State Champ Radio Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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When Bernie Taupin accepts his Musical Excellence Award at the 38th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Nov. 3 in Brooklyn, it won’t be the first time he’s mounted that stage.
When Elton John was inducted back in 1994, he called his longtime lyricist to the stage, saying that, “I’m kind of cheating standing her because without Bernie there never would have been an Elton John at all… and I would like him to come up and I would like to give this to him. We’ve been together for a very long time. I love him dearly.” Now, with his own Rock Hall honor on the horizon, Taupin tells Billboard from his home in California that John’s magnanimous gesture had an unintended consequence.
“That’s the big thorn in the paw because in a lot of people’s minds, that’s the reason I was not inducted before now, because certain elements of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame didn’t like the fact Elton brought me up on stage… and gave me his award,” says Taupin, who had the trophy “for years” before returning it to John. “So they just assumed that I already had the award so I didn’t need to be inducted myself, which is pretty puerile, if you think about it, and pretty childish and churlish at the same time.
“But, hey, that’s all in the past. What’s gone is gone and it’s all forgotten now and God’s in his heaven and all is good.”
Taupin is, in fact, fully stoked to be receiving the honor this year, joining fellow Musical Excellence Award winners Chaka Khan and Al Kooper. “Obviously it was nice nice news,” he says. “It’s always good to be appreciated. I certainly appreciate it. At my age I don’t get excited (by) that much, but this is certainly something I’m very appreciative of.” He adds that “those around me” have been pointing out his exclusion from the Rock Hall over the years. “They say things like, ‘You’re not in there already? I just figured you were in there’ or ‘You should have been in there long ago,’” he notes.
“I don’t put a tremendous amount of thought into it. I don’t really reflect much on what I’ve contributed. Do I feel I belong in there? Yeah, probably. I think I’ve contributed enough that it gives me credence to be in there, certainly.”
Born in Lincolnshire, England, Taupin graduated from the University of Cambridge and met John (then Reginald Dwight) in 1967 after both auditioned for Liberty Records and John, who did not write lyrics, was given some of Taupin’s poems to consider. Famously writing separately, the pair has worked together on more than 30 albums and enduring hits ranging from “Your Song” in 1970 and all of John’s greatest hits to tracks on John’s Wonderful Crazy Night album in 2016.
“It’s funny because I don’t refer to myself as a songwriter,” Taupin says. “I’m just basically a guy who writes stories. In our early days I was featured on the album covers, and there weren’t many people that really wrote songs the way Elton and I did, where I wrote first and the melody came after. There are a couple people of that ilk, like Keith Reid (with Procol Harum) and Robert Hunter (for the Grateful Dead), but I think if I did anything I took it to another level and become more of a part of the band — not to say I was a rock star at all. That’s laughable. But I became in the eyes of a lot of people, say, an artist in my own right for what I contributed to the Elton John canon.
“So, yeah, I think if anything I’m unique in that sense. I’m not saying unique in the sense that I’m great, or good. That’s for other people to assess. What I’m saying is I think my whole career has been different to what the perceived concept of a songwriter is. I’m a contributor, basically.”
In addition to John, Taupin has also written songs with and for Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, Melissa Manchester, Heart, Starship, Peter Cetera, Richie Sambora, Marianne Faithfull and others. He’s tried his hand as a performer as well, with three solo albums and, during the 90s, two with a band he formed called Farm Dogs. “When I was original told I’d been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I thought, ‘Oh, is that in the non-performer (Ahmet Ertegun Award) category?’” Taupin says. “I’ve made five albums and performed on stage, so (a Performer induction) wouldn’t have been wholly correct in their assumption of what I am.”
Taupin says he’s heard from John several times during the week (“He’s ecstatic.”) and credits his longtime partner as well as John’s husband David Furnish and Universal Music Publish Group Chairman and CEO Jody Gerson for “putting some leverage into the voting committee” as it determined this year’s recipients. “I had a lot of people pushing for me and having my back,” Taupin acknowledges. “I’m grateful to all of them.”
Taupin’s induction will come after the September publication of his memoir Scattershot. He spent two years working on it — including editing it from an 800-page draft to “just under” 400 pages — and he’s received the initial galleys for it this week. “I think people will be surprised by it,” Taupin says. “It’s not a conventional rock slog biography It’s not an A-to-Z life story. It’s non-linear. It’s more vignettes of my life… I’m not comparing it to Dylan’s Chronicles, but it has the same sort of free-form feel to it. I couldn’t be tethered to any restrictive autobiographical code. I just had to write it as I felt it.
