The Dryer And The Rock Hall

 For some time, the dryer in the hosue where I live has been dying.  The only heat cycle that worked was the low heat, and even then only sometimes.  Then last Tuesday, I did a load of laundry, out of the washer by late morning and into the dryer. And there that load stayed until the next morning.  The final heat cycle had crapped out.  Despite telling my landlord about it, we couldn't get it taken care of that night, so I had to just keep running it on no heat.  The drum still spun, and I guess air was still blowing inside it, but the laundry would just not dry properly.  Said following morning, after nearly a full 24 hours in the dryer, I removed the load out of resignation.  It was finally dry enough to fold and put away, and my landlord said no problem then!  My clothes were dry, so I shouldn't be upset!  But I was upset.  I had another load to do that included towels and denim.  I was upset that we weren't going to have a working dryer in the house to take care of the rest of my laundry.  I was upset that what should have taken an hour took a day, and that he's going to flip out when he realizes that having to run the dryer so many times is going to wreak havoc on the electric bill this month.  I was upset that I had to do laundry for months with a dryer that wasn't working the way it was supposed to, and now is completely broken.  And I was getting upset that I was being told I shouldn't be upset about it because my clothes were finally dry.  I should be happy my clothes were dry, and forget about the fact that the dang dryer is broken.

On a relatively unrelated note, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame announced their Class Of 2021 last Wednesday, the same day that first load was finally dry.  First off, a little bit of a cheer.  At the most petty level, boo-yah.  Six for six.  My seventh pick was a 50-50, might-or-might-not-happen scenario, but the top six... nailed it.  I feel pretty good about it, especially since I've had years where I only got two correct.  This was a much-needed win for my confidence.  Onto the inductees now, I'm absolutely stoked about Tina Turner and Carole King getting their second inductions.  They are both so absolutely deserving of the honors.  I currently am unable to access the old file I had of my list of 100 inductions I wanted to see, but I'm reasonably certain Carole King was on it.  I know Tina wasn't, because when I wrote the list back in 2004, I didn't realize her first release as a soloist was in the 1970s.  I thought her solo career hit the ground running with "What's Love Got To Do With It" and that she had a few more years to wait.  Not much to say about Foo Fighters getting in.  It's yet another reminder that the Hall's pecking order is not sorted chronologically, but we all know that already.  Congratulations to Dave Grohl becoming the first living double first-year-eligible inductee.  I'm extremely thrilled that the Go-Go's made it.  Not just because of their contribution in the battle for representation in the Hall, but because they just have an awesome energy to their music, even if I don't glomp on every track.  They really are a fantastic example of unquestionable musical excellence.  This band could be the headliner, not just because they rock, but their music embraces positivity in such an upbeat and peppy way that would bring down the house: something that the distortion pedals of Foo Fighters, the braggadochio of Jay-Z, the sass of Tina Turner, the offbeat quirk of Todd Rundgren, and the comparatively mellow style of Carole King all don't have.  Not that any of those acts wouldn't make great closers, but to be able to end the night with such cheerful and revelrous vibes would be epic.  I'm officially casting my vote that no one will care about; I want the Go-Go's as the headliners.  Of the six inductees, Todd Rundgren seems to be the one people are disappointed in.  Maybe it's because they didn't predict him; maybe it's because they know he won't show up for the ceremony.  Maybe it's because people wanted his work behind the scenes to be included in his induction in a little box with a bow and a tag that read "Award For Musical Excellence," but whatever the reason, watchers have been kind of grumbling about this one slightly.  I say give his records another listen.  And despite not having a huge string of hit singles, he had a good output of albums, and he genuinely deserves his induction as a Performer.  Again, I can't be sure, but he might have been on that list of 100 I had.  He might not have though.  Lastly, congrats to Jay-Z on also getting in. I'm a little surprised that my "deferred induction" thought generated any conversation on Twitter, but it was cool to at least discuss.  I will confess, I didn't really think it was going to happen, as evidenced by the fact I still predicted him to get in this year, but it was a fun little way to guess how the Hall was going to try to have it both ways.  And really, was it so hard to imagine?  Things seem like nonsense until the Rock Hall does them.  Then they seem like nonsense BECAUSE the Rock Hall does them.

