todd Rundgren.