“It’s pretty exciting, I have to say. I never pat myself on the back about things. I’m my own worst critic. But I’m absolutely thrilled with it. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s incredibly satisfying, and… I’m looking forward to having it out.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Nov. 3. Ticket information will be announced in the future.
It took five tries, but rebel rock fuse-lighters Rage Against the Machine finally made it onto the list of inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The L.A. group whose incendiary sound mashed up the force of crunching hard rock with the social conscience and rhythms of hip-hop, the no f’s given attitude of punk and a topical lyrical attack indebted to 1950-60s folk songwriters reacted to the news that they’d gotten the nod in typically strident fashion.
In an Instagram message from the group on Wednesday morning (May 3), they wrote, “It is a surprising trajectory for us to be welcomed into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” The note from singer Zack de la Rocha, guitarist Tom Morello, drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford then dipped into their biography as a band formed in 1991 by four people to “stand where sound and solidarity intersect.”
They described themselves as “a band who is as well known for our albums as we are for our fierce opposition to the U.S. war machine, white supremacy and exploitation. A band whose songs drive alternative radio to new heights while right wing media companies tried to purge every song we ever wrote from the airwaves.”
The multi-slide post went on to tick off some of Rage’s career high points: shutting down the New York Stock Exchange for the fist time in its 200-year history when they stormed it to shoot the 1999 video for “Sleep Now in the Fire”; as a group targeted by “police organizations who attempted to ban us from sold-out arenas for raising our voices to free Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Pelteir and other political prisoners; one that sued the U.S. government for their “fascist practice of using our music to torture innocent men at Guantanamo Bay”; funding and organizing delegations to stand with Mexican rebel Zapatista communities to expose the Mexican government’s war on indigenous people and the band that “wrote rebel songs in an abandoned, industrial warehouse in the Valley that would later dethrone Simon Cowell’s X Factor pop monopoly to occupy the No. 1 spot on the UK charts and have the most downloaded song in UK history (“Killing in the Name”).”
“A band whose experimentation in fusing punk, rock and hip-hop became a genre of its own,” they added. “Many thanks to the Hall of Fame for recognizing the music and the mission of Rage Against the Machine. We are grateful to all of the passionate fans, the many talented co-conspirators we’ve worked with and all the activists, organizers, rebels and revolutionaries past, present and future who have inspired our art.”
RATM released just four albums during their initial 1991-2000 run before reforming for live dates from 2007-2011 and against in 2019 for a series of shows that were first interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by singer de la Rocha’s leg injury.
This year’s other inductees include: Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Willie Nelson, The Spinners, DJ Kool Herc, Link Wray, Chaka Khan, Al Kooper, Bernie Taupin and Soul Train host Don Cornelius.
See Rage’s post below.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its 2023 class of inductees on Wednesday morning (May 3) including Missy Elliott, Kate Bush, Willie Nelson and more.
Out of the pack of 14 nominees, only seven made the cut — spanning from the “Work It” rapper in her first year of eligibility and the “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” singer after her fourth nomination to Nelson, whose nomination arrives on the heels of his 90th birthday just last week. This year’s group of inductees is rounded out by Sheryl Crow, George Michael, Rage Against the Machine and The Spinners.
However, that leaves the seven other nominees waiting until next year to hopefully be voted into music’s Hall of Fame, and we want to know who you think should’ve been included in 2023. Should Cyndi Lauper‘s true colors have been highlighted this year? Or should The White Stripes have joined Elliott in the first year they were eligible for induction as well? (On this year’s ballot, each act’s debut single or album had to be released in the year 1998 or earlier.)
There’s also A Tribe Called Quest, Soundgarden and Iron Maiden, all of whom have now been nominated twice without clinching a spot in the Hall of Fame, as well as English rockers Joy Division/New Order and the late “Werewolves of London” singer Warren Zevon to consider.
The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is set to take place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 3.
Vote for the artist you think deserved a spot in the Class of 2023, but didn’t get in.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame unveiled its class of 2023 on Wednesday (May 3), and of the 14 artists nominated this year, seven made the cut and will attend the institution’s induction ceremony on Nov. 3.
While there were a series of snubs and surprises this year, a diverse bunch makes up the class of 2023: Kate Bush, who saw a major resurgence in 2022 due to her 1985 classic “Running Up That Hill” being featured in Stranger Things, Sheryl Crow, the late George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, The Spinners and Missy Elliott, who was notably eligible for induction for the first time in 2023.
