Thank You For the Music

I'm back, after having endured two power failures and two cable outages, and hopefully, as the storm that turned the American Northeast into a horror show full of downed trees and power lines winds down, that's it for awhile.

In the meantime, new business. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions took place at the Waldorf Astoria in New York tonight, and even though I maintain the Hall lost its credibility by inducting Madonna as soon as she was eligible while continuing to ignore worthier acts for political reasons, I have to say that the 2010 class is really . . . not awful! Here's a rundown, with commentary of the performers inducted this year:

Abba. They're the greatest pop-rock band to come out of Sweden, and some might regard that as the equivalent of being the funniest comedian in Germany. Nonetheless, the quartet came up with some well-produced, catchy tunes that have an international appeal to them: a Swedish group with song titles in various languages ("Voulez-Vous," "Mamma Mia") and references to global history ("Waterloo"), all sung in English. They were as globally successful as the Beatles, and unlike the Liverpool lads, they've never reunited even once.

Genesis. Peter Gabriel's vast artistic vision and Phil Collins's drumming justify this induction, as do the occasionally interesting hit singles during Collins's tenure as frontman (like "No Reply At All" and "Man On the Corner," both from the 1981 album Abacab). Their intricate arrangements and complex solos aren't rock and roll in the traditional sense, but as rock writers Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell wrote once, Genesis were one of the better progressive rock bands - that is, they were boring only ninety percent of the time. Now the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame needs to induct Family, the best progressive rock band (that is, they were never boring).

The Hollies. Given that Graham Nash's old band had been eligible for induction into the Hall for twenty years but had to wait until Madonna was inducted after being eligible for induction for twenty seconds, their belated induction seems to be self-parody on the Hall's part. However, never was a belated induction more deserved - with the possible exception of Bob Seger's. Wonderful, refreshing singles like "Bus Stop" and "Carrie Anne" and harmonic opuses like "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" make this induction a lead-pipe cinch.

Jimmy Cliff. One of the more fun reggae artists, Cliff's music shows the versatility of the form, and he is one of those performers favored by folks who think they hate reggae. He gets my vote.

The Stooges. Iggy Pop's old group practically invented punk rock, and they were from the gritty streets of Detroit. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was going to induct them anyway for those reasons alone, and if you don't like it, well, too bad.

Non-performers inducted this year include record impresario David Geffen, the songwriting teams of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, and songwriter Otis Blackwell, who penned many of Elvis's early hits. The songwriters being inducted are worthy enough, but David Geffen will raise eyebrows. Yes, he founded Asylum Records and gave us Jackson Browne, but as a top honcho in the music business, he always seemed to downplay the music in favor of the business. Meanwhile, Brian Epstein - who believed that the Beatles would make it when no one else in England did - remains unhonored by the Hall, a rather shameful development.

Of course, Epstein was never as sharky as Geffen or Geffen's old partner Eliot Roberts. Epstein's gentlemanliness and naïveté was unsuited for the cutthroat world of rock and roll management, and it unfortunately caught up with him. Why is Geffen being honored first? Because history is written by the winners, and he won a lot of power stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.

The winner takes it all.

How Can She Resist It?

My mother has exhibited the weirdest behavior lately. She can't stop watching the movie version of the Abba Broadway musical "Mamma Mia!" whenever it comes on cable television, and it's been on cable TV a lot. She loves the storyline, but she also likes the songs and the music.

But get this - she doesn't remember Abba from the seventies!

My mother was in her mid-thirties when ABBA were together, and they were always on the Top Forty AM radio station we used to listen to then, since they had so many hits. And Mom doesn't remember the Swedish quartet? Hmmm, maybe the songs simply sank in to her psyche through osmosis.

Abba have long been criticized for their lightweight, airy, plastic pop songs, but their records have turned out to be durable plastic. How else can you explain the fact that "Mamma Mia!" will have been on Broadway for eight years this October, and shows no signs of slowing down despite the movie version being so obviously available on demand. Abba have remained popular since their breakup in 1982 and have resisted efforts to regroup far more successfully than the Beatles, who of course reunited as a threesome and concocted new Beatles songs with unfinished John Lennon recordings for the Anthology project. Abba had even been rumored to be the substitutes for the fifty dates Michael Jackson was to perform in London.

Abba had a unique start when they, as Sweden's choice to contribute an entry in the 1974 Eurovision song contest, chose "Waterloo," a song referring to Napoleon's last defeat. They won the Eurovision song contest, and it was their first international hit. Now that's irony for you.