The 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees

Groups like One Direction, 'N Sync and the Spice Girls never broke away from the manufacturing. The Monkees became a real band. All of the band had real musical experience to begin with and they broke away from Don Kirshner later.

DH thinks that Toto is the best band that ever was and ever will be. Backstage passes. I told Steve Lukather at one of the meet-and-greets that DH was his biggest fan - SL kissed my hand.

What does he think of Weezer’s covers they did? I assume your aware of them but just in case your not. . . . about a year ago a twitter campaign sprung up calling for Weezer to cover Africa by Toto. Weezer started getting bombarded with tweets about this so earlier this year they complied sort of but trolled everyone by covering Rosanna instead. Then a week later they released a cover of Africa as well.

The video is sort of amusing because Weird Al is posing as the lead singer and really really loves himself and gets into the song by the end.

What current group of bands / people not currently eligible for the Hall do folks here think are shoo ins? It has to have been at least 25 years since your first release to be eligible. Here is my list. Note I’m going to use the Hall’s current standards where pretty much anything is allowed in whether its rock or not.

  1. Foo Fighters - from the ashes of Nirvana they rose in 1995 and became the biggest rock band in the world over the last 15-20 years.

  2. Eminem - not rock but since they allow rap he obviously gets in as he’s the biggest rap star on the planet.

  3. Linkin Park - popularized the nu rock / rap sound and had a big career as well. Plus the having your lead singer die tragically gives them sentimental value.

  4. Tool - especially if they actually release another album

  5. Taylor Swift - another non rock artist but since that doesn’t count then the most popular pop star of the last decade gets in barring her disappearing between now and eligibility.

What about Lady GaGa and Adele?

Tool is already eligible, Opiate was released in 1992.

As much as I would like to see it happen, it won’t. They’d likely refuse it.

Both could make it but both are still near or under the 10 year mark of their careers so they would need to do more between now and 25 years. That said both are on the right track. Though Adele’s popularity baffles me personally - she just sings loud and not very well IMO.

They might. Maynard James Keenan is a weird guy. I saw both Tool and A Perfect Circle in concert last year and while the music was amazing the concerts were odd and actually kind of boring because of Maynard. He hides in the shadows behind the band and so you can’t even see him most of the time which leaves the two guitarists out front doing nothing except playing and not even trying to engage the audience. After a while its just kind of blah.

Contrast that to Twenty One Pilots whom I also saw last year. My daughter is a fan so I took her as a Christmas present and they were amazing. I like a few of their songs but mostly I’m kinda blah about them. But their concert was like a carnival with so much going on visually and the band members being the polar opposite of Tool in terms of audience engagement. Far more enjoyable concert wise than Tool or A Perfect Circle was even though I far prefer the music of Tool and APC.

How about Alicia Keys?