In addition to the performers, hip-hop founder DJ Kool Herc and inventor of the power chord Link Wray will receive the musical influence award. Chaka Khan, Bernie Taupin (songwriter for Elton John) and Al Kooper (player/producer for Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Blood, Sweat & Tears) were selected to receive the musical excellence award. Don Cornelius, Soul Train host from 1970 to 1993, was also inducted with the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
“This year’s incredible group of inductees reflects the diverse artists and sounds that define rock n’ roll,” John Sykes, chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said in a press statement. “We are honored that this November’s induction ceremony in New York will coincide with two milestones in music culture — the 90th birthday of Willie Nelson and the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop.”
The class of 2023 will get inducted into the Rock Hall on Nov. 3 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Whose induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame are you most excited for? Vote in our poll bellow.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced the inductees for its 2023 class this morning (May 3). Seven of the 14 performers nominated for this year were officially welcomed into the Rock Hall, along with six more artists and execs via the honorary awards — including two recipients of the Musical Influence Award, three of the Musical Excellence Award and one of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
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This year’s honorees (and those left behind) largely fall in line with trends we’ve seen from the Rock Hall’s last handful of induction classes — but there are a handful of exceptions, as well as some examples of the museum’s standards perhaps changing faster than we even anticipated. Here are some of the more unexpected revelations from this year’s class.
SNUB: The White Stripes
Whoops: The artist we predicted as the most likely inductee among the 2023 nominees was nowhere to be found among the names announced this morning. Detroit garage rock duo The White Stripes, who became one of the biggest and most critically acclaimed rock acts of the ’00s, seemed like a bulls-eye pick for Rock Hall traditionalists — particularly given their own obvious reverence for the kind of rock history the museum tends to honor. But Jack and Meg White’s snub in their first year nominated perhaps indicates that the target has moved somewhat for Rock Hall voters in recent years.
It’s just the Stripes’ first year of eligibility, so it’s pretty likely they’ll be back on the ballot in years to come, and may still have a good chance of getting in. The last rock band who missed the cut after seeming like this clear a slam dunk for first-year induction was Radiohead, who lost out in 2018 and then were welcomed in the very next year. But it’s getting pretty clear that dead-center rock acts who simply feel like obvious Rock & Roll Hall of Famers can no longer be considered shoo-ins for induction — at least not in their first try.
SURPRISE: The Spinners
At the other pole of our February predictions was R&B quintet The Spinners, about whom we said, “The songs hold up, but the group itself likely remains a little too anonymous for inclusion — even on its fourth nomination.” Well, the voters disagreed this time around, as the ’70s soul hitmakers did indeed get through the Rock Hall’s doors on their fourth time out — making them the first vocal group to be inducted since The “5” Royales were brought in as an Early Influence in 2015, and the first to be voted in as a performer since Little Anthony & The Imperials in 2009.
It’s hard to know what specifically the Spinners owe their induction to — though certainly, no group with classic hits as timeless as “I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love?” and “Games People Play” really needs to justify its inclusion in any such institution. The group may have additionally benefited from a combination of seniority and sentimentality; they were one of just three nominees from the ’60s and ’70s on the ballot this year (and the one with the biggest pop hits), and they were also one of just three acts who had already been nominated three times before (with the other two also getting in).
SURPRISE: Rage Against the MachineSNUB: Soundgarden
To be fair, it was pretty close to a coin flip between these two great ’90s alternative-era bands — whose names will forever linked due to members from each coming together in the ’00s to form the similarly successful supergroup Audioslave. It seemed like it was time for one of the two to get in this year; both had been nominated before and both have very Rock Hall-friendly resumés. We ultimately leaned towards Soundgarden in our predictions, saying that the Seattle quartet “cast a bit longer a shadow [than Rage Against the Machine] — partly because of their earlier start (as the first real sensations of the grunge era) and partly because of the specter of late frontman Chris Cornell, one of the most inimitable rock frontmen of the last 40 years.”
However, the voters leaned the other way this year: Rage Against the Machine was finally inducted in its fifth try since 2018, becoming the closest thing to a traditional rock band let through the Rock Hall’s doors in 2023. (And with a rapping frontman in Zack de la Rocha and a sound that’s as indebted to funk and hip-hop as punk and metal, they’re not all that traditional.) Rage’s voting profile probably got a boost from its 2022 reunion tour — which was unfortunately cut short after 11 dates due to de la Rocha suffering a leg injury, but still may have rekindled enough memories of the band’s greatness to get it over the hump this time around.
