Why we vote how we vote.

After having devised the pecking orders for the 2015 nominees, it stands to reason that we could accurately peg how one (in this case I) would vote if given a ballot, or in their (my) contribution to the fan ballot on the Rock Hall website.

On paper, it seems fairly simple: some hybrid of the merits and tastes.  And for the most part, it does indeed work that way.  Looking at my lists of both merits and personal taste, I see that both the Smiths and Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble make the top five in both categories.  Naturally, both of those go on my ballot.  The Marvelettes just missed the Top 5 on one and just made the Top 5 on the other, so they’d probably get my vote as well.  Despite being in the bottom half of merit, they ran second in taste, so the Spinners have an average that’s tied with the Marvelettes, and would get the vote from me as well.  The fifth highest average of merit and preference is N.W.A, who despite being in the bottom five for personal enjoyment, are a solid second in terms of deserving induction.  So, reasonably, I should be casting my ballot for Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, the Smiths, the Marvelettes, the Spinners, and N.W.A.

Pretty simple, right?  And if that were the class that was inducted, I’d be pretty happy.  I’d also shit bricks because there’s no way this class is happening, but that’s for another entry.  Just like probably everyone else who reads this, I’ve submitted a fan ballot several times on the Rock Hall’s website, and every time, four of those five names have indeed been checked off.  However, instead of N.W.A. getting the fifth, I’ve been waffling mostly between Bill Withers and War.  Sometimes Bill Withers who finished sixth in averages, and sometimes War, who despite being tied for ninth in averages, was seventh in personal taste.  Sometimes I did vote for N.W.A., too, though.  In short, it seems that if I were a member of the voting bloc, it’s clear where four of my votes would go, while the fifth would take some time to figure out.  And I gotta say that’s pretty accurate.  For me.

But I’m giving equal weight to personal preferences as to merits.  Others have a different weight scale.  Like my fiancé for example, who admittedly is only doing this because I hamper her about it.  Sorry honey.  Anyway, if she applied my logic and went with the averages of her taste and how she feels they stack up objectively, her ballot would be cast for Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, Bill Withers, Green Day, the Marvelettes, and Sting.  Sixth place, by the way, went to Joan Jett And The Blackhearts.  Yet, she’s not as attached to the artists on this ballot for personal enjoyment, Green Day being the only one she really loves, with the top five being filled out with Bill Withers, Sting, Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, and Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble (sixth place: the Marvelettes).  However, she’s admitted that when it comes to actually casting a ballot, she’d stick strictly to her merits ranking.  Her top five by her definitions of merits sees it going Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, the Smiths, the Marvelettes, N.W.A., and Bill Withers, with Sting being the sixth optional (don’t ask me, it’s her merits).

Similarly, consider the opinion of PopeCharming/AlexVoltaire, whose Northumbrian blog was kind enough to plug mine a few times, and for which, thank you.  His top six for merits were Kraftwerk, N.W.A., Green Day, Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, Nine Inch Nails, and Bill Withers.  His personal preferences saw the top six ranked as Bill Withers, the Spinners, Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, Sting, War, and Green Day.  When you take both ranks of all fifteen nominees, his top five are Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, Bill Withers, Kraftwerk, Green Day, and the Spinners, with a near miss by War in sixth place.  At the end of that entry, where he said for whom he’d cast his vote, he did indeed choose the first four, but instead of the Spinners for number five, he selected N.W.A., stating that if he had a sixth and seventh choice, then he’d cast for the Spinners and War (N.W.A. tied for seventh on his averages, tied with Chic).

Another perspective comes from Tom Lane, who didn’t rank them by merits or taste per se, but simply put the nominees in a pecking order by likelihood to vote for them.  However, reading his rationale behind each pecking point, it’s fairly clear that he was swayed much more by personal taste than by whom he felt deserved the honors more.    His top five were the Spinners, Chic, Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, the Smiths, and War.

These are all important because as much as they might try to deny it, members of the voting bloc are also humans and likewise afflicted by the need to reconcile personal tastes with how seminal an artist really is.  And with some of them, artists especially, personal relationships with the nominees are a factor too.  It’s generally accepted by those of us on the outside that the only reason Chic has ever been nominated is because of the ties between Nile Rodgers and current NomCom members.  Cronyism seems to be a big factor.  Cronyism is also what is usually referred to when nay-sayers claim that “it’s all political,” but what about literal politics?  Political activism that resonates with the political beliefs of voters probably played a factor in the decision to vote in people like Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne so quickly, while differing politics may have been a factor in what kept an act like Alice Cooper off the ballot for so long, and continues to keep others like Ted Nugent or Pat Boone eternally out of the Hall.  Even if not on the politically opposite end of the spectrum, being a neutral can be enough to rub them the wrong way, i.e. whoever’s not with us is against us.  It could even be a factor in determining why Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine is a NomCom member and not Alice Cooper, nee Vincent Furnier, or Lars Ulrich.  In all fairness, we laypeople aren’t entirely immune from the influence of politics either, but we are less inclined to consider it seriously as a factor when deciding who deserves enshrinement and who doesn’t, possibly because we don’t get to anyway.

But for now we still have the fan ballot, and as infinitesimal as our individual, repeatedly cast vote is to the total ballot and the entire vote overall, it’s still something that we owe it to ourselves to be conscientious of why we choose those that we do.  It’ll also give our future gripes with the Hall more credence among each other, but that’s just a fringe benefit.  With the growth of the impact of grassroots campaigns to get artists inducted, knowing ourselves first will help us more effectively reach out to them.

In closing, I’m going to include the full list of my fiancé’s lists, both merits and personal taste, since I put her through this every year, it’s not fair to her to not publish her lists.  Enjoy.

Her Merit Rank

1. Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble
2. The Smiths
3. The Marvelettes
4. N.W.A.
5. Bill Withers
6. Sting
7. Green Day
8. Chic
9. Nine Inch Nails
10. Lou Reed
11. Joan Jett And The Blackhearts
12. The Spinners
13. War
14. Kraftwerk
15. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Her Personal Taste Rank

1. Green Day
2. Bill Withers
3. Sting
4. Joan Jett And The Blackhearts
5. Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble
6. The Marvelettes
7. The Spinners
8. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
9. Nine Inch Nails
10. Lou Reed
11. War
12. Chic
13. N.W.A.
14. Kraftwerk
15. The Smiths