We Won't Come Out To Cleveland On the Lake Erie Shoreline

Deep Purple got shafted again.

The great British heavy rock band that earned immorality for their Machine Head album and for classic songs such as "Smoke On the Water" and "Highway Star" will not be among the inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2015.  Although Deep Purple have been nominated before, this time they didn't even get that far.  Maybe it's because they're a seventies classic rock band.  Maybe it's because Ritchie Blackmore has disavowed his involvement in the band and wouldn't be likely to attend the induction ceremony if they were chosen.  It could even be because Deep Purple are more popular in Europe than in the U.S.  But the band that created that great riff that opens "Smoke On the Water," a riff that inspired a generation of aspiring rockers to pick up guitars and led to a funny Nissan commercial about a woman embarrassed by her husband's obsession with a jukebox full of hits of the '70s in an antique shop, cannot be ignored much longer.  I say, induct them.  If not in 2015, then in 2016.  So what if only Roger Glover shows up for the induction ceremony? 

So who's been nominated for induction this time?  Green Day, who may have made the last significant rock album ever (Dookie, from 1994), the alternative acts Nine Inch Nails and the Smiths, the late Lou Reed, the Spinners, Sting (as a solo artist), Chic, Kraftwerk, the Marvelettes, Bill Withers, War, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts . . . along with the rap group N.W.A., nominated due to the politically correct need to honor hip-hop as a form of rock despite the fact that a lot of people (yours truly included) have difficulty acknowledging that hip-hop is even a form of music.

Aside from N.W.A., and Chic (dude, it's disco!), the nominees are an embarrassment of riches this time around, with several nominees having already been on the ballot in previous years (the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Marvelettes) and several being inducted for the first time (Green Day and Nine Inch Nails, both in their first year of eligibility).  These acts, including War and the criminally underrated Bill Withers, will be hard for the Rock Hall's board to choose from.  As Joel Peresman, the head of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, has commented on this cornucopia of nominees for 2015,  "Rock and roll incorporates the styles of so many different kinds of music and that's what makes this group of nominees - and this art form - so powerful and unique."

But no room, still, for a band as powerful and unique as Deep Purple. I hope they get inducted soon, because those guys are getting old. Swiss time is running out, it seems they're gonna lose the race.

Oh yeah, Family were passed over again - big surprise, right?

P.S. Some of you may note my 180 on Linda Ronstadt from last time.  Although I voiced objections to Linda Ronstadt's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in December 2013, I was obviously of a different mindset when I wrote of her induction in April  2014 and gave it my approval.  Why did I ultimately approve?  Simple - after thinking about it a bit, I changed my mind.  And even though I could have said I changed my mind to tick off Dave Marsh, that wasn't the reason.  I simply decided that she did enough credible work to deserve the honor.