The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame seems to forget what the foundation is about many times. It should be about the love of rock music and to honor the same. The issue is that sometimes music fans forget that, too, which is the case with the current leader for the 2026 Rock Hall fan vote, which has New Edition at the top.
To be sure, if New Edition is the leader when fan voting is done, the Rock Hall should think of doing away with the fan ballot counting altogether. It would mark the second straight year that an unworthy winner took the vote. Phish did so in 2025.
The good part is that simply because New Edition gets the most fan votes does not mean they will be inducted. All of the fan votes are collected into one ballot, which is added to more than a thousand other ballots from musicians, music historians, and record company executives to come up with the list of each year's inductees.
New Edition leads the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame fan vote after three weeks
New Edition was fine at what they did, which is being a boy band based on doo-wop groups from the 1950s and 1960s, and creating easy-listening R&B-tinged pop music. They were not in any way a rock group, and they weren't influential. New Edition was derivative themselves, and even putting them up for potential induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is like a bad joke.
Thankfully, the fan vote is rather meaningless, though a fun exercise. Music lovers clearly love the idea, too, because both New Edition and the far more worthy Phil Collins already have more than 500,000 votes. The leaderboard currently looks like this:
- 1. New Edition - 558,386
- 2. Phil Collins - 519,517
- 3. P!NK - 484,958
- 4. Luther Vandross - 411,039
- 5. INXS - 357,023
- 6. Sade - 350,179
- 7. Billy Idol - 343,035
- 8. Wu-Tang Clan - 325,592
- 9. Mariah Carey - 296,262
- 10. Lauryn Hill - 273,199
- 11. Shakira - 260,404
- 12. Iron Maiden - 231,716
- 13. Melissa Etheridge - 222,216
- 14. Oasis - 161,996
- 15. The Black Crowes - 159,129
- 16. Joy Division/New Order - 138,365
- 17. Jeff Buckley - 106,863
The 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame fan vote ends on April 3. Hopefully, by that time, a worthy artist will take the vote. That could mean Phil Collins, Iron Maiden, Oasis, the Black Crowes, or Melissa Etheridge comes from behind to win.