SURPRISE: George Michael and Missy Elliott
Neither is a surprise individually, but together (along with fellow 2023 inductees Kate Bush and Willie Nelson) George Michael and Missy Elliott getting in demonstrates just how much Rock Hall voters have begun drifting towards iconic solo artists, almost regardless of what genre they’re most associated with. George Michael’s music occasionally flirted with traditional rock, but he was also proudly pop — in ways Rock Hall voters have not always rewarded or even approved of — while rap great Missy Elliott has very little connection to guitar-based rock music to speak of.
However, George Michael and Missy Elliott are undeniably crucial figures of the last 40 years of popular music — with Michael becoming one of the most trailblazing superstars on radio and MTV in the ’80s and early ’90s, and Elliott evolving the sound and image of hip-hop with her innovative albums, singles and music videos. In 2023, it appears that such an outsized impact on the music and culture of the rock era is more important to Rock Hall voters than any kind of strictly defined quintessential rockness. (Of the five solo performers inducted this year, Sheryl Crow is the only conventional rock star — and she also spent significant parts of her career dabbling in other genres like pop and country.)
SNUB: A Tribe Called Quest
Neither a legendary solo hitmaker nor a traditional rock band, ’90s rap trio A Tribe Called Quest seems likely to keep getting stuck in the middle for Rock Hall voters. The influential New York group is now 0-2, having been nominated each of the last two years but not yet inducted. Affection for the group among hip-hop heads and critics of all stripes remains perennially strong, so they’re likely to at least stay in the mix for years to come, but it may take something of a concentrated push to actually get them through the doors at this point.
SURPRISE: Chaka Khan (Musical Excellence Award)
Welcome, Ms. Khan! The funk and R&B icon of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s had been nominated a staggering seven times as a performer — three times solo, four times along with her funk band Rufus — but had yet to be voted in, making her one of the institution’s preeminent bridesmaids. No longer: The Rock Hall finally took it out of the voters’ hands this year, making her one of three Musical Excellence Award recipients (along with storied studio musician Al Kooper and hitmaking songwriter/Elton John collaborator Bernie Taupin). Khan’s honorary induction is unexpected — probably for no one more than the singer herself — but logical, following such multi-time snubs as Kraftwerk, Judas Priest and LL Cool J taking a similar path to Rock Hall entry via the honorary awards earlier this decade.
George Michael came out on top of the fan voting when balloting wrapped up on Friday (April 28) for the list of 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees. While the fan vote is not a guarantee that Michael will be enshrined in Cleveland, the late Wham! and solo star’s decisive victory in the fan portion of the vote — which closed on Friday (April 28) — saw him getting more than one million votes (1,040,072), which put him comfortably in front of second placer Cyndi Lauper (928,113), as well as Warren Zevon (634,130) Iron Maiden (449,682) and Soundgarden (427,040).
All but one of the previous five fan vote winners have ended up being enshrined, with the exception of the Dave Matthews Band, who did not get in despite rolling up more than 100,000 votes in 2020. Fans will find out on Wednesday (May 3) if the “Careless Whisper” star will make the cut for induction this year when this year’s list of nominees will be announced.
Others waiting to hear if they will join the Rock Hall this year include five-time nominees Rage Against the Machine, four-time nominee Kate Bush, as well as second timers Soundgarden, Maiden, A Tribe Called Quest and The Spinners; this year’s first-timers include Missy Elliott and The White Stripes. Other nominees this year include Sheryl Crow, Joy Division/New Order and Willie Nelson.
To be eligible for the RRHOF, an artist’s first commercial release must have come out at least 25 years prior to the nomination year. This year’s induction ceremony will take place in the fall. The top five artists selected through fan voting will be tallied along with the ballots from the Rock Hall’s international voting body to determine the Class of 2023.
Add Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde to the list of artists who aren’t interested in Rock & Roll Hall of Fame enshrinement. On the heels of a scathing op-ed from Hole leader Courtney Love on Friday (March 17) lambasting the Rock Hall for its lack of female representation, Hynde posted a similarly dismissive Facebook note offering up her pointed opinion on the Hall.
“I don’t even wanna be associated with it. It’s just more establishment backslapping,” Hynde wrote. “I got in a band so I didn’t have to be part of all that.” The legendary singer said she was living a happy life in Rio De Janeiro when she was informed that the long-running band had been inducted in 2005. Hynde attended the event and performed two songs after being inducted by Neil Young.
