Here Are We Now, Entertain Us

The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductees for 2014 are expected to be announced soon, and even though there are many good choices among the nominees, I doubt there will be many good choices among those who actually get voted in.  Kiss might get in this time.

Among the other nominees are Nirvana, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Deep Purple, the Replacements, Peter Gabriel, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the New Orleans funk group the Meters.  All of these acts deserve to get in eventually, but not all of them will this time.  I believe only five or six acts get inducted every year, and I just listed eight of the nominees.  There are sixteen in all, the other nominees being Chic, LL Cool J, N.W.A., Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens, Link Wray, Yes, and the Zombies.  

Among these latter acts, I'm certain that either James Todd Smith (the real name of LL Cool J, which stands for Ladies Love Cool James)  or N.W.A., which sounds like an airline but is in fact the biggest, baddest rap group to ever come out of the LA area (Compton, California, to be precise) will get in, because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has to show political correctness and induct at least one rap act every year, even though rap isn't rock.  Nor, quite frankly, are Linda Ronstadt (who's best known for making easy-listening versions of rock and roll and R&B hits), Cat Stevens (a wimpy balladeer who came out with a good song once in a blue moonshadow), Chic (disco!), or, for that matter, Yes (which record buyers should have said no to in the seventies).  Once again, the Hall is trumpeting its diversity of nominees without paying much attention to standards - why else would Cat Stevens be in here? - and ignoring the issue of how dumb it is to judge an act's quality by its record sales figures.  While I am glad to see the Replacements, one of those eighties rock bands whom critics and college students loved and everyone else ignored, in contention, I know they're not going to get voted in, because they wouldn't encourage as many ticket sales to the induction ceremony in April as Kiss (who definitely don't belong in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as their emphasis of style over substance only paved the way for MTV).

But Hall and Oates - who were the eighties Beatles, as Daryl Hall once insisted - definitely belong in it, as do Nirvana for saving us from lightweight MTV pop (if only temporarily).  I think the only thing that will prevent Deep Purple from getting in, at least this year, is the likelihood of Ritchie Blackmore refusing to show up for the induction ceremonies, as he had a fallout with the band.  But there's always another time, and the Hall's keepers might not care by then if Blackmore doesn't show up.  

Given the choices for induction,. I figure I'll be both pleased and disappointed with the final induction list, because the Hall won't induct everyone I like just because I like them.  But I hope they induct some of my personal choices for inclusion.

Brian Epstein in the non-performer category?  I haven't heard anything about that yet.