The inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have been announced, with the Stooges, Genesis, and ABBA leading a pack of acts to be honored at the 25th annual ceremony, set for New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel March 15, Billboard reports.
Brit hitmakers the Hollies, Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff, industry honcho David Geffen, and a handful of songwriters — including Otis Blackwell (“Great Balls of Fire”) and girl-group masterminds Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry (“It’s My Party,” “Be My Baby”) — will also be inducted.
The list of inductees is already falling under criticism for those not on the list. Kiss and Red Hot Chili Peppers, both early favorites when the list of noms was announced in September, didn’t make the cut.
So, aside from the Stooges — who’ve been nominated and rejected seven times before now — there really isn’t much rock in the Rock Hall inductees next year, especially considering that Metallica and rock pioneer/Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck led the pack in 2009. Hip-hop, which was represented in 2009 with Run-DMC’s induction, is missing too; nominee LL Cool J didn’t make the cut.
Do you find the inductees confusing — especially the inclusion of ABBA, the pop group responsible for the Broadway play Mamma Mia!?
Well, so do the Swedish chart-toppers. “It’s pretty unexpected,” Bjorn Ulvaeus, co-founder of the group, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “It’s a wonderful thing, of course. I’m slightly overwhelmed, considering the other people in the Hall of Fame.”
Rock Hall 2010: Um, rock on…???
