20 egregious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame snubs

Performers M through W

The Monkees

Remember that thing about Jethro Tull not being taken seriously by fans and critics alike? The Monkees have them beaten by a mile. The simple fact is that The Monkees were a great pop-rock band who produced a great many hit records, but were never taken seriously because they were “created” for a TV show by a couple of filmmakers – Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider. They held auditions – found two actual musicians in Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith to pair with a couple of musically-inclined actors/comedians in Davey Jones and Micky Dolenz – and launched a psychedelic, absurdist show that ran for a couple of seasons in the late ‘60s.

They were massively successful for a short period of time, recording songs by other writers like Neil Diamond and the Boyce/Hart team. When they began doing their own material the popularity waned, but the songs actually got better and more ambitious. In the end, they simply produced too much first-rate pop rock to be excluded from the Hall.

Diana Ross

 She is already in as a member of the Supremes. But just as Ozzy Osbourne is likely to get into the Hall as a soloist this year after already being in as part of a band, Diana Ross’s solo career clearly merits inclusion. If the Hall concedes that the Supremes should be included despite not being actual rock & rollers, there is no way to exclude Ross.

As a solo act, she has sixteen albums that made it into the top 20 on the US R&B chart, including three number ones. Thirteen top 20 singles on the main US chart, including six number ones. I mean, Diana Ross has already presented three other Hall inductees including the Jackson 5 and Billie Holiday. The Hall can recognize her twice.

Soundgarden

Post-punk is badly under-represented in the Hall. Soundgarden gets lumped in with other grunge bands because of their Seattle roots, and because, well, they did dabble in grunge. But they did a lot more than that.

They only released six studio albums, but the final three made it in the top five in the mainstream US charts, with their magnum opus, Superunknown, hitting number one. Do you want to reserve the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for rock acts? Soundgarden scored 13 top twenty singles on the Rock charts, with six of them reaching number one. If I had my way, Husker Du, the Replacements, Dinosaur Jr, and Sonic Youth would also be in the Hall – but I’ll settle for Soundgarden – for now.

Barbra Streisand

Mariah Carey is getting in this year. She is the only female recording artist to sell more albums in the USA than Streisand. Streisand has never even flirted with Rock and Roll, but if the doors are now open for pop music performers, Streisand has to be included. She has five number one singles on the mainstream chart and eight on Adult Contemporary (along with an equal number of number twos.)

Dionne Warwick

See Barbra Streisand. Actually, Warwick may have an even better claim. Though her career was not quite as impressive as Streisand’s, she had twenty top twenty singles on the R&B charts, which have always been deemed more closely aligned with rock and roll than the pure pop that Streisand recorded. The death of composer Bert Bachrach last year renewed interest in Warwick’s career since she was the greatest interpreter of his difficult jazz-tinged pop creations.

Weezer

Not only is Weezer not in the Hall, but to the best of my knowledge, they have never even been nominated. Yeah – I don’t get that. They are among the most successful and important emo acts of all time, and if you don’t like emo, they offer lots of other flavors of power pop. I mean, Taylor Swift has identified Rivers Cuomo as one of her musical heroes (though to be fair, if that were the only criterion, Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy would also be in the Hall. Actually, Blink should be, and Fall Out Boy isn’t eligible yet, so I don’t have to have an opinion on that.)