The White Stripes, Cyndi Lauper, A Tribe Called Quest, Sheryl Crow, Iron Maiden and Joy Division/New Order might also join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominations have been released, and the list includes George Michael, Kate Bush, Missy Elliott, the White Stripes, Sheryl Crow, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, the Spinners, A Tribe Called Quest and Warren Zevon. The artists with the most votes will be announced in May and will be inducted in the fall.
« This remarkable list of nominees reflects the diversity of artists and music the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honors and celebrates.said John Sykes, president of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. These artists created their own sounds that marked generations and influenced countless others who followed in their footsteps. »
To be eligible for this year’s ballot, each candidate’s first single or album had to be released before 1998. Eight of the nominees (Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Joy Division/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Willie Nelson, The White Stripes and Warren Zevon) appear on the ballot for the first time. This is the first year that Missy Elliott and the White Stripes have been eligible.
This is the fifth nomination for Rage Against The Machine, the fourth for Kate Bush and the Spinners, and the second for Iron Maiden and A Tribe Called Quest.
Listing Joy Division and New Order as one and the same group may seem odd since they are technically two different groups. But New Order was formed by the three surviving members of Joy Division almost immediately following frontman Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980. The only difference was the addition of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert a few months later. (In 2012, the Hall of Fame incorporated the Small Faces and the Faces as one and the same unit, even though they had two different singers and quite distinct sounds. It’s easy to argue that Joy Division and New Order have more of common DNA than these two groups).
The Hall of Fame is one of the few places (outside of the courthouse) where members of a separate group are forced to meet in the same room. This has resulted in amazing reunions over the years of dormant bands like Cream, Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, The Police and The Doors. This would be the occasion for New Order to perform with its former bassist Peter Hook for the first time since 2006 and for Jack White and Meg White to play together once more under the name of White Stripes for the first time since the last episode. of Late Night With Conan O’Brien in 2009.
It’s also an opportunity for the surviving members of A Tribe Called Quest and Soundgarden to play together once more. Rage Against The Machine is on indefinite hiatus, as its leader Zack de la Rocha is recovering from a severe tear in his left Achilles tendon he suffered on the second night of the band’s 2022 tour, but it’s possible they’ll play as well.
The Class of 2023 will be chosen by a group of more than 1,000 artists, historians and members of the music industry whom Rock Hall has selected as voters. In recent years, the Hall of Fame has awarded the Music Excellence Award, the Ahmet Ertegun Award, and the Early Influence Award to a wide selection of artists who were not on the ballot. In 2022, seven artists listed on the ballot were officially inducted, and seven others received other awards.
The final Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place on November 5, 2022, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. It is not yet known where it will take place this year.
More info on the official website du Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Andy Greene
Translated by the editor