The NY Daily News discusses the Hall's cleaning out of the selection committee, trying to get rid of the old fogeys and put in some people who actually listened to music in the Eighties and Nineties, rather than being stuck in the Fifties and Sixties. Dave Marsh agitates for Al Kooper (the organist on Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" among many other accomplishments) and punk legends MC5. And both argue for the inclusion of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (who has been eligible for a few years), saying the Hall will become a joke if they don't start including hip hop and rap.
Here's how I think of it: the Hall is about popular music. Any musician featured in Rolling Stone magazine is fair game. Yeah, that casts a wide net, but what are you gonna do? Include country rock but not country? Bowie singing "Let's Dance" but not actual dance music?
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2 comments:
It seems to me that this angst is over what is seen as a joke to begin with. Does anyone take the RRHOF seriously? Didn't it get passed to sad joke status when they chose to locate it in Cleveland? The status it imparts is similar to having you handprints in concrete a Mann's Chinese theater, right next to Ryan Seacrest.
Actually, you're right. Cleveland was a pretty dire choice, given its lackluster links to rock n roll (whatever they might be even Detroit or a million other places make more sense). And getting into the Hall of Fame ain't exactly earth-shaking: Bowie and Rod Stewart didn't even bother to show. And finally the coolest thing about it: the annual induction ceremony where everyone would party and perform onstage together in never-to-be-seen-again combinations has been ruined by TV. God forbid they just celebrate music rather than turn it into a special on E! or whatever.
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