Which brings us to the other categories.  Well, maybe not the Ahmet Ertegun Award category, other than the fact that it's still named after a notorious womanizer.  But there is certainly no controversy around the induction of Clarence Avant in this category.  As far as anyone can tell, there's no insider baseball kind of cronyism surrounding this induction.  Although I now wonder if maybe someone attached to the Hall is involved with the documentary.  Maybe it's best not to peek under that rock and just enjoy this induction as worthy of happening.  And absolutely no static from anyone about Charley Patton receiving an Early Influence induction.  This is the kind of education that the Hall does when it's doing its job right.  I plan to spend some time listening to his catalog soon and getting a feel for his importance.  Randy Rhoads is going to receive an Award For Musical Excellence induction, and that makes sense.  An incredible heavy metal guitarist who probably wouldn't be included in the Quiet Riot induction that is never going to happen anyway.  But his contributions to metal cannot be ignored, and thankfully, they won't be.  Getting a little muddier, I have mixed feelings about Billy Preston being given the Award For Musical Excellence induction.  True, he was a very important session musician, but he also had a substantial recording career, and the Hall has inducted Performer inductees that weren't as successful as Preston, and arguably not as influential either.  Still, I can respect the argument that his session work was more important.  Besides which, this harkens back to when they first renamed the Sideman category to Award For Musical Excellence to honor Leon Russell, another session man with a career as a featured artist that was worth at least peeking into.  So.... okay.  And I know for certain that Billy Preston was on that list of 100, so I get another year added onto the streak, that the Zombies and Doobie Brothers kept alive the past two years.

But of course, it's the other three that are causing the arching of eyebrows.  I won't rehash the entirety of what I've said on Twitter, but inducting Gil Scott-Heron and Kraftwerk in the Early Influence category when there were a few nominees for the Performer category who predate them is, to put it mildly. inconsistent.  And of course the Hall went ahead and redefined the parameters of the category.  And for all those who wanted the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame to have a Veterans Committee category, congratulations, you got it.  It's called "Early Influence," because the Hall had to take a simple task and find a way to screw it up.  I'm personally disgruntled because rock and roll is a style of music to me.  It is a style of music that is the product of a multitude of sources, and is constatnly evolving and incorporating other influences to keep making wonderful and varied subgenres, but it is still a style of music.  With their redefinition of the category, the Hall has pretty much conceded the definition of "rock and roll" as "the music of youth culture."  To be completely fair, I have gone on record to talk about how youth culture was a catalyst for the rise and domination of rock and roll.  But I also have opined at great length about how history has benchmarks that are immutable.  This is not something that I can lay entirely at the feet of John Sykes, as the idea has been getting batted about for some time now. But this is very much in keeping with John Sykes' promise to move the Hall forward to reach the younger generations.  I'm certainly all for that, but as I've stated before, it's hard for a pop cultural institution to reach a generation that is younger than the career of even the most newly eligible candidate for said institution.  That's not denying there are teenagers interested in music made before they were born (that was me, after all), but it's not the norm.  So unless the Rock Hall is officially changing the dictionary to define "youth culture" to mean "parents who aren't yet strenuously recommended to get annual mammograms or prostate exams," maybe they need to try a different approach.  In any event, calling something pre-rock when it isn't is wrong and calling something "pre-movement" or "pre-moment" is just.... ew.

And if that makes you feel icky, arguably worse than that is the induction of LL Cool J in the Award For Musical Excellence category.  As I stated above, this category was the phoenix that rose from the ashes of the murdered-young Sideman category.  Unlike most of the other inductees in this category, there's really nothing about LL's career in rap that wasn't Performer.  What's galling about this though, is I have a strong suspicion how the Hall is going to frame the video package.  Last year, the induction package for Jon Landau tried to frame him primarily as a producer, a critic second, and a manager third; while the truth is any real credentials beyond being on the Nominating Committee is from being Springsteen's maanger first and far away, and producer and critic so far behind that it doesn't matter which one ranks second and which third.  Same with Ringo Starr, whose video package dwelt heavily on how he revolutionized rock and roll drumming.  So with LL Cool J, look for the video package to focus on two things: one, the importance of Def Jam records, and thereby LL Cool J; two, his overall celebrity and how it elevates rap and the African-American community at large. Well, a Rock Hall induction isn't an NAACP Award, and the Rock Hall certainly doesn't have enough moral footing to extol the latter predicted focus.  And the entirety of his importance to Def Jam records was as a recording artist.

