They announced the latest batch of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week. As always, I am upset that the J. Geils Band was passed over once again. One day the rest of the world will understand the immense lyrical mastery of the song Freeze Frame. And I still don’t understand how they can call it a Hall of Fame if the Monkees are not a part of it. I am one hundred percent serious on that last part. Name me one other television event (other than maybe Kiss on 3-2-1 Contact) that has resulted in more guys wanting to be musicians? It just doesn’t exist. The Monkees are the origins of music video as well as mainstreaming alt-country music (lots of Byrds influences in their later work). But I thought I should talk about who made the cut.
The Sex Pistols will be inducted and I for one will stand and cheer this announcement. Sure, there is no redeeming quality to their music. It wasn’t even good music. Heck, Sid Vicious could barely stand half the time, much less play bass. But they are one of the most influential and powerful acts ever. Here’s my explanation. Saturday night I was at a bar watching this band The Elders play. The Elders are this awesome Irish band with a killer live show. For some reason, the bar also had one of those punk documentaries showing on a tv set. Given a choice between an awesome live band and watching Johnny Rotten without sound my eyes were just naturally drawn to Johnny Rotten. Just that look in his eyes of mischievousness, where you can tell just how much he despised the establishment, and you can not look away. For making rock and roll dangerous again, for basically being banned for a time for being a threat to the social order, they need to be in the Hall of Fame. And I want to see if John Lydon even shows up for the ceremony, since it is against everything he has ever stood for.
On the other had we have Lynyrd Skynyrd. This one is probably a little tougher and that is because time has been both kind and unkind to the band. They have had a legacy that has lasted longer than almost anyone else in existence but in the process the band has become a caricature of itself. I don’t know if I can see past the cliché of people yelling Free Bird. That discounts a lot of good music in the process and they did bring about a Southern Rock revolution. Well maybe a revolution is too strong of a term but they did open the doors for bands like Alabama. On second thought, maybe they don’t belong…
Probably the other really interesting choice is Blondie. Now from my perspective they had a few hits, one of the first rap songs of any mainstream prominence, and I know they were big in the punk and new wave scenes but they don’t seem Hall of Fame worthy. Which is probably the biggest problem with the entire venture, there are no stats that you can work from. You don’t want to focus on album sales since so many incredible acts were never hugely popular and those that were popular weren’t very good (remember that one of the most popular albums of all time is Boston’s First Stage). But there is no qualitative measure of artistic greatness either. So saying that Blondie is in the Hall of Fame means that a good band should be in the Hall of Fame, which would open the doors to everyone. Or at least everyone who wants to make their way to Cleveland.
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