The 2026 nominees for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have been announced, and there are 17 acts named. (Technically, there are 18, but New Order and Joy Division always get grouped together.) 10 of the artists are nominated for the first time.
To be sure, not everyone named is worthy of being inducted. Phish, for instance, was nominated last year and even won the fan vote, but thankfully wasn't deemed worthy of being included in the Rock Hall. The 2026 list has artists that don't belong either.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame should only include artists who are historically important, not just popular at one point. The inductees should be transformative and have been impactful commercially and artistically. It would be nice if they were also rock artists.
Three artists nominated for 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction who don't belong
The following artists do not belong in the Rock Hall. They might have made decent music, but including them on a list for potential Hall induction is overrating their catalog and influence.
Sade
Here is a question for non-Sade fans: Is the name a person's or a band's? If you aren't sure, that might tell you all you need to know about whether Sade belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. (It's the name of the band, by the way.) Most people should know enough about the name of an act to know who or what it references.
Sade makes fine, smooth songs, and they certainly had a good level of popularity, especially in their native UK. But their name isn't the biggest issue with them not being Hall-worthy. It is they don't make rock music, and they didn't influence rock bands.
They also didn't produce enough music (just six studio albums) to be transformative in any way. A handful of singles that remain earworms isn't enough. Their music wasn't bad, and they haven't produced an album since 2010, but they belong in a smooth jazz Hall of Fame, not a rock one.
New Edition
The same can almost be said of New Edition. Maybe an R&B Hall should accept them, but not one for rock music. The singing group also wasn't breaking new ground in any way. They were derivative of 1950s doo-wop groups, and New Edition did a good job of mimicking them.
Even their popularity is overrated. One might know a few NE tunes and can sing along with them, while assuming there were many other hits. On the US charts, the group had just four top-10 singles. They had one in the UK.
New Edition made undangerous R&B tunes that could be heard at family get-togethers. Not exactly the rock ethos.
INXS
Admittedly, this one hurts. I was a big fan of the Australian band in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The guitar sound is particularly interesting on the single "Listen Like Thieves," but INXS didn't make music that was supposed to challenge. The band made albums and songs that purely entertained.
Vocalist Michael Hutchence was by far the most interesting member of the group, as the other members were not much more than session musicians. That isn't meant to throw shade, but simply that Hutchence made the band different than others of the same ilk.
INXS also had a relatively short peak. The band started producing albums in 1980 and made their last in 2010, 13 years after Hutchence's death, but they were mainly popular from 1985 through 1990. Much of the music they made simply wasn't interesting, especially in a historical sense.
What is worse, though, is that the remaining members of the band held a TV competition to find a new vocalist to replace Hutchence. It just felt like a money-grab and gross. The move certainly didn't pay off commercially in the long run.