The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2013 Nominees

image from RockHall.com

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has nominated its class of 2013. Over the next couple months, the Hall’s voting body of roughly 600 musicians, industry types, and journalists will vote to determine which of them will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on April 18, 2013. Here are the 15 nominees:

• Paul Butterfield Blues Band
• Chic
• Deep Purple
• Heart
• Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
• Albert King
• Kraftwerk
• The Marvelettes
• The Meters
• Randy Newman
• N.W.A.
• Procol Harum
• Public Enemy
• Rush
• Donna Summer

You can read about each nominee at RockHallcom. In an interesting move, the Hall has added a way for fans to vote, although their voice will be minimal. Fans can vote at RollingStone.com and the top 5 vote getters will be entered as one of the 600+ ballots. Results will be announced in mid-December.

Rush finally gets long overdue nomination; image from progarchives.com

So who should go in? After last year’s class of nominees was announced, I tapped 39 lists arguing for who deserved inclusion. Based on that list, here’s how this year’s crop ranks:

1. Rush (2)
2. Deep Purple (5)
3. Heart (12)
4. Kraftwerk (39)
5. Public Enemy (47)
6. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (53)
7. Chic (55)
8. Procol Harum (81)
9. Randy Newman (86)

Not ranked: Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Albert King, The Marvelettes, The Meters, N.W.A., and Donna Summer.

As always, there will be plenty of debate regarding who didn’t get nominated – namely, KISS. In another blog post last year, I argued on behalf of KISS, Gram Parsons, Rush, Joy Division, and Deep Purple. I’m grateful that the Hall has listened to me and included two of my suggestions. ;)

Frankly, though, if that top 5 (Rush, Deep Purple, Heart, Kraftwerk, Public Enemy) were this year’s inductees, that would be an awesome class. There’s some nice diversity in terms of genre, race, and gender. We’d have a newbie (Public Enemy) and some long overdue nominees. Don’t hold your breath, though. Based on the Rock Hall’s past trends, I’d say Heart and Public Enemy have good shots among this class, but the other three slots are likely to go to the pet projects of Hall nominating committee members, meaning the other slots might well go to Chic, Albert King, and Donna Summer. They aren’t horrible picks, but they certainly aren’t more worthy than Rush and Deep Purple. We’ll see what happens.

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Resources and Related Links:

• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The 2013 Nominees, 4 October 2012
• RollingStone.com: Rush, Public Enemy, Deep Purple Nominated for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by Andy Greene, 4 October 2012
• Dave’s Music Database blog: The Top 100 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Hopefuls, 22 October 2011
• Dave’s Music Database blog: And This Year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Should Be…, 28 September 2011

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