Power Ballots and Second Thoughts

Nobody agrees with my 2026 R&R Hall of Fame votes -- including me!

My personally emailed Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot last week informed me that “7 selections are required for your votes to count,” when I could comfortably stop at three. Ranking relative degrees of ambivalence is not a whole lot of fun, but I clearly had some coins to flip. (The 17 nominees are easy too look up. Somebody I saw on social media somewhere — I forget who, sorry — guessed the “Seven or None” rule must have come from Melissa Etheridge’s management, on the off chance she might get a bunch of seventh-place votes.) The ballot also, as Phil Freeman pointed out on facebook, brandished a laughably large chunk of “‘Take this seriously, goddammit!’” text at the top,” instructing voters while making their choices to consider “Excellence,” “Innovation,” “Influence,” and “Impact” — all of which it helpfully attempted to define. Used to be you snailmailed the ballot in, but not any more.

My ballot is pictured above, and I started having second thoughts as soon as I sent it in. As I tend to do. The easiest votes for me, at least on the day that I voted, were Joy Division/New Order (because I’m an old white guy — and honestly, it’s Joy Division not particularly New Order who I was voting for), Luther Vandross and Shakira. A Bluesky follower named Casper guessed immediately that Vandross was one of my choices, which I thought was pretty impressive but then he explained that on my profile he’d found something I wrote in 1981 when I was in college, and Luther was indeed praised in it so there you go. I had a major crush on Shakira the year Laundry Service came out, went to see her play Madison Square Garden even (must have been on the Tour of the Mongoose in 2002), but to be honest I’ve never really cared that much about any of her other music before or since that album. And given that I like the first four or so Pink albums until she started doing too many wilted shemo power ballads (pretty sure I still owned all four CDs when I sold my record collection last year) and the first two and a half (= unplugged EP) Mariah Carey albums until she started trying too hard to prove she’s hip-hop, my Shakira vote is kind of hypocritical.

My friend Scott Seward told me the only nominees on the list he still regularly listens are Joy Division/New Order, Sade, and Wu Tang Clan, and I told him that we only had one of our three shoo-ins in common. Though I did wind up voting for one of his other two regardless — Wu Tang, that is, who like Iron Maiden I used to actively dislike and frequently said so in print, so I guess I partially voted for both of them out of guilt for past kvetching even though it breaks my rule of only voting for the artists whose music I like most. (“More objective than subjective,” as Phil Dellio put it when he said he’d be likely to vote for WTC for the same reason.) Pretty sure the only Wu Tang-related CDs I owned until last year were an advance promo of RZA’s Ghost Dog soundtrack plus a best-of or two — either The RZA Hits, Legend of the Wu Tang or both.

I have never to my knowledge owned an Iron Maiden album, which won’t surprise disgusted readers of my heavy metal record guide Stairway to Hell. Several years ago, they even made a 10-worst-artists-of-all-time list I put together. But as with Wu Tang, I’ve developed a begrudging respect for them over time — if only because they clearly inspired several bands I like more. Still, as I’ve written before, the idea that they were ever especially “punk rock” is silly, at least compared to any number of other metal bands around the turn of the ‘80s. Vastly prefer them with their original singer — Not even close. (Though in fairness I might not go so far as Scott Seward, who wrote: “I don't think I've ever listened to an entire post-Paul Di'Anno Iron Maiden album. They make me snooze [with the exception of "The Trooper" and "Run to the Hills" which remind me of the back of the bus boombox blasting Maiden on the way to the Swansea Mall when I went to a badboy's school in Rhode Island in 1984...] They might be my least fave famous metal band. Them and Megadeth. And maybe Anthrax.”)

