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The Big Takeover > essays

What I Think of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

by John Davidson
17 March 2006

THANKS, JOHNNY ROTTEN!

Next to the SEX PISTOLS rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain. Your museum. Urine in wine. Were not your monkey and so what? Fame at $25,000 if we paid for a table or $15,000 to squeak up in the gallery, goes to a non-profit organization selling us a load of old famous. Congradulations. If you voted for us, I hope you noted your reasons. Your anonymous as judges. but your still music industry people. Were not coming. Your not paying attention. Outside the sh*t-stem is a real SEX PISTOL.

Why does anyone care about the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame?

Unlike other sporting-themed sites whose entrants ostensibly qualify on the basis of statistical merit, the Rock Hall is a self-serving, blind-to-irony ego project. Yes, the Hall itself is a nice commemoration of the art form, but the annual induction of members is meaningless except to a) the lucky few who get to attend and b) the pat-themselves-on-the-back crowd who serve as the nominating committee. They pick their favorites for completely subjective reasons, and then acts like… BLONDIE get in.

Nothing against Blondie; they certainly were around for the genesis of the New York punk scene and were one of the few (only?) CBGB bands to go platinum. I like Blondie. But objectively it is hard to understand why Blondie is there before, say, IGGY POP. Blondie never represented the Bowery or CBGB’s or the burgeoning punk scene to the vast majority of their fans. Most fans, the ones outside of New York, saw (and see) Blondie as a pop act. And as a pop act, their influence and legend continues to be minimal; the vicious, embarrassing band in-fighting from the stage of the induction awards only underscores the irrelevance of the Hall.

Filed under music industry business

Comments

I agree with your antipathy towards the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let’s face it, any so-called “”Rock and Roll Hall of Hame” without IGGY POP, THE NEW YORK DOLLS and THE MC5 is a Hall of Shame.

I also agree with most of your notions about BLONDIE being viewed as a pop act by most of their fans.

However, I strongly disagree with your assertion that their influence in the pop sphere is minimal. They influenced everyone from MADONNA (and by default, every other blonde starlet type pop singer for the last 20-35 years) heavily style-wise if not music-wise and I think FRANZ FERDINAND is heavily indebted to them, too. Several of their songs sound like “Atomic” and their drummer admitted it in an interview once. For all the talk of them sounding like ORANGE JUICE, JOSEF K and other early ‘80s bands with more “indie cred”, they also owe a lot to BLONDIE and DURAN DURAN.


— Matthew Berlyant    2006-03-17 15:10    #

My point of referencing their influence on the pop world is more a point of how nebulous the term has become in the context of popular music and whether or not it provides validation to an artist’s greatness. “Influence” is simply too debatable and needs other tangible reference points to have any sort of objectivity.

Also, I would disagree on Blondie’s influence on Madonna. The first few Madonna albums are much, much more informed by R&B and the dance club scene that she was a part of in the early 1980s (many thought she was an African-American on her first album); it was Blondie’s embrace of disco that finally put them on the pop charts, and that was several years after Saturday Night Fever. I attribute Madonna’s embrace of blonde hair more to the iconic imaging of Marilyn Monroe, something she would be intimately familiar with because of her involvement with the dance/gay underground during her early years. Which isn’t to say that Blondie didn’t have any influence; it just seems like one of the more minimal ones. Blondie’s influence looms much larger on, say, No Doubt.

Again, I like Blondie but as far as wide-ranging influence goes, they are in a very crowded field of artists (most of whom will never be inducted.)


— John Davidson    2006-03-17 15:46    #

Point taken about Blondie’s influence on No Doubt and that artists as influential (if not more so) won’t ever be inducted, but that just goes back to the shortcomings of the Hall of Fame itself.

And yes, I acknowledged in my reply that Blondie’s influence on Madonna’s wasn’t as much musical (yeah her 1st album is pure disco), but I should clarify that it isn’t just peroxide, either. It’s more in the streetwise, tough but tender blonde/icy cold/ sexpot frontwoman/singer/you want me but don’t mess with me image that Debbie Harry certainly pioneered and Madonna (and many others most obviously Wendy James from Transvision Vamp) imitated.

Aside from all that, however, Blondie were a HUGE band in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. They sold something like 36 million records worldwide. Granted, I’m not saying that everyone who sells a lot of records is worthy of recognition on an artistic basis (though the popularity must be acknowledged), but I could imagine them (along with Devo, The Pretenders and others) being the gateway into punk for some who heard them back in the day or even people who hear “Heart of Glass” or “Call Me” on some radio station now.


— Matthew Berlyant    2006-03-17 20:22    #

Should Madonna be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year?
If you would like to vote her in – go to:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-2529-deserving-of-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame.aspx
The top 20 vote-getters at this point are:
1. Rush
2. Van Halen
3. Chicago
4. R.E.M.
5. Yes
6. Moody Blues
7. Deep Purple
8. Doobie Brothers
9. Peter Gabriel (solo)
10. Carole King
11. Dire Straits
12. Genesis
13. Alice Cooper
14. The Cars
15. John Mellencamp
16. Jethro Tull
17. Pete Townshend (solo)
18. Styx
19. Electric Light Orchestra
20. Heart
Madonna’s not in the top 20 at this point, but she is in the top 100.


— Garrett Jennings    2006-04-13 17:42    #