She has since, however, thrown dirt on the idea of what she calls the Hall of Fame’s music-as-sport posture and in the FB post said that when she got the news that her band had been tapped her “heart sank because I knew I’d have to go back for it as it would be too much of a kick in the teeth to my parents if I didn’t. I’d upset them enough by then, so it was one of those things that would bail me out from years of disappointing them. ( like moving out of the USA and being arrested at PETA protests and my general personality).”
In fact, other than Young’s generous induction speech, she said the whole thing was, and is, “totally bollocks. It’s absolutely nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll and anyone who thinks it is is a fool.”
Love’s Guardian op-ed was a continuation of a thread from earlier in the week in which she criticized the Hall for its lack of female representation, repeating the stat that just 8.48% of inductees are women and that there are only 9 women on the organization’s nomination board. She also noted the length of time it’s taken for some legendary women to be nominated, or inducted, as well as some glaring omissions that she says call into question what she dubbed the “ol’ boys club.”
A spokesperson for the RRHOF had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment at press time.
Check out Hynde’s post here.
Courtney Love is legendarily allergic to holding her tongue. The former Hole singer proved it again on Friday (March 17) with yet another broadside aimed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in an op-ed in the Guardian, a follow-up to an Instagram missive earlier this week in which she said she was “so over these ole boys #fixtherockandrollhalloffame.”
The piece, titled, “Why Are Women So Marginalised by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?,” opens with Love describing her lifelong obsession with rock n’ roll by stating, “I got into this business to write great songs and have fun.”
But, she writes, “What no magazine or album could teach me or prepare me for was how exceptional you have to be, as a woman and an artist, to keep your head above water in the music business.” She cites the pioneering work of Big Mama Thornton (“Hound Dog”), who paved the way for Elvis, and, later, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, saying that their songs, and the latter’s “evangelical” guitar playing, changed music forever and helped create rock ‘n’ roll.
She then notes Tharpe didn’t make it into the RRHOF until 2018 — following what she terms a public shaming — more than three decades after 1986’s, all-male group of initial inductees: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
For the record, she adds, Thornton is still not in today, when just 8.48% of inductees are women and only nine women are on the organization’s nominating board. Love also quotes music historian Evelyn McDonnell, a Rock Hall voter, as saying that among the musicians and music industry members on the voting committee, 90% are male.
“If so few women are being inducted into the Rock Hall, then the nominating committee is broken. If so few Black artists, so few women of color, are being inducted, then the voting process needs to be overhauled,” Love writes. “Music is a life force that is constantly evolving – and they can’t keep up.”
Love says this year’s nominations provided another reminder of “just how extraordinary a woman must be to make it into the ol’ boys club,” noting that more women were nominated this year than at any time in the organization’s 40-year history. That group includes Kate Bush, Cyndi Lauper, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott, as well as the White Stripes’ drummer Meg White and New Order keyboardist Gillian Gilbert.
However, Love wrote, visionary pop iconoclast Bush is on her fourth nomination (after first becoming eligible in 2004), despite being the first female act to hit No. 1 on the U.K. charts with a song she wrote at 19, “Wuthering Heights.” She didn’t make it onto a ballot until 2018, after the Hall of Fame’s co-founder and then-chairman, Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner, was inducted in 2004.
“Never mind that she was the first woman in pop history to have written every track on a million-selling debut,” Love wrote of 1978′s The Kick Inside. “A pioneer of synthesisers and music videos, she was discovered last year by a new generation of fans when ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ featured in the Netflix hit Stranger Things. She is still making albums.”
The list goes on: 30 years to induct Nina Simone, the 2014 crowning of Linda Ronstadt, who released her debut album in 1969 — acts are eligible 25 years after the release of their first record — and was the first woman to headline stadiums, not to mention Tina Turner finally being ushered in as a solo act 30 years after her first induction with former husband, bandmate and abuser, Ike Turner.
“You can write the Rock Hall off as a ‘boomer tomb’ and argue that it is building a totem to its own irrelevance,” she writes. “Why should we care who is in and who is not? But as scornful as its inductions have been, the Rock Hall is a bulwark against erasure, which every female artist faces whether they long for the honour or want to spit on it. It is still game recognising game, history made and marked.”