So why care?  As has been said, in six months, when someone asks, "Is Kraftwerk in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?", we'll be able to say, "Yes."  Well, you'll be able to say, "Yes."  I'll be sucking in air through my teeth and exhaling, "Technicallllyyyyyyyyy...." It's like the dryer.  Is my laundry dry?  Perhaps, but I still have the right to be mad that it took 12-16 hours of the drum turning to get it dry; that my situation is such that as long as one heating cycle is operating, my landlord is going to ignore all advisory that the darn thing is on its last leg; that at one point the plan was to transplant the plug off the old dryer and put it on the upstairs dryer so that it could run downstairs (which apparently is a thing, but just sounds sketchy and unsafe).  At the end of the day, I'm upset that I'm having to deal with that which is broken.  It shouldn't be this hard to get a load of laundry done at home.  It shouldn't be this hard to induct LL Cool J into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as an artist of the rock and roll era whose music is part of the rock and roll diaspora.  Same with Kraftwerk.  Same with Chaka Khan, Devo, Queen Latifah, Iron Maiden, Wanda Jackson, Judas Priest, Fela Kuti, Jethro Tull, Lesley Gore, Tina Turner, Eurythmics, Soundgarden, Barry White, the Stylistics, Chubby Checker, the Shangri-La's, the Marvelettes, and a myriad of other artists. (And yes, the inclusion of Tina Turner was intentional, because when the discussion of Tina as a solo artist was mentioned on the "Who Cares About The Rock Hall?" podcast, the response of the three guests was surprising, to say the least.)  It's upsetting that the system is broken and the solution in place is patchwork and jury-rigging.  We want to be able to respect the process as well as the institution.  I said on Twitter that it must be true that fans always care more about canon than the institutions themselves, and that has proven true again (proof: futurerocklegends.com is a better resource for Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame information than the official website of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame).  Part of the reason we didn't care as much before is the information wasn't as readily available as it is now.  

The Rock Hall did a great job with the Performer category this year, and though it would have been great to have more, these six by themselves ain't bad.  And to be fair, the majority of the inductees in the other categories are either spot on or reasonable.  And getting Early Influence or Award For Musical Excellence is a hell of a lot better than getting pigeonholed for one song in the Singles Category.  But I'm apprehensive about what it means down the road.  Calling Kraftwerk and Gil Scott-Heron "Early Influences" is explicitly calling them "Not rock and roll." Same with putting LL Cool J in the AME category.  It's saying what he brought to the table was important to rock and roll, and maybe a part of rock and roll culture, but it's not rock and roll music.  This is how the rockists win.  This is how the Performer category eventually kowtows to the narrow-minded who believe if it ain't an all-white, all-male guitar band, it ain't rock and roll.  This is how the Hall caters to those who will never (and maybe can never) visit the museum, and even if they do, they'll only go to the exhibits about their favorite bands because they have absoltuely no interest in the educational aspects of the institution, only that the music that fuels their BDE (or SPR more accurately) is validated.  And as far as I'm concerned, this is how the Hall codifies the stratification of artists of color or any gender other than male that should be Performers, but get told, "Well, not quite."  I don't like how asserting that LL's AME nod is not a consolation prize has eerie echoes of things I'm not even comfortable saying on this blog.  The Hall has never really acted with integrity, but if it really can do whatever it wants, what does it say that it wants to do it this way?

But can the Hall?  The longer this goes on, the more I see what I believe are the limits of the Foundation's power.  In the past, I've said that if induction by fiat really was a thing, Chic would be in.  But now, we know what induction by fiat really looks like.  It would appear the Hall is accountable to other interests when it comes to the main draw: the Performer category.  This in no way is meant as a mea culpa for the above paragraph either, make no mistake.  The Rock Hall should be able, and maybe used to be able, to tell exhibition outlets like HBO, "Here's what we're doing. Work around it."  It would appear that now, in an age where audio exhibition is dominated less by purchases than it is by ad revenue on streaming services, and where artists can no longer make it on album sales but have to have either a hugely successful tour and line of merchandise or endorsement deals to sustain themselves, the Hall has to rely on the HBO presentation of the ceremony as its major fundraiser (and the event itself), which gives HBO the leverage to call the shots.  And it appears they are trying to format the event like a television show, apparently right down to how much airtime an act is worth.  It seems like a living Performer inductee is worth as many minutes of airtime as two AME inductees and a Non-Performer.  I mean, maybe LL Cool J really did finish that low in the vote totals, but the Hall's lack of transparency would have been the perfect cover for calling him a seventh Performer inductee. No one would have known, and only those most upset about Iron Maiden missing out would have been upset at having two rapper Performer inductees.  Maybe the Hall really respects their voting process that much, it just seems like the less likely reason for this.  Future Rock Legends suggested giving the Nominating Committee their automatic inductee, (which I also suggested once, but in all fairness, my suggestion of it was a few sentences buried in a long paragraph in an extremely long post), and at this point, I'd welcome that.  HBO probably wouldn't approve, but no one would have to tell them that's what the Hall's doing either.  