In the end, I wound up voting for seven after all. Oddly, eight would have been easier; that way I could have included Mariah. I should’ve checked off more women! This has got to be my most male ballot ever. Wasn’t thinking in those terms then. So instead I went with New Edition, figuring I like their second album (the one with “Cool It Now” and “Mr. Telephone Man”) as much as any Mariah album, plus I voted for her at least once before, plus N.E. are responsible for (among lesser spinoffs) Bobby Brown whose second solo album I always liked even though his best single (“Every Little Step”) isn’t on it, plus seems to me N.E. also deserve some credit for kickstarting two hugely important pop/r&b subgenres, i.e., New Jack Swing and Modern Vocal Boy Band. (If you think that’s not “rock’n’roll” enough, what do you say about doo-wop?)

Billy Idol made my list on the basis of the first two Generation X albums (second one was always underrated), a handful of decent solo hits, and the fact that a show he gave at NYC’s Bottom Line in April 2001 was what my wife and I did on our first date. (It was also the only time while I was the music editor of the Village Voice that I lied at a venue’s door that I was on a guest list. The employee in the ticket window said they couldn’t find my name on there, upon which I insisted “Are you sure? His publicist just called me the other day about it!,” upon which they still couldn’t find my name, upon which the door person’s boss yelled at him from behind “LET HIM IN, AND LET HIM IN NOW!!” A quarter-century later, I owe that dude a serious apology.)

Billy Idol deserves to be inducted way less than Mott the Hoople or the Sweet (both undoubtedly Generation X influences) deserve to be inducted; hell, I’d pick Nick Gilder first for “Hot Child in the City” (obvious blueprint for Idol’s “Hot in the City”) alone. But that’s not the way it works. Mott the Hoople also seemed like who Oasis was shooting for in the only song I ever remember liking by them, “Cigarettes and Alcohol” off their first album. But Gen X/Idol did it better. Idol also mixed hard rock with dance music better than INXS, I’d say — never really got that band. They often seemed okay (always appreciated how “Need You Tonight” swiped its funk bassline from the Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street” or Warren Zevon’s “Nighttime in the Switching Yard”) , never much better than okay. Though a couple years ago Death of Samantha/Cobra Verde alumnus John Petkovic’s synth-pop duo Metrolight covered an early song by INXS called “Don’t Change” that I had never heard or at least didn’t recognize. And I liked it a lot, so who knows. Maybe I should listen to them more.

Who else? Black Crowes’ version of “Hard to Handle” is a perfect record to shoot billiards too, but it’s not even their own song, and I never heard anything else by them I cared about; as ‘90s Triple A Crow(e)s go, I’d easily take Sheryl or even Counting. Sade’s ineptness at geography (“coast to coast L.A. to Chicago”) is as amusing as Kim Wilde’s (“New York to East California”), but otherwise I much prefer the latter artist; Sade’s music always just struck me as pleasant bossa novoid lounge gentility, though a couple years ago Frank Kogan wrote something about how the band’s musicians all sound like they’re on their own disconnected wavelengths or something like that, news to me so it’s possible I should spend more time with them. I like “In the Air Tonight” and probably would have voted for Genesis if instead of Phil Collins they were on the list (assuming they’re not already in); even like their first four increasingly pop-sellout-leaning ‘80s albums, so maybe I should have gone with Phil. But I didn’t.

Lauryn Hill is fine. I have nothing against her. Never saw the appeal of Jeff Buckley or Melissa Etheridge at all, but if you dig them, more power to you. And while Steve Crawford’s recommendations made sense, I didn’t opt for all his, either: “I would vote for Joy Division/New Order for inspiring generations of depressed teens with repressed dance ambitions. Oasis for reinvigorating stadium rock anthems. P!NK because I have too much enthusiasm for exclamation points. Iron Maiden because their fans always made me feel well groomed. The Black Crowes for popularizing a relatively obscure Otis Redding number. Also, the Wu-Tang Clan gets a vote for teaching me to protect my neck. The other selection — a homemade dart board.”

As somebody who posts as Future Rock Legends suggested on Bluesky, “The electronic ballot incentivizes more snap decisions,” which is totally true — I just wanted to get it over with, too much on my plate already. Next year I’ll vote better.