2024 Rock & Roll HOF screechfest

And I think The Swing might be better than those two.

Solid run.

 

Look, I never speak in hyperbole, OK?

I'm sure there were other Bowie types. But he felt the most famous to me over the last 30-odd years. I could absolutely be overlooking/forgetting someone.

 

The only band of that period I can think of who kind of maintained credibility as both metal and grunge after the great Metal-Grunge Shift was Alice In Chains. Seemed the metal heads (who did exist in the 90s during grunge) still dug them after grunge came about, but grunge fans also accepted them too. They never seemed to care that much about grunge/alternative credibility anyway which probably helped their cred in both camps.

I suppose you could make an argument for Soundgarden too, but I wouldn't subscribe to it. "Badmotorfinger" is considered one of the greatest grunge albums ever made, and it is a phenomenal album, one of the best of the 90s, but at its core? It's a probably more metal than grunge. Of course, "Badmotorfinger" was released in October 1991, before most of the public knew what grunge was.

(But then? What was "grunge"? Nirvana's "In Utero", one of the loudest, popular albums ever made, is not operating in the same world as Pearl Jam's "Vitalogy". Break into discussion groups ...)

Which leads to pet peeve nostalgic hazy memories alert! Buckle up. We're going down a long road.

Because Nirvana's "Nevermind" came out in '91 around the same time as "Badmotorfinger", people consider that to be when grunge/alternative became instantly popular, but that's not my recollection, nor do the charts reflect that. "Nevermind" debuted at No. 144 in the album chart. It took time for it and the rest of the Seattle bands to settle into the consciousness.

Pearl Jam's "Ten" somewhat famously didn't peak on the chart until well after a year after release.

And here's another little secret. Quite a few of the grunge bands were first heard by a wider audience on ... drum roll please ... MTV's Headbangers Ball! I know that's when I heard "Alive" for the first time as well as a few other Seattle-based bands, because they'd do a segment on grunge or sludge or whatever they wanted to call it, thinking it was the next wave in metal or a sub-genre or whatever.

Little did the programmers at Headbangers Ball know that they were providing the ammunition by which to kill their goose. Headbangers Ball and 120 Minutes sort of gave one both slices of grunge/alternative universe if you watched both of them. I could hear Pearl Jam on the Ball and Sonic Youth, et al, on 120 Minutes.

"Smell Like Teen Spirit" was definitely the opening salvo of grunge in the popular imagination, but it didn't peak on the chart until early '92. It wasn't really until well into '92 when grunge really became thought of as "the next thing" and it wasn't really until '93 when grunge/alternative well and truly replaced hair metal and other hard rock genres for good as a "movement".

Looking back? It was a straight up weird transitional year in 1992. Look at some of the bands that were still big in '92. Quite a bit of Guns 'n Roses "Use Your Illusion" songs peaked in '92. "November Rain", which was seemingly played on MTV on an endless loop for several months in a row, was in the top 10 of the Billboard chart well into the fall of '92.

Black Crowes were very likely more popular than Nirvana was during the summer of '92 - people forget how massive "Southern Harmony And Rhythm Companion" was - until they imploded in their own feuds, drug use and the tide of changing tastes in short order.

Faith No More, which was not purely metal and which was definitely nowhere near grunge, but which defines the early 90s rock as much as any band, still had major prominence.

You still had hair metal-ish bands like Ugly Kid Joe and Little Caesar being listened to in '92. And who could possibly forget the rise of Jackyl? "The Lumberjack", featuring the undisputed greatest chain saw solo of all-time coming from an album that featured a magnum opus called "She Loves My Cock", not only came out in '92, but the latter half of '92.

The very last Cashbox Top 100 singles chart of 1992 is a real shocker when you pair with what the popular imagination of what was being listened to at the time is. Featured on it are Damn Yankees, Saigon Kick, Bon Jovi, Firehouse, Def Leppard (two songs), Bad Company (seriously ... two songs too!) and Guns 'n Roses.

So grunge/alternative wasn't this instant thing. It took a moment.

Why do I even bring this up? No idea, but it seemed as good a forum for that spiel as any! I had a bad night and needed something to occupy my mind so (Chris Farley voice) lay off!

 

Reading my late teenage years as an historical essay makes me feel sad.

 

We need more bands that tell us the guitar solo is coming by yelling "GUITAR!!"

For the original list...I can argue for and against a lot of these. Lenny Kravitz was pretty huge for a good chunk of the 90s and sort of created a niche sound, at least in the early part of his catalog. I wouldn't cry over it if he got in. Mariah seems like a lock.

Dave Matthews ... hmm, I just sort of go back and forth on the fact that DMB is insanely popular among their fan base. They also had eight (!) No. 1 Billboard albums, though Crash was surprisingly not one of them. Peaked at No. 2. They had one single crack the top 20, and I was a little surprised at what it was (American Baby at #16). I was a big DMB fan in the 90s but very much outgrew the sound after Busted Stuff. Longevity, popularity, etc. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but that's a stronger resume than I expected.

I fucking love A Tribe Called Quest, and they had a nice little run with three top-10 albums in a six-year span. But, man, that's not a HOF resume. Should Brady Anderson be in the baseball HOF because he had a nice couple of years? Tribe was very much part of the same Long Island hip-hop scene that produced De La Soul. I just don't think there's enough meat on the bone.

Is Sinead on the list this year if she didn't die last year?

I agree with Jane's Addition. Influential, helped form one of the longest running rock festivals.

I have no feel for the same-ish arena rock bands like Foreigner, Boston, etc. I dig a few Foreigner songs but don't really know the overall catalog. Foreigner did have eight top-10 singles and their first six albums all reached the top 10, so a bit stronger than I thought there as well.

 

One more thought on Foreigner which came to me watching the first episode of Wrestlers on Netflix: "Juke Box Hero" is absolute shite.

And if there's a spot for Oasis then there's got to be a spot for Paul Weller who paved the way for Noel Gallagher 40 years ago. @PCLoadLetter may or may not agree with this opinion!

 

Yes! Didn't we have a poster here whose handle was "CC pick up that guitar...." or something related to the epic shout out in "Talk Dirty To Me?"

 

I would agree. I think Weller would be in if he had ever made even a token attempt to break in the US. He really never cared at all about the US market.

 

True, not so sure how much he cared about the UK given he broke up The Jam at the height (or damn close to it) of their popularity. But he's always been a guy who did what he wanted.

Gallagher is definitely an acolyte, he does a really good version of "To Be Someone" and there's video of him onstage with Weller doing "That's Entertainment".

 

As many years as the Rock Hall has been open, Little Feat has never been so much as nominated. One of the best American bands of the 70's, one of the best live acts I ever saw. Based on who is in the hall and who has been nominated while those guys were passed over, fuck Jann Wenner and the RHoF.

 

In over fifty years of going to rock shows, I attended one concert that was worse than Boston. That was a Stephen Stills and Manassas tour back when Stills was snorting half an ounce of coke a day (because freebasing hadn't been invented yet). Both shows had paying customers walking out in droves.

In fairness, Boston was touring on their first album, and they had three or four solid songs... and that was it. They had insisted on closing a show that included Styx touring on their Equinox album, which was pretty decent, and they had four other albums to pull from. Once Boston had played "More Than a Feeling", "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Let Me Take you Home Tonight", they were pretty much out of bullets.

It didn't help that Stoltz insisting on closing the show pissed off Styx to the point that they played totally balls out and showed them up.

 

If I were less old, fat and lazy, I'd challenge you to a duel.