The Worst Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ever

Tonight is the night that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, having made dubious choices for induction in the past, officially jumps the shark. Tonight Madonna gets inducted.

And to add insult to injury, she gets inducted in her first year of eligibility.

It's quite astonishing really, how a girl (although she turns fifty in August, she's still more of a girl than a woman in my eyes!) with no musical talent, whose singing is as annoying as fingernails on a chalkboard, whose songs are incredibly lightweight, whose arrangements are annoyingly derivative of seventies disco at its worst, whose whole musical orientation is as far removed from rock and roll as it could get - whose only talent is her penchant for shameless self-promotion - could get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as soon as she's eligible. Even more astonishing is that this happens even as other acts, eligible for years and sometimes decades (at least the Dave Clark Five finally got in!) still haven't been inducted.

How savvy is Madonna at self-promotion? With the date of the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions known for some time and her own induction assured, she's about to release her next album tomorrow.

Performers who haven't been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yet (and probably never will be) include Family (eligible since 1993), the great British progressive rock band from the late sixties and early seventies responsible for monumental songs like "The Weaver's Answer" and classic albums like A Song For Me and Fearless. But they'll never get in, owing to the fact that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is an American institution and Family is virtually unknown in America.

Much better known in the U.S. is the Canadian power trio Rush (eligible since 1999), whose trenchant songs about modern life - their 1981 album Moving Pictures is a masterpiece - ring true to generations of listeners. But Rush has long been detested by most critics - many of whom vote on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions - for being too grandiose and appealing to too many white suburban males. Not to mention drummer/lyricist Neil Peart's fascination with Ayn Rand, one of those individualist writers leftist-minded rock critics love to hate.

So why did Madonna get in? Because she's a politically correct choice - a female performer with a multiracial and urban fan base - and because she has had a major impact on popular culture. Yeah, so did Watergate, but we don't celebrate it.

Oh, and rock critic Dave Marsh - who has praised his fellow native Michiganian for years - is on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board.

This doesn't bode well for other female performers who excel musically but are far less likely to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because they don't have Madge's self-promotional savvy. So Suzanne Vega (eligible in 2010), Tracy Chapman (eligible in 2014), and Sheryl Crow (eligible in 2018 or 2019) aren't as likely to make it on their first try, and, with the exception of Crow, may not get in at all.

So what message does this send to little girls? Mainly, it says that you don't have to be talented or even respectable to succeed. You just have to do what Madonna does - be nasty and conniving, do anything to get to the top, play unfair, belittle anyone who dares to criticize you (or have your followers do it for you) and destroy anyone who crosses you. But mostly, you have to prostitute yourself at the expense of coarsening the culture.

And we'd hate for that to happen again in our lifetimes.

Er, perhaps I spoke too soon . . .