Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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Stevie Nicks, Adam Levine, Carrie Underwood, Common, Ice-T, LL Cool J, Miguel, Queen Latifah and Sia have been added as presenters and performers for the 38th annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, set for Nov. 3 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
In 2019, Nicks became the first woman to be inducted into the Hall twice, after having first been inducted with Fleetwood Mac in 1998. In 2021, LL Cool J received the award for musical excellence.
Previously announced presenters and performers are Elton John (who will induct his longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin), Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews, H.E.R., New Edition, and St. Vincent.
This year’s inductees are Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine and The Spinners, along with DJ Kool Herc and Link Wray for musical influence; Chaka Khan, Al Kooper and Taupin for musical excellence; and Don Cornelius for the Ahmet Ertegun Award (formerly known as the non-performers award).
The induction ceremony will be broadcast live coast-to-coast via Disney+ on Friday, Nov. 3 (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT) and will be available to stream following the ceremony. ABC will air a three-hour prime-time special, 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, featuring performance highlights and standout moments on Monday, Jan. 1 (8-11 p.m. ET), available the next day on Hulu and Disney+.
This year’s show will be produced and directed by Joel Gallen and Tenth Planet Productions. John Sykes, Joel Peresman and Joel Gallen are the executive producers.
Apple Music will livestream audio from the ceremony on Apple Music 1 on Friday, Nov. 3. A four-part audio series, Class of ‘23: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, will also be available on Apple Music and Apple Podcasts leading up to the ceremony. Episodes will be released at 8 a.m. PT on Monday, Oct. 30, through Thursday, Nov. 2. Follow @applemusic on Instagram, X, and TikTok for more content from the ceremony.
Here’s the full list of presenters and performers for the 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony:
Adam LevineBrandi CarlileCarrie UnderwoodChris StapletonCommonDave MatthewsElton JohnH.E.R.Ice-TLL COOL JMiguelNew EditionQueen LatifahSiaStevie NicksSt. Vincent
For the first time ever, viewers will be able to watch a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony live without being there in the flesh. On Thursday (Sept. 28) morning, the Rock Hall announced that the 2023 ceremony will be streaming live on Disney+ at 8 p.m. ET when it takes over Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 3. In past years, an edited version of each Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony aired on HBO several weeks following the in-person event; now, that edited broadcast of highlights will air on ABC come Jan. 1, 2024, from 8-11 p.m. ET.
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That news also came with the first announcement of who we can expect to take the stage at the Class of 2023 induction. Of the new inductees, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Chaka Khan and Willie Nelson have been revealed as performers at the Nov. 3 event. Additionally, special guests Brandi Carlile, Dave Matthews, H.E.R., Chris Stapleton, St. Vincent and New Edition will also take the stage.
The Class of 2023 also includes Kate Bush, the late George Michael, Rage Against the Machine and The Spinners in the performers category. Additionally, DJ Kool Herc, Link Wray, Al Kooper, Bernie Taupin and Don Cornelius will be inducted.
“This historic live stream on Disney+ and special on ABC is a testament to the diverse sounds and enduring power of rock and roll,” said John Sykes, chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, in a press release. “Over the last three decades, the annual live Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction has become music’s highest honor, celebrating the artists who’ve defined generations and changed music forever.”
This year will mark the first induction ceremony since Rock Hall co-founder Jann Wenner was removed from the foundation’s board of directors by a near-unanimous vote. The Rolling Stone founder was widely lambasted following an interview with The New York Times about his book The Masters, which didn’t include interviews with women or Black artists. When pressed on this by the Times, he replied that women were not “as articulate enough on this intellectual level” about rock music and added that Black artists “just didn’t articulate at that level.” Since then, Wenner apologized in a statement, saying, “In my interview with The New York Times, I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius, and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks.”
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Jann Wenner, a co-founder of popular music publication Rolling Stone, found himself the target of criticism after delivering comments some deemed racist and sexist. Wenner has since apologized for the comments, but he was still ousted from the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which he also helped establish, in the wake.
As seen on Deadline, Jann Wenner, 77, was recently profiled by the New York Times in support of his upcoming book, The Masters, focusing on seven iconic musicians who all happen to be white and male. The figures Wenner interviewed are Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Jerry Garcia and Pete Townsend — all of whom are considered legends in music.
In the Times piece, Wenner was questioned on just interviewing white male artists, he went on to say that women weren’t, quote, “as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”
Wenner also used the same talking point when speaking of Black artists.
