Gypsies, Tramps, Thieves and Rock and Roll

I stopped commenting on the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees after 2022 when Duran Duran - whom Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell in their book "The Worst Rock & Roll Records of All Time" said was the worst rock band ever (they're not, but they're pretty damn close) - got in.  But I just had to come back to comment on the latest big-name induction . . .

Cher?

Cher?  

Don't get me wrong.  I love Cher.  Really.  Just about everybody loves Cher.  She's a strong singer.  She's also a good actress.  She's had numerous hits, and many of her songs are underrated.  She herself is underrated.  Dave Marsh actually once dismissed her as someone more famous for being than for doing, a charge she dispelled when she won the 1988 Best Actress Oscar for her role in Moonstruck.  She's a woman of many accomplishments.  You can't take any of that away from her.  But - and you knew I was coming to a "but" - she isn't rock and roll.  She's pop!  Her only connections to rock and roll are her romantic associations with Gregg Allman and Gene Simmons, and the latter association is questionable not because of her but because of Simmons. 

The fact that Cher is being inducted 34 years after becoming eligible (she released her debut solo album in 1965, when she was only 19 years old) has led to many people charging the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with sexism for the long wait.  That's the sort of cudgel everyone uses when they charge prejudice for a judgment call instead of looking at more pertinent reasons, like quality or style.  And I've made similar arguments against inductions of male - white male - artists like the Bee Gees or James Taylor, because they're more pop than rock, as well as the aforementioned Duran Duran because, well, they suck.  Oh, Duran Duran are rock and roll all right, but they're bad rock and roll.  Musical ineptitude should never be honored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - but Kiss are in anyway.

I'm not going to say that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board members inducted Cher to own the rockists, because Peter Frampton - who was not a critic's favorite back in the day - finally got inducted this year as well.  I'm thinking there was a transactional compromise in which rockist members of the Rock Hall board agreed to let Cher get in as a price to pay to allow Frampton's induction.  But no transactional compromise, however carefully crafted, will ever allow Jethro Tull to be inducted.

Oh well, I'm still glad Foreigner got in, an induction I've always argued was necessary on the basis of Lou Gramm's voice alone, and I'm happy to celebrate the induction of Kool and the Gang (see what I did there?).