ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, OCT. 16, 2013
By Steve Newton
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has done it again. It’s made a complete ass of itself by nominating, for the eighth time, Chic.
When you consider that somebody like Irish guitar hero Rory Gallagher hasn’t once been given the nod, it’s utterly preposterous.
No less a rock icon than Slash himself has petitioned for Gallagher to be inducted, but instead you’ve got jokers like Rock Hall cofounder Jann Wenner tirelessly working to honour the disco band that first hit it big with the single “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)”.
It’s a fucking disgrace.
But at least the Hall of Fame—which can’t be called Rock and Roll anymore—redeemed itself somewhat with its other nominations for 2014.
For one thing, a couple of nerds on the nomination panel must have finally broken down and given Link Wray’s revolutionary 1958 instro-rock track “Rumble” a listen. Or maybe they came across this old video of “Rawhide”.
I’m also gonna give credit to the Hall of Fame for finally nominating Deep Purple, which got shafted last year, and has been eligible for two decades. What the hell took so long? Did the nerds get their noses out of joint ’cause they couldn’t master the riff to “Smoke on the Water”?
It was also cool that they nominated the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, although they should have given guitarist Mike Bloomfield his free pass ages ago anyway. (They finally inducted Albert King last year, so what’s the holdup with Mike?)
Another no-brainer was the nomination of Nirvana, and speaking of no brains, KISS got nominated too, so now Gene Simmons can quit pretending he doesn’t care about being barred from the joint.
Other nominees include the Replacements, Cat Stevens, Hall and Oates, Linda Ronstadt, NWA, Yes, the Meters, the Zombies, Peter Gabriel, and L.L. Cool J.
And oh yeah—the morons forgot about Thin Lizzy again.
Rory Gallagher puts all of these other artists to shame. Thin Lizzy was phenomenal. Gary Moore, Yes, Kiss, Deep Purple, Bon Jovi, The CARS, Def Leppard, B-52’s, Cheap Trick, Chicago, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Iron Maiden, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Joe Cocker, T-Rex, and JOURNEY?? How do you not elect these groups? And seriously, there is NO ONE more deserving than Rory Gallagher. But to be honest, he was way too pure and excellent to be in the R&R Hall of Shame. And seriously, what did anyone expect when they built the damn thing in Cleveland…. You know, the city whose river caught on fire and burned for a week?