Wenner also employed the “articulate” argument in his explanation of why he excluded Black artists.
“Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s board voted just after the Times profile was published and Wenner promptly followed with a prepared statement attempting to clarify his stance.
“In my interview with The New York Times I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius, and impact of Black and women artists, and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks,” Wenner said.
The statement continues, “The Masters is a collection of interviews I’ve done over the years that seemed to me to best represent an idea of rock ’n’ roll’s impact on my world; they were not meant to represent the whole of music and its diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career. They don’t reflect my appreciation and admiration for myriad totemic, world-changing artists whose music and ideas I revere and will celebrate and promote as long as I live. I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.”
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Photo: Cindy Ord / Getty
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Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner was given a final chance to explain himself to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation on Saturday (Sept. 16) during an emergency conference call before he was voted off the organization’s board of directors. But instead of quelling outrage at comments he made regarding female and black artists in a New York Times interview that ran Friday Friday, the 77-year-old media icon angered longtime allies on the board with his “bad apology,” sources tell Billboard.
In the New York Times piece, Wenner said women and Black artists didn’t “articulate” on a high enough level in his interviews with them to be included in his new book The Masters — a book consisting of his interviews with the likes of Bono, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Pete Townshend during his time at Rolling Stone. An emergency meeting was called with the board’s high-profile music industry executives dialing in, including Youtube global head of music Lyor Cohen, music manager and executive Irving Azoff and former chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment Doug Morris, as Wenner made a “self-serving” and poorly articulated attempt to explain himself, according to a source.
Underwhelmed by Wenner’s Mea culpa, board members like Rob Light, managing partner and head of the music at Creative Artists Agency, lambasted Wenner’s conduct and eventually a vote was held. Every board member on the call voted to end Wenner’s tenure with one exception — music manager Jon Landau, who cast the single no vote. (Landau was formerly a music critic, who wrote in Rolling Stone’s inaugural issue and for years following.) After a few quick remarks, the meeting was adjourned, and a press release was quickly drafted to announce the decision. Landau and Light did not respond to request for comment.
“Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” read the press release. No more information was given.
Wenner’s controversial statements to The New York Times were made when asked why the book does not feature any interviews with people of color or female musicians. Wenner notes in his introduction that neither are in his “zeitgeist.”
“When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK? Just to get that accurate,” Wenner told the Times’ David Marchese. “The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”
Speaking on Black artists, Wenner said “You know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”
Wenner helped found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1983 with Atlantic Records founder and chairman Ahmet Ertegun, as well as record executives Seymour Stein, Bob Krasnow and Noreen Woods, and attorneys Allen Grubman and Suzan Evans.
He was was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 2004 and served as chairman from 2006 through 2020. Wenner left Rolling Stone in 2019 when the publication was acquired by Penske Media Corporation, which now also owns Billboard.
Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone and a co-founder and former chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in New York, is no longer serving on the foundation’s Board of Directors, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation confirms to Billboard.
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“Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” the foundation says in statement released on Saturday (Sept. 16).
Billboard reached out to John Sykes, current chairman of the foundation, and president and CEO Joel Peresman for further comment.
The move comes directly following an interview published by the New York Times Friday, in which Wenner, 77, addressed criticism of the scope of coverage in his new book The Masters, published through Little, Brown and Company.
In The Masters Wenner looks back at a collection of his interviews conducted in his years at Rolling Stone — all with white men, including Bono, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Townshend.
The book noticeably does not feature any interviews with people of color or female musicians. Wenner notes in his introduction that neither are in his “zeitgeist.”
“When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK? Just to get that accurate,” Wenner told the NYT‘s David Marchese. “The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”
Wenner clarified: “It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock … Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”
He added that his selection was “intuitive” and noted, “You know, just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism. Which, I get it. I had a chance to do that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a [expletive] or whatever. I wish in retrospect I could have interviewed Marvin Gaye. Maybe he’d have been the guy. Maybe Otis Redding, had he lived, would have been the guy.”
Wenner, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 2004, was one of the founders of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983. The founding group intended to celebrate rock ‘n’ roll and honor its icons; the foundation began inducting musicians in 1986. Wenner served as chairman from 2006 through 2020, with Sykes filling the role upon Wenner’s retirement.
He left Rolling Stone in 2019 when the publication was acquired by Penske Media Corporation, which is also Billboard‘s parent company.
