Fan voting for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class for 2026 is almost done. For the second year in a row, music lovers have put an iffy nominee at the top of the list, but thankfully, all the fan votes will be grouped onto one ballot and placed with more than 1,200 ballots.
Besides the one-ballot fan vote, music historians, musicians, and record company executives will also have their say. The list of inductees will be announced later in April. That group is unlikely to match the fan vote exactly.
The leader after a month and a half of voting is the non-rock musical artist New Edition. The boyband makes some catchy tunes, but it was far more pop and commercially appealing than a mover and shaker in the genre the Hall is named for. Their inclusion would be odd.
With one day left in the fan vote for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 2026, Phil Collins is running second
In second place is a far more fitting artist, Phil Collins. His former band, Genesis, was inducted in 2010, but Collins has had a decades-long successful solo career. His drumming is also extremely influential, and cited by artists like XTC for how they recorded the drum sound for their records.
The scary part, if the actual vote follows the fan vote (which, again, isn't extremely likely), is that Iron Maiden is buried on the list. They are currently running at No. 12 and are very unlikely to move up. After all, nearly nine million votes have been cast so far, and the voting has remained mostly the same for the last month.
2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame fan vote as of April 2:
- 1. New Edition - 965,819
- 2. Phil Collins - 844,101
- 3. P!NK - 796,410
- 4. Luther Vandross - 689,647
- 5. Shakira - 655,015
- 6. INXS - 603,332
- 7. Sade - 587,028
- 8. Wu-Tang Clan - 576,954
- 9. Billy Idol - 559,395
- 10. Mariah Carey - 476,020
- 11. Lauryn Hill - 446,527
- 12. Iron Maiden - 370,435
- 13. Melissa Etheridge - 361,915
- 14. The Black Crowes - 258,659
- 15. Oasis - 245,250
- 16. Joy Division/New Order - 216,458
- 17. Jeff Buckley - 161,486
In 2025, Phish led the fan vote by a fairly wide margin. The jam band was rightfully not included among the inductees last year, though. The fan vote is fun, but ultimately meaningless. That could turn out to be the case in 2026, too, with New Edition leading the fan vote, but might not actually be inducted.