The sad reality is, as long as television formatting for the ceremony dictates how the classes are shaped, we're never going to get bigger classes with more Performer inductees.  The only way to make that happen within some semblance of those parameters... is to do away with individual performances.  Bring it back to the old days where all the speeches and video packages are done, and have some instruments onstage aftwerards, and then whoever wants to jam together can make some musical magic together in a frenzied free-for-all of rock and roll energy.  You can edit the speeches down all you want, and limit who talks for how long, but the musical performances are where the time is going to be eaten up, between setting up, performing, and striking to transition.  More inductees will necessitate fewer performances, which nobody wants.  Even I don't want it, though growing up without MTV or any opportunity to see concerts--where if it wasn't played on commercial radio, it didn't exist--would at least make me more able to adjust to it.  There's also talk of multiple ceremonies, the logistics of which would be a mess, and other hybrid suggestions of these things.  I hope we can find a way to once again have nine or ten Performer inductees a year.  There is no perfect system because what the fans want and what it takes to make these things happen are seemingly at odds against the backdrop of the crony capitalistic dystopia that envelops the millennial lives and awaits to haunt the younger generations.  Such things are beyond the power of the Hall's powers-that-be.

However, these side categories are completely under the control of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.  That's why there are so many inductees in them this year, because their inductions will presumably take less time, and so the Hall can operate independently in deciding these categories. And this is where the failure truly does belong to the powers-that-be in the Foundation.  As both the "Who Cares About The Rock Hall?" and the "Hall Watchers" podcasts pointed out, as have multiple blog posts, there are literally no women in any of these other categories.  Not one.  This is the third year where there have been more inductees outside of the Performer category than in it (2000 and 2010 being the other years), and for all of that, they couldn't induct any women.  The only three women in Non-Performer category are songwriters who were inducted with their historic songwriting and marriage partners.  The only woman inducted in the Award For Musical Excellence category is a member of a large backing band that but for her is all men.  The Hall's extensive use of these categories this year suggests a unilateral control over inductions into these categories.  This is where we really can say that if they wanted to do it, they would.  And they didn't.  We still don't have Estelle Axton.  We still don't have Ella Fitzgerald.  We still don't have Carol Kaye.  We still don't have the Three Degrees.  We don't have all these women who should be in already.  The Hall just didn't do them, but instead chose to reword the categories' parameters.  If putting in LL Cool J in the Award For Musical Excellence category, thereby getting him off the ballot, is what it takes to finally get Salt-n-Pepa on the ballot, then at least some good will have come out of it.  But I have a pesky feeling that unless some personnel changes are made on these subcommittees, it's not gonna happen.  Last year's inductions of Irving Azoff and Jon Landau served as a reminder that the Hall, despite all the good it has done over the years, was originally an institution for the people in the room, where selections were made by the people in the room, to celebrate the people in the room for being the people in the room.  This year is a softening of that stance.  And maybe they meant it as a middle finger to HBO saying, "Only six Performers, well fine, but we're doing SEVEN in the other categories!"  But it still also serves as an enforcement of the patriarchy of the institution.  The Hall needs to induct more women, they need more women on the NomComm and in the voting body, and we men all need to listen to women more.  Last year, on "Who Cares About The Rock Hall?", when Evelyn McDonnell discussed her ballot, she mentioned how she felt torn because there were male acts she wanted to vote for, but felt it would be a betrayal of her cause if she did.  It shouldn't be like that.  We need to get to where a nomination and vote for Duran Duran (an all-male band whose nomination and induction I've seen advocated for by women on Twitter) won't be seen as betrayal, but rather the result of listening to women.  I'm guilty of it too, and spectacularly so (rereading things I'd previously written make me cringe at the carelessness of wording, for starters), but I'm trying to get better.  We can't give up though.  There was another analogy involoving chicken nuggets to make, but Kristen Studard said it right, where maybe we should just have a ballot without white men.  Amen.  And awomen to that, too.

Nelson Mandela said the wheels of government grind slowly, and that really applies to bureaucracy of any kind.  Maybe we're mad because the change isn't coming as immediate as our Amazon Prime packages.  Those of us who are upset are definitely upset because it didn't happen the way we feel it should have in a more utopian environment.  But there were some good surprises too.  This is an overall good class, and it's important to remember than of the thirteen inductees, nine or ten of them most of us have little quarrel with.  Progress was made, and it's important to treat that progress as a beginning rather than laurels to rest on.  Maybe we'll even learn to be more gentle and encouraging to the Hall.  Anything is possible.  This has been a good start, and we'll move on up a little higher next season.  But for now, I'm going to go bang the drum all day, forget about the ninety-nine problems, and the monkey wrench the Hall is using to try and fix them.  Maybe I'll go see a private dancer, because apparently, it's too late for me to do any better with my social life.  Or maybe I just need a vacation. 

And in case you're wondering, I got my other load of laundry done, thanks to friends from church who showed me grace.  Still don't have a dryer yet, so we'll see what happens this week.