The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's annual induction ceremony is this Saturday — and Metro Times sister paper the Cleveland Scene is on it.
In this week's issue, they dive into the Rock Hall's super secret voting process, and go behind the scenes of the museum, a place where Eminem's underwear are on display like a saintly relic.
This year inductees include Ringo Starr, Lou Reed, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, Bill Withers, the "5" Royales, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Green Day. Meanwhile, indisputably iconic and eligible acts like Big Star, Chic, Electric Light Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Stevie Nicks, N.W.A., the Smiths, and many more continue to get snubbed.
As the Scene also points out, the next 20 years of inductees are bound to be even weirder as "traditional" rock 'n' roll acts fall out of favor. Britney Spears? Taylor Swift? Kanye West? You can laugh, but if there's one thing that unites all of the Rock Hall's inductees, it's attitude — not just guitars. As Rock Hall president and CEO Greg Harris told the Scene, "This is an art form in the '60s that included Jimi Hendrix and Simon and Garfunkel and Leslie Gore and Janis Joplin and the MC5. Because of that definition, it includes metal, hip-hop and dance. It's more an attitude and spirit than it is guitar-driven music."