05/18/2023
This will be the seventh consecutive year that women have been invited to rock and roll’s annual party. (And not just as the +1s of male inductees.)
05/18/2023
Other awards are great, but getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? That’s how you know an artist is a bona fide legend, not just someone with one or two moments in the sun.
Every year since 1986, Rock Hall — a museum and hall of fame that operates out of Cleveland — has elected a new class of music makers and industry leaders into its hallowed halls. Most inductees are enshrined in the “performers” category, which signifies that an artist’s music has somehow impacted the course of rock n’ roll. But deserving innovators can also be welcomed as “early influences” if their work directly inspired the genre’s evolution, or inducted as Ahmet Ertegun Award winners if they’re a non-performing industry professional who had a hand in developing or furthering the art form.
Since 2000, artists, songwriters and producers have also had the chance to be honored by induction under the “musical excellence” category (previously called the “sidemen” category), which goes to those whose originality has had a dramatic impact on music in general. This category has helped in part to diversify the Rock Hall’s roster, something chairman John Sykes thinks is crucial in holistically celebrating the true meaning of rock n’ roll.
“Rock is a part of rock n’ roll, but rock n’ roll was never one sound,” Sykes told Billboard in May 2023. “It was an amalgam of R&B, gospel and country. Really, all roads lead back to 1955 and the creation and explosion of rock n’ roll.”
Almost 400 soloists, bands, players, DJs and executives have been sworn into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and Billboard is spotlighting them all. See the name of every inductee, from Chuck Berry to Carly Simon, below (members are listed roughly in the order of their induction).
Note: Once the Class of 2023 has been officially inducted into the Rock Hall, their names will be added to this list.
Chuck Berry
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
James Brown
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Ray Charles
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Sam Cooke
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Fats Domino
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
The Everly Brothers
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Alan Freed
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1986
John Hammond
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1986
Buddy Holly
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Robert Johnson
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1986
Jerry Lee Lewis
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Sam Phillips
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1986
Elvis Presley
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Little Richard
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1986
Jimmie Rodgers
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1986
Jimmy Yancey
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1986
Leonard Chess
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1987
The Coasters
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Eddie Cochran
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Bo Diddley
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Ahmet Ertegun
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1987
Aretha Franklin
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Marvin Gaye
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Bill Haley
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1987
Louis Jordan
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1987
B.B. King
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Clyde McPhatter
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Ricky Nelson
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Roy Orbison
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Carl Perkins
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Smokey Robinson
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Big Joe Turner
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
T-Bone Walker
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1987
Muddy Waters
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
Jerry Wexler
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1987
Hank Williams
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1987
Jackie Wilson
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1987
The Beach Boys
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1988
The Beatles
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1988
The Drifters
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1988
Bob Dylan
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1988
Berry Gordy Jr.
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1988
Woody Guthrie
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1988
Lead Belly
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1988
Les Paul
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1988
The Supremes
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1988
Dion
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1989
The Ink Spots
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1989
Otis Redding
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1989
The Rolling Stones
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1989
Bessie Smith
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1989
The Soul Stirrers
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1989
Phil Spector
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1989
The Temptations
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1989
Stevie Wonder
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1989
Louis Armstrong
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1990
Hank Ballard
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
Charlie Christian
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1990
Bobby Darin
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
The Four Seasons
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
The Four Tops
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
Gerry Goffin and Carole King
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1990
Holland-Dozier-Holland
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1990
The Kinks
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
The Platters
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
Ma Rainey
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1990
Simon and Garfunkel
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
The Who
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1990
LaVern Baker
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
Dave Bartholomew
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1991
Ralph Bass
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1991
The Byrds
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
Nesuhi Ertegun
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1991
John Lee Hooker
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
Howlin’ Wolf
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1991
Ike and Tina Turner
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
The Impressions
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
Wilson Pickett
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
Jimmy Reed
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1991
Bobby “Blue” Bland
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
Booker T. and The MG’s
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
Johnny Cash
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
Leo Fender
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1992
Bill Graham
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1992
The Isley Brothers
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
Elmore James
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1992
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
Professor Longhair
Category: Early Influences
Induction Year: 1992
Doc Pomus
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1992
Sam and Dave
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
The Yardbirds
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1992
Ruth Brown
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1993
Dick Clark
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1993
Cream
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1993
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1993
The Doors
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1993
Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1993
Milt Gabler
Category: Ahmet Ertegun Award
Induction Year: 1993
Etta James
Category: Performers
Induction Year: 1993
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.