Janet Jackson, The Cure, and Radiohead Are Inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Janet Jackson, The Cure, and Radiohead were among the seven new inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today.

A good selection. I hope Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk will be inducted next year.

If we are still around in 1,000 years, Radiohead will be studied, and cherished.

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Damn it. Now you’ve put “It’s Friday, I’m in Love” in my head.

I never got the Radiohead thing, and I have really tried. :frowning:

Understandable. Some of their stuff isn’t for me, either. But a few of their songs are epic and always will be. And they are amazing technical musicians. Watch some of their studio sessions on YouTube (search “in rainbows”) and you’ll be like whattttttttttttttttttttttttt (or not, different strokes for different folks)

Absolutely agree with Radiohead, The Cure, and Def Leppard. I’m actually shocked at The Cure and Def Leppard as I thought the hall would continue their bias against New Wave and Hair Metal.

Uncertain on Roxy Music and the Zombies as I only know a few songs by each.

Disagree with Janet Jackson just because she is pop not rock but since the Rock in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seemingly matters little nowadays I understand why she’s there as she would be deserving in the pop music hall of fame.

Completely disagree with Stevie Nicks. She absolutely deserves to be in as part of Fleetwood Mac but her solo career was fairly unremarkable. A few hit songs and a couple of duets but otherwise forgettable. If not for her Fleetwood Mac connection she’d be less remembered than someone like Laura Branigan.

Janet Jackson (pop) is in.

Warren Zevon (rock) is not.

■■■?

Why should Warron Zevon be in?

He had one hit song which borders on being a novelty song. Its a huge song that everyone knows, even today’s generation sort of thanks to the Kid Rock abomination that mashed up Werewolves with Sweet Home Alabama. But one song isn’t a HoF guarantee as it only qualifies him as much as Vanilla Ice and Right Said Fred (I’m too Sexy).

He has more rock hits than Janet Jackson.

Are you familiar with the body of his work?

Not a pop song in the bunch.

Warren Zevon only had one song hit the top 40 which was Werewolves of London which made it to #21. Its obviously more well known than that would indicate but that literally is his only top 40 hit.

Janet meanwhile has ten #1 hits and 27 top 10 hits.

I agree that Warren Zevon would fall under rock while Janet would be pop, see what I said earlier about her, but hit wise its not even close. Janet is one of the biggest artists of the last 50 years while Zevon has a novelty song.

LOL, there is much more to Warren Zevon than Werewolves.

From Wikipedia;

Warren William Zevon (/ˈziːvɒn/; January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003)[1] was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician.

Zevon’s most famous compositions include “Werewolves of London”, “Lawyers, Guns and Money”, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” and “Johnny Strikes Up the Band”, all of which are featured on his third album, Excitable Boy (1978), whose title track is also well-known. He also wrote major hits that were recorded by other artists, including “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”, “Accidentally Like a Martyr”, “Mohammed’s Radio”, “Carmelita”, and “Hasten Down the Wind”. Along with his own work, he recorded or performed occasional covers, including Allen Toussaint’s “A Certain Girl”, Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan” and Prince’s “Raspberry Beret”.

Theres a lot more to Warren Zevon than Werewolves of London.

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Is Ted Nugent still complaining about not getting in?

That’s why I asked him if he was familiar with Zevon’s body of work. Most people only know songs that they have heard on Top 40 radio.

There is a lot more to Vanilla Ice than Ice Ice Baby so is he worthy of induction based on the power of his one novelty song?

I’ve already said that I believe the ROCK in the Hall of Fame should mean actual Rock music and thus Janet doesn’t belong. But on the criteria the Hall has which is any popular music then Janet absolutely deserves to get in based on her massive amount of hits vs a guy with only one song that cracked the top 40 and it was novelty song to boot.

If Zevon had done something that shook up the industry or changed the face of music then you could consider more than his lack of hits. Take Nirvana for instance. They only had one top 10 hit (Smells like Teen Spirit which peaked at #6) and one other top 40 hit (Come as You Are which peaked at #32). But Nirvana utterly changed the entire industry in the early 90’s. They killed hair metal and ushered in a whole new movement as everyone was looking for the next big alternative artist. Without Nirvana bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and many others never explode into mainstream popularity. Some like Alice and NIN existed pre Nirvana and had some small measure of success but it was Nirvana that really opened the doors for them to get huge.

He should be in on the basis of quality, not quantity. On that basis, a lot of people should be in. Michael Nesmith is another who could be. (So should the Monkees, but they won’t be as long as Jann Wenner has anything to say about it.)

I’ll give it a shot as of now I love the song “Creep” but from what I have read from Radiohead fans that was their sellout song :slight_smile:

Try their second album, The Bends. Its a great album but they hadn’t gotten weirdly experimental yet. I love much of their later stuff but its largely for people who already like the band and could be difficult to start with.

Quality is subjective though.

To me the best band bar none of the last 20 years is Nightwish, especially now with their 3rd lead singer Floor Jansen who can sing anything from opera to thrash metal.

But while they are popular in Europe they are fairly fringe in the United States. In Europe they play Wembley stadium whereas here in the US they play in venues that hold one to two thousand people (I’ve seen them twice in concert here). On my opinion of quality they are Hall of Fame worthy but in any measure of popularity in the US they are not.

Seriously about Nightwish though, listen to this song. Its 21 minutes of symphonic progressive metal that runs the gamut of styles from classical music, to operatic, to pop, to thrash metal, to death metal, and back again and does so naturally. Its a live version of their title track off their last album. They cut a few minutes though as I think its 24 minutes on the album.

Or try this 10 minute song, Ghost Love Score, from back in 2012. Its right after Nightwish fired their 2nd lead singer mid tour (long story) on just 48 hrs notice flew in Floor Jansen to be a replacement singer for the rest of the tour. At the time this was filmed she had been with them a few months and was still technically a fill in singer but she pretty much blew them and fans away with her ability to sing Nightwish’s old stuff. Not long after they officially made her their permanent new singer. The scream she does at the 9:30 mark of this song is epic.