The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Women roar in diverse field
Also notable is lack of popular ’90s acts
Like “Bulls on Parade,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s recently announced 16 nominees — hoping to make the cut and take part in the 36th annual induction ceremony scheduled for later this year at Cleveland’s Public Auditorium — is a bunch that, collectively, packs a big punch.
The diverse group includes first-time nominees Foo Fighters, The Go-Go’s, Iron Maiden, JAY-Z, Carole King, Fela Kuti, and Dionne Warwick, as well as the formerly nominated Mary J. Blige, Kate Bush, Devo, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine, Todd Rundgren and Tina Turner.
To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first commercial recording
at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination.
The takeaway from the 2021 list is the Rock Hall is finally having its much-deserved “I Am Woman” moment, with nearly half of the nominees being female.
That begins with The GoGo’s, who have been eligible for 15 years. This is the “We Got the Beat” band’s first nomination. It’s an egregious oversight, one possibly rectified thanks in part to the attention brought to the band from a recent eponymous documentary.
It should be noted that this mark’s Carole King’s first nomination as a performer; she’s already in the Rock Hall as a songwriter. Considering her monster 1971 album, “Tapestry,” defined the ‘70s and continues to influence singer-songwriters, induction seems likely.
In the same category as King is Warwick, who aside from becoming a hit on Twitter is the most-charted female vocalist of all time, with 56 singles making the Hot 100. Let’s hope King and Warwick don’t cancel the other out.
In terms of hard rock, Rage Against the Machine is back again, along with Iron Maiden. The former defined the rock-n-rap aesthetic that stands today, while the latter is recognized as a bellwether of the new wave of British heavy metal.
The much-beloved Dave Grohl more than likely will ride that adulation to Rock Hall induction, this with Foo Fighters, (He’s already been inducted as a member of grunge heavyweights Nirvana.)
Nominee ballots are sent to an international voting body of more than 1,000 artists, historians and members of the music industry.
Factors such as an act’s musical influence on other artists; length and depth of career and the body of work; innovation; and superiority in style and technique are taken into consideration.
Fans can cast their votes at rockhall.com.
The inductees will be announced in May.
What a difference a year makes, considering highprofile 2020 nominees Dave Matthews Band, Motörhead, Pat Benatar, Soundgarden, Thin Lizzy, Kraftwerk, MC5 and Judas Priest are nowhere to be found.
On top of that, acts of note once again missing from the nomination list include Weezer, Oasis, Outkast, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Beck, Sheryl Crow and Alice in Chains.
If future nominating committees refuse to tap the nobrainer early-to-mid-’90s acts (Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Tool, The Smashing Pumpkins), what’s going to happen acts from the decade’s latter half become eligible? It’s slim pickings.
Sure, Eminem and Missy Elliot should be first-ballot inductees, but when the biggest newcomer acts of the second Clinton administration are the likes of Fiona Apple, Matchbox Twenty, Neutral Milk Hotel, Limp Bizkit, Coldplay and Queens of the Stone Age, odds are the baby-boomer voting body finally will capitulate to classic rock’s “Jukebox Hero” plebeian class of Foreigner, Boston and Eddie Money.