Calling the Rock Hall a “king-making force” in the global music industry that can impact an artist’s concert ticket prices, performance guarantees and quality of their reissue campaigns, Love says getting enshrined can be a “life-changing” experience. “The Rock Hall has covered itself in a sheen of gravitas and longevity that the Grammys do not have,” she adds. “Particularly for veteran female artists, induction confers a status that directly affects the living they are able to make. It is one of the only ways, and certainly the most visible, for these women to have their legacy and impact honoured with immediate material effect.”
Love ticks off seven-time nominee funk icon Chaka Khan as another “tragic” miss in the Hall’s induction history and claims that, “The Rock Hall’s canon-making doesn’t just reek of sexist gatekeeping, but also purposeful ignorance and hostility. This year, one voter told Vulture magazine that they barely knew who Bush was – in a year she had a worldwide No 1 single 38 years after she first released it.”
A spokesperson for the RRHOF had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment at press time. Billboard has not independently confirmed the statistics or numbers cited by Love in the piece.
“If the Rock Hall is not willing to look at the ways it is replicating the violence of structural racism and sexism that artists face in the music industry, if it cannot properly honour what visionary women artists have created, innovated, revolutionised and contributed to popular music – well, then let it go to hell in a handbag,” Love concludes.
Courtney Love is going for credit in the real world. The Hole frontwoman is calling out what she feels is the lack of female representation in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in an Instagram carousel shared March 10.
Citing a tweet from author Jessica Hopper, from the same date, in which the journalist criticized the institution’s programs celebrating Women’s History Month, Love captions a screengrab of Hopper’s post, “So over these ole boys. #fixtherockandrollhalloffame.”
The author’s original post says that of the 719 Rock Hall inductees, only 61 — roughly 8.5 percent — are women. Hopper goes on to report that the representation of women in the Rock Hall is “worse than women-artists-on-country-radio numbers (10%) and women headliners at major music festivals (13%).”
“Thanks so much @msjesshopp I’ve been begging someone to do this math for decades,” Love added.
In 2020, ahead of the year’s Rock Hall induction ceremony, NPR reported on a similar — though lower — percentage. That year, according to the nonprofit media organization, less than 8 percent of inductees were women.
Janet Jackson also spoke out on the lack of women in the Rock Hall during her 2019 induction speech, closing with, “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, please: 2020, induct more women.” Whitney Houston, Pat Benatar and Chaka Khan (with Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan) were nominated for the 2020 class. Of the three, only Houston was inducted that year.
In the second image of her carousel post, the Grammy-nominated rocker shares what appears to be a text message she sent to Dave Grohl, who was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2021 with the Foo Fighters, and in 2014 with Nirvana. “Have fun at rock hall Dave. Make sure and hold the seats of Tina turner & carole king, both who have been eligible for 30! Years each,” her text reads. (Both Turner and King were inducted as solo performers in the 2021 class; the former was previously inducted as part of Ike & Tina Turner in 1991, while the latter was inducted as part of the songwriting duo Goffin/King in 1990.)
Billboard has reached out to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Grohl’s rep declined to comment.
Six women have been nominated for the Rock Hall’s class of 2023: Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Cyndi Lauper, Gillian Gilbert (with New Order) and Meg White (as part of The White Stripes). The inductees are set to be revealed in May; the ceremony will happen in the fall.
Check out Love’s Instagram post below:
Rage Against the Machine received its latest nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame earlier this month, and Tom Morello finally reacted to the news in a new interview on Wednesday (Feb. 8).
“This is Rage Against the Machine’s fifth nomination. So always the bridesmaid, never the bride in a way,” he said in a joint sit-down with Måneskin for Audacy Check In. “It’s an honor, and it’s great for the fans, and it’s something my mom would be very happy (about).”
Other acts up for induction as part of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 include Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Soundgarden, The Spinners, A Tribe Called Quest, The White Stripes and Warren Zevon.
During the chat, the rock guitarist also offered up his assessment of the Italian newcomers, whom he joined on the band’s hard-charging new single “Gossip” from their recently released third studio album RUSH!, saying, “It’s an unusual thing in 2023 to have a rock and roll band that has songs on the radio. Then to have a song on the radio that has not one, but two guitar solos in it. It really is an anomaly in this day and age.”
The members of Måneskin only had great things to say about working with Morello in the studio, telling host Nicole Alvarez they learned from his “passion and not really giving a f–k about all these limits or anything. And that really inspired us and made us [think], like, ‘If a legend does it this way, then for me it’s right.’”
Watch the full interview with Morello and Måneskin below.
